What knocks your project off track? Is it the executive announcement that resets everyone’s priorities on a Friday afternoon? The scope creep seemed small in week two and enormous by week eight. The legacy system that technically works, but that no one can explain.
The metaphor: A simple explanation for a complicated mess
Enablephant is based on the Elephant, Rider, and Path framework from Chip and Dan Heath’s Switch.
- The Elephant: Your emotional side. This is your organization—the people who will adopt the change based on feelings, not on the requirements document.
- The Rider: Your rational mind. AKA the project manager, desperately pointing at the roadmap and pretending to be in control.
- The Path: The environment you’ve curated, (hopefully avoiding the) training sessions that could have been emails and comms that no one reads!
In the game, the elephant moves automatically. You can’t stop it. The rider can direct, but only if the elephant is motivated enough to respond. You collect coffee cups to keep the momentum going. You duck under the opaque messaging. You nudge through the ambiguity.
Change is hard. Might as well make it fun.
That is Enablephant. Try it. Share it. Blame the “scope creep” obstacle when you crash. It is what a project manager would do.