People, Process, Technology (PPT) Framework: Pros and Cons

Change management is crucial for the success of transformation initiatives. With 89% of large enterprises engaged in digital and AI transformation to enhance operations and maintain competitiveness, a strategic approach is essential.

The People, Process, Technology (PPT) framework is a popular method used to facilitate these transformations by optimizing the integration and alignment of its three components—people, process and technology—to boost organizational performance and efficiency.

However, successful adoption and usage of changes by the people within an organization hinges on effective change management. This article explores the PPT framework, detailing its strengths and limitations, and compares it with structured change management models like the Prosci ADKAR® Model. Our goal is to guide you in selecting the most effective approach for managing successful organizational transformations.

What Is the People, Process, Technology Framework?

The People, Process, Technology (PPT)  framework is a model used mainly in business and IT management to carry out process and technology changes on an organizational level. It comprises three components—people, process and technology—that businesses must assess to ensure that their change strategies are well-balanced.

This framework is based on the Diamond Model, an organizational change theory developed by Harold Leavitt in the 1960s. It initially had four deciding factors: structure, people, technology and tasks.

Through the decades, structure and tasks were combined into process, leading to the current three-legged model or the "Golden Triangle."

Computer security specialist Bruce Schneier made the PPT framework popular in the 1990s by highlighting its importance in the IT industry. Despite the rapid technological advancement since then, PPT remains a prominent change approach for current digital transformations.

At the core of this model is balance. When one component changes, the other two components are also affected. So, organizations must integrate the three components to prevent making changes in one area at the expense of others.

When planning for change, organizations and change practitioners must consider how the change will impact the three components. By applying the PPT, the project management team offers greater clarity to the change management team addressing adoption and usage (the people side of change).

The 3 Core Components of the People, Process and Technology Framework

The PPT framework highlights the interaction between three core components that enable organizational success. Let's take a closer look at each of them:

1. People

The People component of the PPT framework refers to the human resources or individuals in an organization, including their skills, attitudes, motivations and behaviors. This component covers leaders and managers who make decisions to guide the change, front-line employees who complete the tasks, and other stakeholders who impact change success.

This component focuses on managing the workforce effectively to maximize their contribution to success. It covers recruiting the right people, proper training and development, communication, and leadership strategies to enhance employee engagement and performance.

Tips for implementation

To build an effective project team and set them up for success, you can:

• Assess skills and training needs – Identify the required skills at different levels of the organization, including leaders and key stakeholders. Assess your workforce to determine skill gaps. Implement training programs and other tactics for employee development.
• Build a positive work culture – Create an inclusive work environment that encourages open communication and collaboration. To do this, consider employee motivations, set realistic goals for change, and clearly define roles and responsibilities.
• Implement an effective change management approach – Use structured change management plans and methodologies to help employees adopt and use new working methods. This includes plans for effective communication, training, sponsorship, and people leadership.
• Adopt continuous improvement – Encourage a culture of ongoing learning and adaptation, where employee feedback is valued and used to improve work processes and team dynamics. Individuals must also be recognized and rewarded for their contributions.

2. Process

The Process component covers the workflows, procedures and routines that guide individuals when they execute tasks during the change. Clear and effective processes, documented in the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), lead to consistency in operational efficiency and quality.

This element involves the design, documentation, execution and monitoring of business processes to ensure that they align with the change objectives. Since these workflows evolve regularly, practitioners use business process reengineering (BPR) to maintain efficiency.

Tips for implementation

For effective process deployment, you can:

• Map and analyze existing processes – Document and analyze current processes to identify roadblocks or redundancies. This step forms the basis for process improvement efforts.
• Standardize processes – Develop and implement standardized procedures to ensure consistency and simplify communication, training, and performance management. Regularly assess and update your SOPs to reflect current best practices.
• Be flexible and scalable – Design processes that can adapt to future changes and are scalable, so they can evolve with changing business needs without frequent large-scale overhauls.

3. Technology

Technology in the PPT framework consists of the tools, systems and software people use. This includes everything from IT infrastructure to applications for communication, data analysis and automation. Effective technology management ensures these tools align correctly with the organization's needs. 

This element involves building a change implementation plan that covers the timelines, processes, and resources needed to integrate new technology. Providing user experiences, product tours, guides and self-help support mechanisms can help reduce learning times and drive adoption.

Tips for implementation

Ensure the technology is useful and beneficial, by:

• Aligning it with business goals – Your technological investment must be directly linked to strategic organization goals. Technology should solve specific problems or enhance particular capabilities.
• Implementing automation – Identify and automate repetitive, manual tasks to save time, reduce mistakes, and free up human resources for more strategic activities during change.
• Assessing integration and accessibility – Choose technology solutions that integrate with existing systems for smooth data flow and better accessibility. This reduces operational silos and enhances overall productivity.

Now that we’ve broken down the PPT framework into its components, let’s look at why this is still a widely used model.

Advantages of the People, Process and Technology (PPT) Framework

There are eight primary advantages of using the People, Process, Technology framework:

1. Boost quality – Clear processes guide employees to deliver consistent outcomes with minimal disruptions and bottlenecks. This can enable improved quality across products and services.
2. Better scalability – Efficient processes enhance current operations but can also accommodate growth. By implementing flexible processes and technology solutions, organizations can expand without sacrificing performance or quality.
3. Improve productivity – Well-defined processes eliminate unnecessary steps and optimize resource use, reducing waste, minimizing errors and increasing productivity. The PPT framework also facilitates data-driven decision-making processes that can improve performance.
4. Good customer experience – The right digital tools can improve the quality of customer service through faster response times and personalized service offerings, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
5. Better job satisfaction and retention – Employee retention is a concern for 90% of organizations. Providing learning opportunities is the top retention strategy, as it can increase job satisfaction and retention rates while lowering recruitment costs.
6. Increase adaptability and resilience – Trained and engaged employees are more likely to adapt to new challenges and changes, giving organizations a competitive edge in evolving markets. Change management professionals can also prevent and manage resistance to help build a more resilient workforce.
7. Reduce costs – Technology can automate routine tasks and eliminate redundant processes, reducing costs and human error while allowing employees to focus on high-priority activities.
8. Enhance collaboration and communication – Investing in people helps build a cohesive and collaborative organizational culture with open communication. This can reduce silos, improve problem-solving and enable innovation.

There are many advantages, but also some limitations to the PPT framework.

Drawbacks and Limitations of the People, Process, Technology (PPT) Framework

The PPT framework is valuable when used as a tool in change management, but it presents significant challenges when used as the only or primary change management approach.

1. Resistance to change

The PPT framework often involves significant changes in organizational structure and work processes. This can cause substantial resistance from employees. People generally resist change due to lack of awareness of the reasons behind the change or discomfort with new roles and responsibilities.

Failing to prevent resistance can delay or derail the implementation of new processes and technologies. This reduces the overall effectiveness of the framework while creating difficulties and stress for the people impacted.

2. Complex integration efforts

Integrating people, processes and technology within an organization requires complex planning and a significant investment in time and resources. Each component must be perfectly aligned to work effectively. 

In some cases, technology implementation may advance faster than personnel training or process adaptations, leading to gaps in organizational efficiency. On the other hand, well-established processes might not easily accommodate new technological solutions, requiring costly or time-consuming reengineering efforts.

3. Oversimplification

The PPT framework can oversimplify the complexities of real-world business operations. It presents an idealized view where each component is given equal weight and consideration.

Finding the perfect balance between people, processes and technology may not be possible. For example, the framework might not fully account for the complex interaction between people from different departments or the external factors affecting technology adoption.

4. Complexity in data measurement and adjustments

The People, Process, Technology framework does not include concrete performance tracking metrics. So, measuring the success and impact of changes can be complex.

Different components may have conflicting indicators of success, making it difficult to assess overall performance. This also makes it harder for practitioners to track key performance indicators (KPIs) during transformation, preventing them from quickly addressing any challenges by making adjustments.

Business Use Cases of the PPT Framework

The PPT framework is flexible and can be modified to match multiple scenarios during change. Let's look at two example use cases:

1. Poor adoption of a new tool

Suppose your organization is trying to use new software, like a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, but adoption levels are poor. In that case, the PPT framework can help you understand people's concerns or address issues like employee resistance and inadequate training. 

Working with the change management team, analyze the training materials to determine if the learning curve is too steep. Then, assess whether the new technology is actually improving workflows and productivity or hindering them.

Add People, Process, Technology data collection by deciding on a few key metrics early to improve the framework and design targeted solutions. For example, if poor training is the issue, you can create personalized, hands-on training programs for better learning and adoption.

2. Siloed or delayed workflows

Organizations can implement changes to enhance efficiency, but a misguided change approach can disrupt daily operations. To fix this, assess the elements of the PPT framework by collecting information about how proficient employees are with the new tools and workflows, the biggest factors causing the delays or disruptions in processes and how the change is affecting different departments and job roles.

Depending on the feedback, you can create solutions that support the employees and empower them to be productive.

Comparing the PPT Framework With the Prosci Methodology

The People, Process, Technology (PPT) framework and the Prosci Methodology are influential change management models for business transformation. They share the goal of improving organizational performance but approach it from different angles and focus on distinct aspects of change.

The Prosci Methodology focuses on managing the people side of change to achieve the desired business outcomes. The PPT framework emphasizes aligning people, processes and technology to optimize business performance.

The two change management frameworks have six crucial differences:

Focus on the people side of change

The PPT framework balances the technical and human aspects of change. It aims to optimize and integrate all three components simultaneously and primarily addresses internal operational efficiency rather than change management.

But, even the most comprehensive frameworks and well-designed systems for change require people to adopt changes at the individual level.

The Prosci Methodology focuses on guiding impacted individuals through change. This focus on the individual change journey is more beneficial since every change affects people differently. By understanding varying change impacts, practitioners can create structured strategies to address different groups of impacted individuals.

Successful change management also helps deliver a people-dependent portion of return on investment (ROI), which is the additional value a project creates due to employee adoption and usage.

The Prosci ADKAR® Model is a foundational model of the Prosci Methodology. It consists of five elements (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement) to prepare, equip, and support individuals through change.

Actionability and repeatability

The People, Process, Technology framework is not a step-by-step change management process but rather a structural approach to aligning key organizational elements.

By contrast, Prosci provides a structured, repeatable process that organizations can follow to ensure successful change implementation. Rather than a vague framework, the Prosci 3-Phase Process consists of specific phases with activities to plan and implement change, covering all critical areas.

Proactivity in resistance planning

The PPT framework does not provide specific guides to prevent resistance, so change teams must create strategies to respond to resistance during implementation. This can be costly and time-consuming and lead to delays in the project timeline.

Anticipating and addressing resistance before it starts mitigates it. Proactive resistance planning requires less effort, is more cost-effective, and can lead to better outcomes for the entire organization.

The Prosci Methodology takes a proactive stance on identifying and planning to avoid resistance to change. Through resistance prevention, practitioners can increase individual change readiness, anticipate potential barriers, and create strategies to preemptively address them.

Concreteness of metrics for measurement

The PPT framework does not provide specific metrics to track the performance of a digital transformation or change. Instead, it lets organizations define metrics for each project. This can be challenging for project teams without significant change management experience as they struggle to figure out what to measure and how.

By contrast, the Prosci Methodology provides a detailed process for practitioners to measure the progress of any change. It simplifies measurement by dividing it into three inter-related levels of performance:

• Organizational performance measures if the change initiative delivers its intended outcomes.
• Individual performance uses metrics to track how quickly employees adopt the change, how many are using the new system, and how effectively they use it.
• Change management performance metrics measure Prosci Methodology application in terms of completion, implementation and effectiveness.

This holistic approach provides structure, but it also allows change practitioners and project teams to define the specific metrics for each initiative so they can ensure alignment with overall organizational goals.

Change professionals also use the Prosci Change Triangle (PCT) Assessment to measure project health throughout its lifecycle.

Reinforcement

The PPT framework is useful for managing the implementation of change but has no guidelines for sustaining the change.

It is natural for people to revert to older work habits after completion of the initial change project. However, this will not deliver the full intended benefits of the change initiative. It could also lead to rework, which is time-consuming and resource-intensive. This is why Reinforcement is an important element of our ADKAR Model.

Reinforcement ensures that the change is sustained and delivers the expected long-term results. It also creates a culture of continuous improvement. Common tactics for reinforcement include collecting feedback, applying corrective actions, using performance scoreboards and providing visible rewards and recognition.

Flexibility and scalability

Both the PPT framework and Prosci are flexible, but the Prosci Methodology can be scaled up or down to suit large or small change initiatives.

The Prosci Methodology also works with different types of changes, including culture shifts, strategic changes and governance changes, while PPT is more applicable to operational processes and IT infrastructure changes.

While Prosci focuses on the people aspect, it can seamlessly integrate with other frameworks, including PPT. This integration allows change professionals to address the human elements and the operational or technical aspects of transformation.

Implement Change Effectively With Prosci

For decades, the People, Process, Technology framework has been used to create and implement a balanced approach to change. However, we know today that organizational change only happens when people change. When you integrate the people-focused Prosci Methodology with the PPT framework, you prepare, support and equip people and achieve more successful change. That's change done right.