ZBTOS by ETEGY
Ten questions · 5 minutesTransformation Lens Check →
Component 01 · The Governing Criteria

Zero-Based Transformation™

The Governing Criteria: five things a transformation must satisfy, set before major delivery commitments are made and tested against operating evidence as the work proceeds. Each is evaluated as Stated, Contested or Missing. Nothing is scored.

Learn to apply them in the Foundation Course →Start the 5-minute Lens Check ›
The four componentsMethodology overview ›
A working session defining what a transformation must satisfy
Stated.
The criterion is explicit and agreed.
Contested.
Leaders hold different versions of it.
Missing.
No one has defined it yet.
The Governing Criteria

Five criteria. Each a question an executive can ask and a practitioner must answer with evidence.

01
MANDATE
Is the transformation mandate coherent and authorized?
02
REQUIREMENTS
Is it explicit what must become true in the operating model?
03
INTEGRATION
Can those conditions hold together as one operating model?
04
ENABLEMENT
Can the required operating state be made operational?
05
EVIDENCE
What would permit the enterprise to claim the condition is true?
Each is evaluated asStatedContestedMissing

They are criteria to be satisfied, not phases. How evidence is weighed for each is taught in the Foundation Course.

Why Contested matters
Most frameworks ask yes or no. The Governing Criteria add Contested.

A criterion can be written down and still be read differently by the people who must satisfy it. Contested names that misalignment as a condition leaders can see and resolve, before one strategy becomes six interpretations.

Why it matters

Why criteria come before the work.

01
Value is lost at definition.
Transformation research places a large share of value loss at target-setting, before implementation starts.
02
Delivery methods start after it.
Project, agile and change methods execute defined work. The criteria give the definition itself a standard.
03
Governing is not governance.
The criteria say what a transformation must satisfy. Transformation Governance decides who holds authority and makes the calls.

Evidence. McKinsey (2021, n = 1,034) attributes nearly one-quarter of transformation value loss to target-setting. The research supports the importance of early definition; it does not independently validate the five criteria, which ETEGY formalized from transformation practice.

What your team learns

What your team will be able to do.

Foundation teaches it on the Meridian case, with each area applying it to its own work. The Practitioner Intensive applies it to one live transformation.

Foundation
Test a mandate.
Examine a mandate against the five criteria and mark each Stated, Contested or Missing.
Foundation
Name the evidence that would settle it.
For a Contested or Missing criterion, state what would establish it.
Intensive
Bring the open criteria to the sponsor.
On one live transformation, before its work is treated as executable.

“What surprised me was how quickly the picture became undeniable. We had done the blue-chip consulting exercise before; this was different. The transformation finally felt like something we could run, not a deck we were expected to admire.”

SVP, Global Services Operations · Enterprise software
Before the work starts
Test your mandate before budgets and teams are committed.
Learn the criteria in the Foundation Course →See the four components ›
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