People and documentation¶
Your family's group chat moves to a new app. Your cousin set it up in five minutes. Your grandmother, three weeks later, still sends photos to the old one, and nobody sees them. The app works. The change did not.
Most transformation projects that fail do not fail because of the technology. They fail because the people who have to use it were not trained, not asked, or not told why. In 2023, only 56% of people aged 16 to 74 in the European Union had at least basic digital skills, according to Eurostat. The EU's target for 2030 is 80%. If your plan needs people to do something new, you have to check whether they can, and say what you will do if they cannot. Then you write down every change, so anyone in the company can follow it.
What you will learn
- Describe a skills gap between what the plan needs and what the staff can do today
- Name the needed skills with the European framework DigComp 3.0
- Choose one of four answers to each gap: train, reassign, hire or outsource
- Explain why change management is part of the plan, not an extra
- Write a change log where every change points to a goal and an indicator, and turn it into a Gantt chart roadmap
- Avoid the trap of treating resistance to change as people's fault
Who will run the new city?¶
In the city-builder, you can build a metro line in one click. In a real city, someone has to drive the trains, sell the tickets and fix the escalators, and the neighbours have to learn to use it.
A skills gap is the distance between what a job will need once the plan is in place and what the people in that job can do today.
For each area of the plan, ask: who works there, what will they need to know that they do not know today, and how do you cover the difference?
DigComp 3.0: naming the skills¶
"They need digital skills" is too vague to plan anything. The European Commission has a common vocabulary for it.
DigComp is the European Digital Competence Framework, published by the Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC). Its current version, DigComp 3.0, came out on 27 November 2025.
It has five competence areas, 21 numbered competences and four proficiency levels: basic, intermediate, advanced and highly advanced. It replaces DigComp 2.2 (2022), which had eight levels, so check the version of any source you read.
| Area | Example competences |
|---|---|
| 1 Information search, evaluation and management | 1.3 Managing information |
| 2 Communication and collaboration | 2.4 Collaborating through digital technologies |
| 3 Content creation | 3.4 Computational thinking and programming |
| 4 Safety, wellbeing and responsible use | 4.1 Protecting devices · 4.2 Protecting personal data and privacy |
| 5 Problem identification and solving | 5.1 Identifying and solving technical problems |
Four answers to a gap¶
| Answer | When it fits | Example bakery |
|---|---|---|
| Train | The people are there and can learn in time | The order-desk staff learn the B2B portal from its provider |
| Reassign | Someone else in the company already has the skill | A person in administration who knows the ERP well supports the order desk |
| Hire | The skill is new, permanent and central | A part-time profile to run integrations and accesses |
| Outsource | The skill is specialised or needed only for a while | Maintenance of the oven meters by the installer for the first year |
A row of the skills table looks like this:
| Job | DigComp competence | Needed | Now (hypothesis) | Answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Order desk | 2.4 Collaborating through digital technologies | Intermediate | Basic | Train, with phone orders in parallel for one month |
| Bakery floor manager | 1.3 Managing information | Intermediate | Basic | Train internally to read the dashboard |
| All staff | 4.1 Protecting devices | Basic | Uneven | Awareness session and reminders |
| Maintenance | 5.1 Identifying and solving technical problems | Advanced | Intermediate | Outsource for the first year |
Write about jobs, not about people
What you say about the staff of a real company is always a hypothesis. Talk about jobs and competences, never about named people, and write it with respect.
Change management¶
Change management is everything you do so that people adopt a change: explain why, train before switching on, and support them during the first days.
Your grandmother did not refuse the new app because she is stubborn. Nobody explained why it changed, nobody showed her how, and the old one still worked. Resistance to change is a risk of the plan, like a server failing. You plan for it.
Careful: \"if they don't want to learn, that's their problem\"
If the people who must use the system do not use it, the plan has failed, whoever is "to blame". A plan that ignores the staff is an incomplete plan, and criterion k) is graded.
Writing down what changes¶
In the city-builder, the master plan is a map with the works in order. In a company, it is two tables.
A change log is a table with one row per change: what was there before, what there will be after, which goal it serves, how it will be measured and when it happens.
| ID | Before | After | Goal | Indicator | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Orders by phone and WhatsApp | B2B portal connected to the ERP | Online orders | % of orders via the portal | Months 1–4 |
| C2 | No energy measurement | IoT meters on the ovens, dashboard | Energy | kWh per kg | Months 3–6 |
| C3 | Paper temperature logs | Cold-room sensors with alarms | Waste | % of batches rejected | Months 5–8 |
| C4 | Production by eye | AI demand forecast | Waste | kg unsold | Months 9–14 |
Every row must answer "why are we doing this?" with a goal. A row without a goal is a change nobody needs.
A roadmap places those changes in time. A Gantt chart draws it: one horizontal bar per task, from its start to its end, along a timeline.
Order matters. C4 needs the order history that C1 starts to collect, so C4 cannot start first. What unblocks the rest, or gives quick results, goes first.
In class: skills gap, change log and Gantt¶
| Step | Do this | You should see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · alone | Take one job affected by your plan. On the DigComp page, pick the competence that best describes what it will need. Fill one row: job, competence (number and name), level needed, current level (hypothesis, justified), answer and why | One row of the skills table |
| 2 · group | Collect every change of sections 1–3 in the change log: ID, area, before, after, goal, indicator, responsible job, start and end month | One row per change, none without a goal |
| 3 · group | The Technician builds the Gantt in the spreadsheet: columns for change, start, end, then one column per month; select the month cells and add conditional formatting with the custom formula =AND(D$1>=$B2; D$1<=$C2) (if your sheet is set to an English locale, use commas instead of semicolons) |
Coloured bars, one per change |
| 4 · group | Mark at least one dependency (which change needs another first) | An arrow or a note on the Gantt |
| 5 · group | Split the 10-minute presentation: who presents which section, who opens, who closes with the Gantt | A running order with names |
Hand in on Classroom (individual class activity): your skills-gap row, with your group's Gantt as a screenshot attached. Generative AI is not allowed.
For your project¶
This lesson builds the people half of section 4 · Integration and people of D6 · Transformation plan (criterion k) and the group part: change log and roadmap (criterion j). It is also the last workshop before the dossier is due on Sunday 6 June 2027.
Key takeaways¶
- A skills gap is the distance between what a job will need and what its people can do today.
- DigComp 3.0 (JRC, 27 November 2025) names the skills: 5 areas, 21 competences, 4 levels (basic, intermediate, advanced, highly advanced).
- Four answers to a gap: train, reassign, hire or outsource. Pick one and say why.
- Change management (explain, train before switching on, support) is part of the plan; resistance to change is a risk you plan for, not a fault.
- The change log has one row per change, each with a goal and an indicator; the roadmap puts them in order as a Gantt chart, respecting dependencies.
Quick check¶
1. What is a skills gap?
- The difference in salary between two jobs
- The distance between what a job will need after the plan and what its people can do today
- A security hole caused by an employee
- The time between hiring someone and their first day
The skills gap is measured job by job, and the plan must say how it is covered.
2. What is DigComp?
- A European law on digital services
- A certificate that every employee must pass
- The European framework that describes digital competences, with areas, competences and levels
- A tool to measure a company's digital maturity
DigComp is a shared vocabulary of digital skills from the European Commission's JRC. Its current version, DigComp 3.0, has 5 areas, 21 competences and 4 levels. Company maturity was the Open DMAT.
3. The staff do not know how to use a new tool. Is hiring new people the only option?
- Yes: it is always cheaper than training
- No: you can also train, reassign someone who already knows it, or outsource
- Yes, because DigComp requires it
- No: the best option is to cancel the tool
There are four answers: train, reassign, hire, outsource. Each fits a different situation, and the plan must justify its choice.
4. A department keeps using spreadsheets after the new system is switched on. What does a good plan say about this?
- It is the department's fault, and the plan does not need to mention it
- Resistance to change is a risk the plan foresees, with explanation, training before the switch and support
- The spreadsheets should be deleted at night without warning
- It proves the new system was a bad choice
Change management treats resistance as a risk to plan for, not a fault of the people.
5. Which row belongs in a change log?
- "We like the new portal."
- "Buy laptops."
- "C1 · Orders by phone → B2B portal · goal: online orders · indicator: % via portal · months 1–4"
- "Meeting with the provider on Tuesday."
A change log row says before, after, the goal it serves, the indicator and when. Without a goal, the change has no reason in the plan.
6. In a Gantt chart, what does each bar represent?
- A person in the company
- A strategic goal
- A task or change, from the moment it starts to the moment it ends
- The budget of an area
A Gantt chart draws the roadmap on a timeline: one bar per task. Dependencies show which bar must finish before another can start.
7. A hospital wants to move its appointment system online for patients over 70. Which two actions answer the people side of the plan?
- Keep phone booking for a while and help patients at reception during the first weeks
- Switch off phone booking on the first day so everyone gets used to it
- Train reception staff before the switch so they can guide patients
- Leave the change out of the change log because it is only a website
Same lesson, new place: change management means supporting users and training staff before switching on. And every change goes in the change log.
You have every piece of the plan. Now it has to become one dossier and one 10-minute presentation: Final presentation.