Why CDTF was built
A wider way to understand transformation.
CDTF grew from a question that remained visible across years of research and transformation work: why can an effort be competently managed and still fail to create the organization it was intended to produce?
Where CDTF comes from
The same problem kept appearing from both sides of the table.
“I built CDTF because I kept seeing transformations that were managed well and still surprised everyone. Those efforts were often guided by too narrow a set of questions. I wanted a more complete way to see the organization, design for what we find, and make the change real.”
CDTF centers on the organization. It traces how decisions travel vertically through levels of leadership, horizontally across functions, and forward in time through choices that shape what remains after a program ends.
The framework connects diagnosis, design, and execution. Diagnosis identifies the condition, design determines the response, and execution makes the redesigned response operational while producing new evidence.
About the author
Allen C. Stines, Ph.D.
Allen Stines has more than twenty years of experience leading and advising complex enterprise transformations. His background spans organizational science, systems thinking, mathematics, statistics, cybernetics, business operations, and organizational change.
More than twenty years ago, his research and applied work at The Pennsylvania State University began laying the foundation for CDTF. That work included the Emergent Systems Model and the Modified Delphi Hybrid methodology for future-oriented competency modeling. During the two decades that followed, he continued developing the underlying ideas through applied work, research, and multidisciplinary study. CDTF brings those lines of inquiry together in a connected architecture.