Change Management Process: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide

Change Management Process:

The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide

So, you want to know how to implement change
in your organization?

You’re in the right place.

Everything you need to know about the Change Management
Process has been defined here, in one easy-to-implement
guide.

About The Author

Hi.  I’m Daniel Lock and I am a change management consultant and speaker who helps organizations and change leaders implement rapid and sustainable change. Leading my first, large-scale change initiative was a memorable experience as most first-time experiences are.  It was the first time I’d been recognized to bring about a tough project and I thought I was on track to be the next CEO.

On the contrary, reality unfolded with $12 million going missing for a few days (yes, it was recovered I’m happy to report) on a project that was massively over budget and schedule.

Yikes!

I did, however, move on to the next project and that’s when I decided to take change management seriously.

By doing so, I learned leading change is complex and nuanced at the same time.  It is both an art and science.

Having an ability to effectively and positively navigate the chasm between, which has enabled several organizations to make and save millions of dollars because the projects catered for both technology and people simultaneously.

My work has appeared in…

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What people are saying

IQPC Doug Power - TestimonialsThanks! I was impressed by the receptivity of the group to your stories and example in your presentation on the fundamentals of Change Management at our conference. It was a wonderful learning experience, and the value added was your humorous and energetic delivery. I can endorse his speaking and presentation without reservation and would be happy to discuss details or answer any questions about his work for us.”

– DOUG POWER,
Conference Director IQPC Australia


Michelle Oliveira – TestimonialsI have had the chance to appreciate Daniel’s excellent presentation on change management and the chairmanship facilitating at one of my conferences in IQPC Sydney. His energy, enthusiasm, and credibility were very valuable to the event’s success.”

– MICHELLE OLIVEIRA,
Project Manager at IQPC Sydney

Today, I’m inviting you to share in my success using my step-by-step change management process.

Introduction

Successful change programs don’t just happen. Well-embedded change programs that are accepted, sustainable and deliver results are an outcome of careful planning followed by an implementation that is well-managed.

Harder than you think

Ideal results do show up.  Never by accident, though.

Ideal results show up because of good planning and flexible execution. To start with, planning for successful change management involves:

  • 1

    Recognising the right time to begin after assessing the problem or issue confronting the organization;

  • 2

    Being clear on the change approach and its goals before developing a detailed plan;

  • 3

    Arranging implementation support so the transition runs smoothly;

  • 4

    Monitoring the new design with fit for purpose performance measures that tell you when corrective action is required.

Takes longer than you think

Change is harder and more involved than most change leaders think.  One often-asked question is:

“How long does it take to get through the process from the business case to embedding a new design?”

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The answer is “it depends …”While that answer is not all that helpful, it is realistic.

Although all change management projects do have a beginning, middle, and end, each differs in design that needs to be carefully initiated, structured and thought through in sequence.

Here are some typical project timeframes worth bearing in mind throughout the design to prepare and include:

  • Procedures: 1-3 months
  • Processes: 3-12 months
  • Business Unit: 1-3 years
  • Enterprise: 3 – 6 years
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The Change Management Process:
A High-level Overview


The five-step change management process from business case to organizational design, which has five sequential steps:

  • 1

    Define the strategy for change

  • 2

    Assess how people perceive the change

  • 3

    Design to inspire and engage the hearts and minds of people impacted

  • 4

    Implement and provide impacted people with the tools to succeed

  • 5

    Embed with the aim to maximize return on the investment

This diagram also illustrates the five organizational design enablers, which are essential to support the overall change management process.

Without leadership support, stakeholder engagement, change readiness, effective communication and training, it is difficult to implement the change, embed it and realize the benefits.

The more detailed view of this fits together is outlined in the plan and sequence diagram below:

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High-Level Overview of Change Management Design Plan and Sequence

Let’s explore each in turn:

1. The business case for change

The change management process starts with a business case.  This document needs to be agreed (i.e. signed off) and socialized before the change is considered for implementation.

Once the business case is agreed, then ‘go-ahead’ decisions are made and the change management team is mobilized. This team may be one person – the change manager (common on smaller individual projects), or a whole change management team on larger programmes (see Figure 2, Organizational Design Programme).

2. Organization design programme

The organizational design programme has four phases in the change management process:

1. Assess- prepare for the new design by assessing impacts and stakeholder perceptions.
Once the strategy has been defined and socialized, the next step in the process is to assess the current state to be able to understand what needs to change to achieve the strategy. Assessment is an opportunity to prepare for design by understanding how things operate in its current environment and what needs to be considered and done to cross the chasm into the future state. At this point in the process, the organization needs to carefully listen to what its people can tell it about ‘how things get done around here’ to prepare for design.

2. Design – Develop and plan the new design
The design takes the intelligence and information gathered during the assessment step to compile and map out the necessary plans to implement the strategy (‘who’ is doing ‘what’ by ‘when’ and ‘how’).

3. Implement – Transition to the new design
Now carefully scoped plans are put into place during the Implementation step.  takes the intelligence and information gathered during the assessment step to compile and map out the necessary plans to implement the strategy (‘who’ is doing ‘what’ by ‘when’ and ‘how’).

During this step, the organization’s people undergo training and upskilling to prepare them for success in the new environment.  They will learn the necessary skills to up

4. Embed – Review and sustain the new design
The strategy becomes the new mode of operation if it has been successfully embedded within the organization

3. Enabling organizational design

The final row has five change success enablers:

  1. Leadership support
  2. Stakeholder engagement
  3. Change readiness
  4. Communication
  5. Training

This diagram and its descriptions present a neat picture.  Yet, as anyone familiar with large and complex programmes and projects know, it’s far more iterative and messy than this diagram shows.

This visual can be used as a guide or an audit checklist. Although not necessarily in this order,  you’ll need all of these elements to be present for an effective change initiave.

It can help you enquire into what might be missing and that if present, would help to drive a change that is more effective.

The process illustrated in Figure 2 is one that has started with defining the strategy for change (using a business case). It then assesses or gauges how the change is initially perceived before a design is developed. The design will factor in as many key attributes and interdependencies as necessary to ensure a successful outcome.

Let’s briefly explore this one level down. Figure 2 shows the next layer of the design plan. It is a step-by-step approach that shows what we can employ to maximize change success.

The change management programme and project team structure

Organization Design Programme Governance Structure

Figure 3

Small or individual projects may have just you (as the change manager) handling the entire project from start to finish.

Medium-sized projects may have you working in tandem or alongside a project manager and business analyst, and reporting to a project sponsor.

Large change initiatives need structure. Figure 3 shows the full scope of a large change initiative team.  It has a sponsor group and project board. The programme manager and business change manager both report to these entities.

Irrespective of the project or programme size, a change manager needs to remain agile, flexible and resilient throughout.  These are core attributes to be developed and honed.

The five phases of the change management process
Now we’ve introduced the change management process, its main subcomponents and team structures, let’s turn our attention towards a more in-depth look at each of the phases.

We’ll start with Figure 4, which summarizes each of the five phases (define, assess, design, implement and embed) by showing the various aspects covered under each phase.

FIGURE 4:  Five Phases of the Change Management Process

Figure 4

Over the next five chapters, we’ll break down the change management process piece by piece for you.

Contents
CHAPTER 1
Define the change business case goals

This chapter includes:

  • The ‘why’ of change
  • How to scope the size of the change
  • How to determine specific change objectives

Think about the ‘why’ of the change. Think about the scope. And finally, think about the goals of the change.

As a Change Manager, you’ll think more about the ‘why’ of the change than the business case (which is the domain of the project manager).

You’ll also need to consider the scope of the change and how it impacts the organization politically, economically, socially, technologically, legally and environmentally.

Why thinking about why?

The goals in the change management process context are slightly different than those of a project management context.

There are two reasons:
  • 1. The focus – the goal of change management is to change behavior
  • 2. To reduce risk – change management supports people through change, which reduces organizational risk and increases chances of success

Reason #1:  Your primary focus is to change people’s behavior

As a change manager, your goal is to increase success.  You can influence behavior to get people to buy into the change and make it happen.

Whilst a project manager is most interested in the technical implementation of a project, the change manager’s key focus is the people side of the change.

Successful change does not leave people behind. It brings them along on the journey and in this way, business goals are realized.

Yes.  You do need to be aware of and optimize technical change.

But even on the most technical of projects, real business benefits come down to people actually doing something with the technology.

FIGURE 5:  The Case for Change

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Change initiative benefits can be quantified by the following:

  • organizational readiness – how quickly the change is adopted into the organization and how well the project stays on schedule (speed of adoption)
  • how well the organization’s workforce participate in using the new processes and/or system (utilization rate)
  • how well people acquire the required skill levels or achieve expected performance levels in the new environment (proficiency)

Later in this guide, I’ll show you how to optimize these factors.

Reason #2: Your secondary focus is to reduce risk


If your primary change management focus is people, then your secondary focus is to support the implementation of a business strategy or initiative.  You do this by managing the implications of change — on the organization and its workforce.  You consider all the issues relating to:

  • people
  • processes
  • technology
  • structure

Said another way, as a change manager, your work and expertise are to reduce potential risks associated with significant organizational change.

The bigger the change, the more risk.  And the higher the chance of cascading.  So, managing this aspect is incredibly important.

By helping the business prepare its people for change, you mitigate risk and in some instances, possibly even eliminate it altogether.

Two aspects that support this achievement are:

  • 1. Regular communication of the change and what’s coming, and
  • 2. Conducting timely training to upskill people for working in the new environment. In using both levers, you can reduce potential performance issues that are often experienced as change is implemented.
… And Minimize Disruptions.

Change is difficult enough without unnecessary disruptions to the daily business activities, such as customer services, sales, and operations.

As a successful change manager, you’ll ensure minimal disruption to the rest of the organization during implementation as you progress from the current to future state.

How can you achieve this?

By using the change management process and associated templates recommended in this guide, you will find interruptions to your organization’s operations can be significantly minimized.

Scoping the future

What type of change are you looking at?

How do you begin?

The first task you are challenged with is to understand how large is the change? And how many people are affected?

Let’s begin with Figure 6 (Double Axis Chart) to help us determine the type of change you are dealing with.  Using the Double Axis Chart, you can begin with the sponsor and project team begin to size up the scale of the proposed change initiative.

Organization-wide projects can either be strategic or tactical.  Figure 6 dot points the characteristics that determine the type of change you are working on by providing strategic and tactical examples.  The blue arrow represents the direction of increasing scale and complexity.

Let’s say your change involves a new organizational mission and vision.  Using the “Type of Change” chart as a guide, you would be working on a large-scale organization-wide change programme, which impacts everyone in the enterprise as well as external stakeholders.

On the other hand, if a particular department decides it wants to improve customer service in line with the organizational strategy, you may be working with a tactical change, which again may involve a number of internal as well as external stakeholders.  The change project is contained in a local department rather than organisation-wide (even though it may have an impact on the organization).

FIGURE 6: Determine the Type of Change You Have
Type of Change

To begin this process, you need to sit down with your project sponsor and/or the project team to discuss where the particular change initiative might sit within this high-level spectrum.

As we move through the rest of the change management process, you’ll begin to see it all interconnects.

Often we start with a fuzzy future state. And what we want to do is clear that up.  We want to do this as quickly as possible and we do this by determining specific change objectives.

Let’s take a common example from our personal lives: losing weight. Often we start with something like, “I want to lose weight” or  “to get fit” or “earn more money”.

How much weight do you want to lose, and by when?

What does being fit look like for you? Is it the ability to run a marathon, or sprint 100 meters in 14 seconds?

Or perhaps you’d like to increase your income? By how much? $5,000 more month or per year?

You get the idea.

Being specific about personal or organizational goal matters.

Numerous studies show, setting vague and ambiguous goals allows you and others to squirm out of it.

image17

Losing 5 kilograms in three months from today is clear. If we don’t achieve it we will have ‘failed’ which is perhaps why we don’t want to state it clearly in the first place.

So to determine the change goals:
  1. Get specific about what your project or change initiative is about, ask the sponsor, “why are we doing this? What happens if we don’t do it?”
    • Use the clarification chain to further decompose the goal into discrete, measurable goals
  2. Get clear on how this initiative will realize and fulfill the matters of fundamental interest or importance to the relevant parties.

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Chapter 2
Assess

Once you’ve defined the initiative purpose and objectives (or goals), the next step in the
change management process is to assess the change specifics, which  include:

  • Assessing leadership support and alignment on the change
  • Conducting a stakeholder analysis and determining the current level of engagement
  • Assessing people’s internal context
  • Conducting a Change readiness analysis
  • Conducting a Business Impact Assessment

“what we’re doing here is assessing the change management distance”

These 5 items add up to the change management distance. This is the ‘distance’ is the gap of where we are today – the current state – to the future if we do nothing (called the ‘default future’), and the new ‘invented future’.

FIGURE 8: Assessing the Change Management Distance

So let’s walk through how to determine the “change management distance”.


Leadership support and alignment

It’s no secret that leadership is vitally important to organizational success and in particular, change management. It is one of the organizational design change enablers (as shown in the fifth row of Figure 4.1).

In fact, leadership is THE difference in the success or failure of projects.

The question is: exactly how much difference does leadership make?

Well, a number of people have taken the time to study and measure it. That’s how important leadership is to success.

Douglas Hubbard, for instance, of How to Measure Anything fame, analyzed large portfolio projects to investigate project-related factors predicting a positive Return on Investment (ROI).  He found the level of sponsor engagement predicted a success probability of between five and 30 percent (see Figure 9).

That’s compelling.

FIGURE 9:  Hubbard’s Predictor of Successimage12

Developing support from key leadership within an organization is critical for the proposal or business case to be supported, and equally as important during the implementation phase.

Leadership support must be visible and it must be obvious to stakeholders that leaders are supportive and encouraging. There must be no doubt leadership is on board as Change management has enough ambiguity already.

Leadership Behaviour

Specifically, the behaviors you want from your leaders are the following:

  • To make the change vision clear, inspiring and shared;
  • Communicate a compelling rationale for change that will
  • Motivate people to have a “can-do” attitude and make it work;
  • Make resources available and clear blockages;
  • Demonstrate commitment and energy to the new vision;
  • Enrol and develop their own management team, keeping them on side;
  • Model new behaviors and new ways of working;
  • Increase visibility and availability to answer questions, tell a compelling story and keep stakeholders engaged;
  • Celebrate and publicise reaching milestones and achieving success points as the new design is implemented.

To be sure, not every leader is skilled at doing all of these – few will, actually. So you’ll need a cross-section of leaders and provide support and tools to understand the change management distance they must close.

Six Steps to Engage Leaders for Maximum Change Success

Use this six-step process to help you support your leaders:

    • Step 1: Identify the key leaders you’ll need to support the change
    • Step 2: Set priorities. Not all of these are equal. Determine those leaders who can derail the project (the key influencers) as opposed to those who can simply grumble and mumble. The key influences will pull the latter along.
    • Step 3: Meet with these leaders, or have the key sponsor meet with them to enrol them into your project.
    • Step 4: Clearly request what you’ll need from them. (See the list above)
    • Step 5: Help them to be visible with little work on their end. Prepare talking points, keynotes and so on.
    • Step 6: Provide feedback and coaching on how their behavior is working to influence stakeholders
Remember:  The focus is on the behaviors you need (as per the list above) — not personalities.

Stakeholder analysis and engagement

If you want fast and productive change, you’ll need to engage and align the stakeholders too.

The question is:

“How do you align stakeholders?”

(or you’re probably thinking, “How do you herd cats?”)

Stakeholder alignment might be as different to me as to another change manager who is a different person in a different organization.

Well, in the world of organizations, ‘alignment’ doesn’t need to look perfect since stakeholders can quickly change their views and positions.

However, factors of alignment are driven by a few key factors:

  • Trust: that they are respected throughout the organization. This could be due to their skills, experience and hierarchal position (though not necessarily).
  • Exemplars: They walk the talk
  • Advocates: They advocate for the organization and the change

And when you create this with your stakeholders (keeping these alignment factors in mind), you can find yourself sitting pretty with a project gaining change momentum.

Step 1. Define your stakeholder’s groups and what you need them to do.

Using the table below, define who your main stakeholders are and who you need them to do.

In the Top right box, with broad implications and significant benefits, these will need to be led from the very top leadership. Everyone must fall in and align to the core messaging and vision.

In the top left box, with implications to only a sub-department or departments of the organization, but still sizeable benefits, it’s all about ensuring the implementers are on board with the change.

The bottom left quadrant is about the smaller just do it projects, that while still taking time and effort have a smaller organizational impact is often driven by the change champions on the ground doing the work.

The bottom right is often organization wide initiatives that are fragmented in term of benefits, through projects of a large size may boil to the surface and enter another quadrant altogether. Facilitation approaches to co-opt local stakeholders

Note: Context is decisive. So, in this matrix, we’ll look at the context of the change and the stakeholders you’ll need and how they fit in.
Key point: If stakeholders are confused about their role, they tend to resist.

Table 1:  Project / Support Matrix

SUPPORT NEEDED

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Step 2: Define specific people and stakeholders

People can influence your project by promoting or restraining it.  Use the Stakeholder Groups (Figure 10) to help spark and map your list of stakeholders. It shows the people or groups typically found in organizations.

Take some time to reflect on the list of stakeholders and understand their current motivations and how you might move them in the direction you need.

Don’t get caught up into right/wrong thinking. Just because someone might be categorized a ‘blocker’ doesn’t make them a bad or wrong person. It’s just that they have a different view of this project for some reason and that viewpoint might prevent its success.

FIGURE 10: Stakeholder Groups


People and their internal context

People typically respond to change differently [DUH]. Sometimes people are immediately positive and commit, other times they will respond negatively depending on the change.

The time spent here depends on the expectations the change puts on your people. As I’m writing this I’m working on a large, regulatory project that mostly affects customers. The impact on people is for contact centers should the customer call in, which is only a small extension of the call center agents current work. No resistance or upset is expected.

Other projects, such as changing the way a business operates or organization re-designs require a great deal of analysis and sensitivity to people’s internal context.

For example, an organization redesign based on a new strategy could have a consequence of significantly changing people’s jobs. The change goal may be to implement with minimal job losses.

So, how do you determine a person’s internal context?

In the late 1960’s, the ‘Kubler-Ross Change Curve’ model of individual change was developed. The model can be used to assist and engage individuals through each phase in the change curve.  Not only that, but it can be used to develop broader organizational change capability.
Kubler Ross Change Curve

How?

The Kubler-Ross Change Curve can be broadly categorized into four categories passes through when facing change.

Take some time to speculate with colleagues to understand where affected stakeholders sit in this model


1. DENIAL

Generally refusing to accept that the change is happening “This isn’t happening”

2. RESISTANCE

Looking for reasons why the change won’t work, opposing the change “This will never work”

3. EXPLORATION

Asking questions, examining how the change might work “Maybe I can do this?”

4. COMMITMENT

Accepting change, actively contributing to the future state “This is happening and I can manage it”

Now you’ve thought through the people/internal context of how they might perceive the proposed change you can use this information to make plans to move them through from resistance to commitment.

How to move people towards commitment

It is important to understand how your team members are reacting to changes and put strategies in place to help them transition towards commitment. Following are some tips on how you might do this.

Denial > Inform

Restate the change goal and the reasons for changing. Be positive but not an apologist. What people really need is to see things as they are. Your job is to be clear about reality. Don’t make excuses, give honest context.

Resistance > Ask & Listen.

Then paraphrase for understanding i.e. make sure that you understand what they are really saying and feeling, and let people know that they are heard.

Ask people what they need to move on:

  • help people get into an active mode.
  • help them realize that, while you are there to help, moving on is their responsibility.

Exploration > Create Focus

Try to clarify issues and assist people to get their questions answered. Allow people to contribute ideas about how the future state will work.

Commitment > Monitor and reward

Provide recognition for their effort. Discuss and document lessons learned. This is not only a chance to do just what it indicates; it’s an opportunity for people to gain a group sense of accomplishment and even a sense of celebration.


Points to remember….

  • People don’t have to go through the stages of change management in sequence.
  • The path isn’t necessarily linear – your people will bounce around the phases until everyone has reached a state of peace and equilibrium with the “new thing”.
  • People can go through phases over different time periods – a few minutes to months.
  • The intensity and duration of the reaction depend on how significant the loss is perceived as a result of the change.

Change readiness analysis

The second key change enabler in the organizational design is the planning and actions required to move people through the stages of adoption – change readiness analysis.

  • Change Readiness is a measure of the impacted individual or group’s willingness to adopt new behaviors and processes, and to minimize their resistance to the changes associated with a given project or initiative.
  • Change Readiness is an important measure as projects don’t simply involve the introduction of a new system or process; they often require extensive cultural and behavioral changes from the organization to assist the transition to the new way of operating.

Change Readiness activities are designed to:

  • Increase awareness within the organization of the likely impacts of the change process, and how change is to be successfully managed;
  • Surface hidden agendas and key resistance issues that require early mitigation;
  • Identify and manage expectations of the various stakeholder groups, including increasing their willingness to adopt the changes associated with the project or initiative;
  • Ensure key stakeholders support the initiative and are empowered to effect the change; and
  • Provide the focus for the change effort.

The image in Figure 12 below shows the ‘spaces’ people go through as they adopt change, from its first Contact through to Institutionalization.

FIGURE 12: Change Readiness Curve

Change readiness curve

  •  The Change Readiness Assessment provides a snapshot of the current organiZational culture and behaviors and usually involves a survey of employees at various levels of the organization to determine their acceptance of the proposed change.
  • The Change Readiness Assessment should be used to identify:
    • The knowledge base of the business: how aware are they of the proposed change and how it will impact them
    • The current management style and behaviors: do staff have confidence in their managers’ ability to lead them through the change? Is management supportive of the change in both words and behaviors? Are managers directive or consensus building
    • Individual style and behaviors
    • Corporate culture: what are the key leverage points that will enable the change? What are the barriers that may inhibit the progress of the project?
    • Communications
    • Methods and processes: what actions are required to ensure the business unit is ready for the change

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How to assess change readiness

Assessing change readiness can be conducted through a survey combined with face-to-face individual or group interviews. It is not a one-off process and must be monitored as the design phases proceed.  Follow-ups can be achieved through subsequent interviews and surveys.

To avoid survey fatigue, a variety of assessment tools can be used, including:

  • a cross-section of individual interviews by stakeholder, function, and level;
  • reviews of any existing survey data and other appropriate existing studies or documentation;
  • targeted surveys;
  • risk assessment of change;
  • change history assessment;
  • change readiness workshops.

For example, in Figure 13, the change readiness assessment shows us that the areas of change focus are:

      • defining a change strategy (5.33)
      • building commitment (5.46); and
      • managing people performance (5.76).

The two areas highlighted as working towards being change ready in Figure 13 are:

      •  designing the organization (7.46)
      •  developing leadership (7.08)

 

FIGURE 13:  Change Readiness Assessment

Example change readiness assessment results

Business Impacts Assessment (BIA)

Once you’ve thought about which leaders you’ll need to have on the side, who is impacted and how ready for the change the organization is, you’ll need to understand exactly how the organization is impacted.

With this information at hand, recommendations can be made to reduce the risk of failure.

The objective of the Business Impact Assessment (BIA) is to identify and analyze the following:

      • type and degree of change within an organization (or part of an organization) brought about by a project
      • the expected impact of the change and anticipated associated risks.

The expected outcome of a Business Impact Assessment is a recommendation of activities to mitigate identified impacts and manage associated risks, as well as identifying and closing project gaps.

Findings from a Business Impact Assessment will be incorporated into the change strategy and transition plan

Recommendations will be included in other change deliverables (as appropriate), including these plans:

      • Communication and Engagement Plan
      • Training and Support Plan
      • Business Contingency Plan, and
      • Transition Plan

Performing a Business Impact Assessment is an iterative process.  It is based on how much information is available at each phase of the project.

The initial Impact Assessment occurs when the Impacted Stakeholder Analysis is conducted. The purpose is to identify who is affected by the change and how they are affected.

A formal and more detailed Impact Assessment usually occurs after the change readiness surveys and interviews are conducted.

How to conduct a business impacts analysis?

Using your own knowledge and that of the project team members (I recommend the business analysts) as a starting point, conduct in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, either one-on-one, small group discussions, or possibly as a facilitated workshop with representatives from all affected business units.

Ask them to help you identify the project impacts. For a high-level impacts analysis, you might only analyze at the business unit or department level. For a detailed impacts analysis, you may go down to the specific team and even role level.

The information is collated and re-distributed to the group to confirm all impacts have been identified and correctly captured.

Use the following categories a checklist to understand the project impacts:

Customer and External Stakeholders
External Stakeholders and Customers focuses on the impact of the change on the organization, customers, vendors and other stakeholders outside of the organization

Operating Model/Organisational Structure
When assessing impacts to Organisational Structures, the focus is on reporting lines and organizational design.
Where a clear or potential impact is identified for the “three R’s” – remuneration, reorganization, or redundancy – Human Resources are to be engaged to manage these issues

Processes
When examining the impact of processes and procedures, the focus is on the effect the change will have on the micro level activities undertaken by affected roles.

People/Roles
When examining the impact on people and roles, the focus is whether there will be changes at the individual role level.
Important! Where a clear or potential impact is identified for the “three R’s” – remuneration, reorganization, or redundancy – Human Resources are to be engaged to manage these issues

Process & Procedures
When examining the impact of processes and procedures, the focus is on the effect the change will have on the micro level activities undertaken by affected roles.

Systems
A core system is one that is critical to the daily operation of the business.
Where a project or initiative will have an impact on a Core System, the system owner is to be engaged as early as practicable to ensure that all other initiatives impacting the system are identified, and dependences and impacts assessed.

Nonsystem
Non-system focuses on the administrative and logistical impacts of the proposed change (e.g. seating plans, stationery requirements, directory updates etc).

Put all of this into a spreadsheet like this:

image26

Circulate to those who provided input to clarify and then update as you move through the project.

OK, so you’ve assessed leadership, stakeholders, people, change readiness and business impacts.

Nice work.

What’s next?

It’s time to design your approach. And that’s exactly what I’ll show you how to do in Chapter 3.

CHAPTER 3
Design

The sequence of organizational change is straightforward.
It must always descend from the goals of a change initiative.

This chapter includes:

  • planning your project team structure
  • setting up the change management project team
  • aligning leadership, stakeholder engagement, and communications
  • training (including identifying organizational capability gaps)

Planning

Start with you and your team!  Organising yourself for delivery: Setting up the change management project team
A major source of change resistance is ambiguity (more on that later). And one major source of ambiguity is a disorganized change project change team. So, it is really important to be clear on roles and responsibilities and what your structure will be.

Small projects don’t need large and very formal project change teams. But it doesn’t make sense to run a change project solo, either. Organizational change projects, no matter how small, are complex and take time.

As a general rule of thumb: The more people there are, the more time required

A major reason is a gross underestimation of the level of effort needed to guide the organization through implementation.

A close corollary of effort underestimation is underestimating the time required to implement a change all the way down to the operating instructions. Time needed to effectively implement change can range from months for simple changes to years for organization wide initiatives.

As I said earlier, here’s my assessment of the time needed to fully implement change:

  • Procedures: 1-3 months
  • Processes: 3-12 months
  • Business Unit: 1-3 years
  • Enterprise: 3 – 6 years
image3

Getting the team right

At a minimum, a design team should comprise a representative cross-section of
the organization affected by the change. Your change project team members must have:

  • picture of the processes managed at each level in the organization
  • be capable of influencing others, negotiating and lobbying effectively on behalf of the project.
  • The job of the change leader is to plan the implementation path.
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

The planning phase isn’t just planning. It’s also aligning leadership on the change initiative vision and goals.
In the first instance, one of the organizational goals is to minimize the ambiguity of the change.  To do this, it is important you put structures in place to reduce ambiguity.  This may include the governance structures (see Figure 14) such as the Steering Committee or the project management office (PMO), which must monitor project risks, issues, and quality.

Given that change in inherently ambiguous, you must keep people engaged and focused on the vision and its goals while they take care of their day jobs. It’s also imperative to plan for effective stakeholder engagement and timely communication to ensure ambiguity is minimized and productivity (or business as usual) is maximized.

Planning an effective change team is a priority. Your change team must have the right skills and experience for their roles, be it business analysis or project management, and for them to be seen as capable by the stakeholders. They must also be fully committed and champions and advocates for the project.

FIGURE 14:  Organization Design Programme Governance Structure

Organization Design Programme Governance Structure


Change Leadership

Leadership is imperative throughout the change process.  You must develop a plan for key leadership activities and support and assist key executives and business leaders to implement these plans.

As pointed out in the study earlier, leadership and the associated sponsorship is the key success factor for change initiatives.

Develop a roadmap and action plan including check-in points. Consider the following as part of this plan:

The following point summarises the importance of leadership throughout the change:

  • Leadership support (active and visible participation) is a requirement through the life cycle of the program.
  • Leaders cannot take their eye off the ball as change is unpredictable (and ambiguous) – they need to stay sharp!
  • Leaders must be active and visible, communicating and reinforcing the reason for the change.
  • Leaders must demonstrate commitment – they must ‘walk the talk, every day and in every way’.
  • Leaders must build support for the change – they need to garner advocates to lobby the merits of the change throughout the organization.
  • Leaders must demonstrate the new behaviors first to have others follow and believe in the change.

Stakeholder engagement, communications, and involvement

The stakeholder engagement and communications plan begin development in the assessment phase.

Relevant messages, communicated early and well, prevent the rumor mill from taking over like a noxious weed. The aim is to keep people informed and even when you don’t have answers, consistent communication using a variety of media channels, techniques, and repetition, is better than one-size fits all approach.  To build trust with your stakeholder community, your communication needs to be timely and within context.

A stakeholder engagement and communications plan should cover key messages all groups need to hear.  The key messages then are broken down into sub-messages.

Overarching key messages need to cover:

  • Why the change is necessary
  • What progress is being made with the plan
  • Specific examples of success, failure, and people’s responses.
  • General related information for example, what is being reported in the press, comments from the leadership team, or suggestions.

Communication experts typically describe the change curve in terms of four steps and refer to stakeholders as “audiences”:

  • 1

    awareness and understanding

  • 2

    buy-in

  • 3

    adoption

  • 4

    use

FIGURE 15:  Communication Tactics to Support Change Adoption

Communications tratics to support change adoption

1. The awareness and understanding step

The objectives of the awareness and understanding step are to:

  • educate audiences on the features of the programme and
  • solicit their input on the programme’s use.

The organization design programme is marketed to appropriate audiences, highlighting the specific benefits to those audiences.

2. The buy-in step

The buy-in step requires communications strategies and tactics that encourage and support the audience to embrace the programme.

3. The adoption step

The adoption step uses persuasive communication to reinforce and reward users who adopt the organization design programme.  Without this approach, negative concerns may solidify into active opposition.  So, it is an essential strategic approach to ensure adoption and uptake is maximized across the organization.

4. The use step

The use step involves consistently and regularly communicating messages that reinforce and embed the work of the organization design.  For example, communication will report on successes, reviews, lessons learned and the milestones.

In the early stages of a project design, communication has a strong change management purpose.  It is to create awareness of what is happening and provide an early level of understanding for the audience – why are we doing this and why now?

As a project continues, communication provides more of a front-end to knowledge management. Thus, impacted audiences know where to get more information on continuing strategy and plans, training programmes, or other resources that can help them understand the organization design programme, its impacts and their role in its success.

It is good practice to prepare procedures and templates for crisis communications, should there be a need for a fast response to an emerging issue.

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Training

Not all change management projects will require a training component.

Training is only needed when you want people to do something new or different such as learn a new system that is being implemented.  At other times, it’s just a knowledge transfer that’s needed for example applying new accounting standards to the monthly financials.

The point is to know what your learning objective is.

The Business Impact Assessment, in particular, will inform your training plan.

As the new design is developed and implemented, new soft and hard skills (required for successful outcomes), will be teased out.

To do this, you’ll need to ask yourself the following question and then define the skills and competencies needed to meet the new performance standards.

  1. What are the goals and results intended from the change? (For example, to reduce costs, increase sales, improve return on equity)
  2. Define the performance required to meet these results (higher sales margins, number of sales appointments, conversion rates, etc.)
  3. Define the skills and competencies required to meet the performance standards. (improved sales skills, proposal writing, opportunity management)
  4. Create training and development programs to meet these competencies (training on sales conversations, presentation skills and so on).

The lesson here is to think from results and then work backward to achieve the new performance criteria (not propose a solution hoping to find a problem).

FIGURE 16:  Organizational Education Tied to Strategic Business Goals

Organizational education tied to strategic business goals

Consider also the adult learning process, and that it really is a “process” and not an event where it’s done and we move on. Here’s a five step process outlining the adult learning process:

1. Discussion on Improved Performance, Skills, and Outcomes Desired.

  • Create motivation, by starting with the “why” – why do we need to do this? Then move onto the “how”- how are we going to do this?

2. Practice in safety

  • If you are learning to ski, you wouldn’t get a briefing on skiing and then go straight to a black run!  Likewise with learning new skills.  It is critically important that learners practice in a low-threat environment to build confidence and skills.

3. Feedback on practice

  • Feedback is critical at this juncture.  Feedback serves to reinforce the right behaviors.  It minimizes the possibility of participants reinforcing the wrong behaviors.

4. Application on the job

  • This is where the real learning takes place. You can only practice so many scenarios.  The real world, on the other hand, shows many more complicated and nuanced situations where learners can apply their new skills on the job.

5. Reward to encourage desired behaviors and discourage unwanted behaviors.

  • Finally, how will the new behaviors be monitored in reality?
  • Now that you have an awesome design it’s time for the real work! Implementation.
CHAPTER 4
Implement

You have a wonderful design. Great!

Now, the real work of change management begins with implementation!

This chapter includes:

  • 1. Implementation and transition planning
  • 2. Managing resistance
  • 3. Coaching managers for change
The purpose of transition planning activities is to ensure a seamless and continuous operation of a business unit as it moves from the current to the new operating model, minimizing stakeholder disruption and stress. The importance of proper planning and a clear step-by-step action plan is critical during the transition phase of a project as it can involve execution of a number of activities across multiple streams (e.g. communications, training, business readiness, change readiness) within a condensed time period.Once the other change deliverables (e.g. Communication and Engagement Plan, Training and Support Plan, Business Contingency Plans, Readiness Assessments etc) have been approved by the business, all activities are fed into the Transition Plan, which is the single document that is monitored, maintained and distributed to provide clarity to relevant stakeholders of project status.

The Transition Plan will cover:

  • tasks that need to be performed prior to implementation (Business Readiness)
  • people transition and process related changes (e.g. communication, role evaluation, restructures, relevant training)
  • updated policies and procedures (Business Readiness)
  • relevant HR and Industrial Relations implications (Business Readiness)
  • alignment of other organizational elements to support transition (Business Readiness)

FIGURE 17: Build Your Plan

image23

The Transition Plan template is designed to capture all of the actions required to deliver a change initiative in a way that can be easily reported and slippages easily identified

The Transition Plan incorporates content from a number assessment and design outputs, including:

  • Business Impact Assessment;
  • Change Readiness Assessment (where conducted);
  • Business Readiness Assessment;
  • Communication and Engagement Plans;
  • Training and Support Plans.

Buy In Index and other change readiness analysis already conducted.

  • The broad process for creating a Transition Plan is to review findings of the above assessments to identify required actions for project delivery discuss recommendations with stakeholders and obtain agreement on the way forward prioritize key issues assign owners and deadlines for each activity review and update plan regularly.
  • To create the Transition Plan for a given initiative, follow the table below.
  • Work through each of the change deliverables mentioned above (Business Impact Assessment, Business Readiness Assessment etc.) and identify the activities coming out of those plans.
  • Populate the change element you wish to impact, who will do the work and how. Add dates tenure it’s tracked and monitored with rigor, too.

TABLE 2:  PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Element Who How
Communicate to create Awareness and readiness.
  • Primary business unit or department heads and supporters
  • Direct reports
  • Sponsor-led Town Hall meetings
  • Email communications
  • Coaching
Interact to create engagement, driving willingness.
  • Primary sponsors
  • Change champions
  • Sponsor in change working group
  • Change Champion Network
Active participation to create ability and skills.
  • Project team
  • Training team (vendor)
  • HR
  • Training and support materials via Wiki
  • Coaching frontline supervisors
Empowerment to sustain and reinforce
  • Primary business unit or departmental heads and supporters
  • Direct reports
  • KPIs adjusted
  • Train-the-trainer for the business unit training department

Monitoring, Maintaining and Reporting on the Transition Plan

To be effective, the Transition Plan must be rigorously monitored, regularly updated and communicated to those with assigned actions.

The Transition Plan should form part of discussions for all Project Meetings, with actions updated and distributed along with or (or in the place of) meeting minutes.

Where there is no regular Project Manager-initiated Project Meeting, the change management team should coordinate a regular (minimum fortnightly) catch up of key members of the Project Team to discuss action items in the Transition Plan and ensure project momentum is maintained.

Following these meetings, the Transition Plan is to be updated by recording additional information against each action item in the “Follow Up Comments” field and reassigning owners and changing status as required

When change comes, people often don’t like it and may not feel good about it. Resistance can block change unless people learn from it.

It is important to recognize resistance and be able to manage it effectively.

The biggest and most obvious cause of resistance is ambiguity. Ambiguity is unavoidable in projects, but it is controllable.

image24

The malaise that results from a lack of clarity is known to economists as “Ambiguity Aversion”.

This insight about ambiguity is why people treat ambiguous, inexact, incomplete, and vague information not just as insufficient, but actually discount the data altogether.

The frustrating implication for change managers is that as a result of the discounting of ambiguous information, people behave as if they have no information at all.

This is why bringing clarity to your organizational change programs is so important. It’s why a vague statement like “deal with this new project” results in no action on the project. It is instead put off in favor of the customer call, the urgent task in the here and now.

Good change leaders must be skilled at converting the ambiguous goals and plans into concrete, specific steps. Add to this clear messages to ensure the behavior change desired and you’re well on the way to successful change.

Sources of Ambiguity

The resistance that stems from ambiguity comes from a number of sources:

  • Loss of control: Many people feel resentful when change is imposed on them. A sense of control is essential for the self-esteem of most people. Imposed change can remove this sense of control, leading to stress and an attempt to reassert control by overt or covert sabotage.
  • Fear of the unknown: When the future state is unknown, fear and subsequent resistance can be generated. This is a particular problem in Transformational Change, where the change is so extreme or complex that most people are unable to see their own personal future state. Not unreasonably this can lead to unwillingness to change.
  • Unexpected Change: People react negatively almost instinctively when decisions or demands are placed upon them without any forewarning or chance for preparation. An individual who has had no time to think through their reaction will almost certainly react negatively and resist change.
  • Force of Habit: Many people are habitual in their nature and resent any break to this routine. Change, by definition, is likely to disrupt routines, causing insecurity and resistance.
  • Ego: If something is to be changed, that implies the old way was wrong or inferior. A surprising amount of resistance is due to this.
  • Self Doubt: In some cases fear on the individual’s behalf that they won’t be able to learn skills, or conduct tasks as required in the new model can lead to resistance.
  • Chaos Theory: Changes occurring in a professional environment can have an impact on a person’s personal life. Examples of this might be changes in location, work colleagues who are personal friends etc. This cause of resistance is hard to spot and often equally hard to overcome.
  • History: A history of failed changes, or simple exhaustion from constant change (often known as change fatigue), can cause resistance. Why would a person go to the effort of accepting a change and beginning to implement it, if every change implemented in the past had stalled or failed?

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Overcoming Resistance

Your main tool for overcoming resistance is keen listening. Allowing people to speak their mind and voice their views often helps them work through their concerns. A good deal of them will disappear just from listening well, the others, which have merit, will require taking action to have them resolved.

Leadership starts at the top but the power is in the middle

Capgemini Consulting and the IESE business school ran a global Innovation Leadership Study with 43% of its respondents saying their company has a formally accountable innovation executive, up from 33% a year ago. But only 24% of respondents think they have an “effective organizational alignment of innovation efforts.”

The study concludes that:

“there is a need for innovation strategy development in a more bottom-up manner,” and “large organizations create so much distance between the executives and those that are tasked to innovate that a disconnect exists between them.”

This leadership gap must be closed if you are to be successful in your change efforts. The reason why the cascading leadership and middle management is so important is because of what these leaders do: Effective leaders coach and problem solve as well as set and monitor targets for their people.

  • When it comes to managing change,  middle-managers and front-line supervisors play a key role.

But, managers and front-line supervisors can be the most resistant and difficult to convince. Perhaps because they’re already flat out busy and change usually means more work and the possibility of disgruntled staff.

Because of the outsized impact managers and front-line supervisors do have on their staff, it’s vital to have their support.

As the managers and front-line supervisors become enrolled in the change, the change management team needs to support them to coach their staff as the change process progresses. This usually requires providing tailored training and coaching directed at assisting them to use change management tools with their staff.

Front-line and middle manager coaching for change checklist

Front-line and middle manager coaching is predominantly required for Strategic Change initiatives. The change management team are responsible for coordinating them, and working with the relevant business units to identify and develop the members. The front-line and middle managers as coaches  are people within the business who:

  • Understand and agree with the need to change
  • Have credibility and respect within the business
  • Have a sense of urgency about the change
  • Are good communicators and motivators
  • Have a good understanding of the business and its culture
  • Are enthusiastic to represent the change within the business
  • Are approachable and accessible

The approach to coaching is:

  • Hold discussions with relevant business leaders to identify appropriate representatives from their areas
  • Meet with the proposed individuals and brief them on the case for change, and the change management targets and tactics
  • Enlist their support and involve them in key meetings
  • Provide them with access to key information
  • Publish their role to the business

The specific role of the front and middle manager as coaches will be outlined in the planning phase of the project, although their general role is to:

  • Present initiative updates to the business.
  • Work with their staff enrolling them in the change, coaching them on the new behaviors and obtaining feedback.
  • Provide advice and guidance to the change management team on how to engage the business.
CHAPTER 5:
Embed

This chapter includes:

  • What to consider when embedding a change:
    • Sustaining momentum
    • Measuring Success
  • Post-implementation reviews
Taking the time to develop a comprehensive plan to embed change often seems to take a back seat to previous design and implementation phases. If the change has been planned and executed well, the new future, once realized, can seem fairly vanilla as people have already moved on to the next shiny object.

A healthier approach is to energetically explore what is working well and what it is not.  The areas that are not working so well can always be improved.

What to consider when embedding change 
Change leaders usually think about how to get people to buy-in to the change. If there was something that could be said right, it would be the thing that would have people get on board.

An organization has goals and when employees really get on board with those goals as if they were their own, that they matter (in an emotional way) not because it’s a job but because it is part self expression while at work, then employee empowerment takes on a whole new meaning – the change has been successfully embedded into the organization.

Sustaining Momentum
Sustaining momentum refers to ensure the success of an initiative by providing the support and resources required for the life of the project. The objectives when sustaining momentum are to ensure that: Required resources are consistently provided to reinforce the change initiative throughout the implementation phaseChange activities are completed in accordance with the Transition Plan and are visible, immediate, credible, integrated and enduringImpacted stakeholders understand that the change initiative is “real” and going to happen, rather than a fad that will go away in time.There are some common mistakes in change implementation that can impact on momentum. In particular watch for these:

  • Perfectionist thinking: Waiting for the “perfect” solution before acting or waiting for the “perfect” ending before communicating successes
  • Lack of focus, mili-tasking and distraction: Loaded up resources at the start of a change initiative, but not ensuring they are available for the predicted life of the project – leads to a “project of the month” mentality, particularly where new initiatives are introduced while the current one is still being embedded
  • Not learning from experience: Not using the learnings of others to continually refine the change approach and continually engage stakeholders

The Momentum Wheel highlights activities that should be conducted in five areas to sustain momentum and ensure enduring results. These fives areas are explored in more detail below.

Early Wins

  • Early wins are designed to sustain the momentum of the change by breaking up the desired change into smaller steps, providing tangible proof that the change is underway and meeting expectations.
  • As part of the planning phase, indicators of success should be identified and incorporated into the Communications Plan.
  • Results do not need to be perfect before they can be communicated to the stakeholder community at large, and in many cases, the delay in waiting for “ideal” results can mean that momentum is lost.

Early wins can include:

  • Milestones being achieved (e.g. data conversion completed successfully, the first team coming out of training, first product sold to customer etc)
  • Deadlines met
  • Target results achieved (or results improving over time)
  • Systems in place and 100% operational
  • Training completed for all key stakeholders

Announce any early wins far an wide to create an early project “buzz”.

Sponsor Commitment

  • A Project Sponsor is a leader from the affected business unit’s management team,  with “skin in the game”,  who provides public support and resources for the initiative, and ensures the engagement of required stakeholders from across the division.
  • To sustain the momentum of the change initiative, the Project Sponsor should:
  • Be active, visible and involved at all stages of the initiative rather than simply at project inceptions
  • Continually articulate the need for – and vision of – the change initiative, explicitly linking it to business strategy.
  • Hold stakeholders accountable for the delivery of the initiative and ensure alignment between staff performance measurement and the new operating model (rather than measuring and rewarding the “old way” whilst espousing the new way).
  • Support the change initiative within the business unit, establish it in the scheme of priorities and remove roadblocks as they arise.

Motivation

  • The project team also plays an important role in maintaining the momentum of the change initiative and should visibly demonstrate excitement and enthusiasm
  • To give the change initiative the credibility it needs to be accepted, it is important that the project team honour appropriate deadlines and make appropriate shifts in goals and resource allocations as dictated by the implementation approach.
  • Early adopters of the change initiative should be encouraged and new behaviours supported by an updated reward and recognition program.
  • To sustain momentum, it should also be made clear to stakeholders the anticipated next steps (e.g. subsequent phase of the project, supporting initiatives etc).

Connection

To sustain momentum and make the transition to business as usual (BAU), it is important that a change initiative is seen as integrated with other organisational initiatives and part of the overall business strategy rather than something “on the side”.

  • As part of Business Readiness activities, the change manager should ensure that the desired behaviours are reinforced by appropriate changes to systems and structures (i.e. people, development etc)
  • How the project is related to other ongoing initiatives should be communicated regularly (e.g. within the project newsletter) and wherever possible, the project should also be an agenda item at operational and management meetings within the business.

Shared Learning

  • It is important that stakeholders can see that downstream project activities are benefiting from key learnings (both successes and failures) from early in the project. This demonstrates to stakeholders that project team members have the capacity to act as leaders of change and continually enhance the change approach, rather than “blind continuing with an approach that has been identified as sub-optimal.
  • Shared learning also refers to encouraging sharing of stories and ideas between those that are affected by the change – this can be either through the Change Champion network, or more informal means including impacted stakeholders submitting stories for the project newsletter.
  • Other ways to share learnings and sustain momentum include the distribution of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), benchmarks and best practices.

Measurements that matter:
Too often, training is conducted without any follow up or metrics to determine it was effective or not.

Examples of quantifiable metrics include:

  • Increases in sales, conversion rate or margins
  • Increased percentages in employee retention or customers
  • Faster cycle times of key processes measured by reduced hours or minutes
  • Reduced percentages or dollar value in costs
  • Percentage increases in repeat business

Examples of qualitative metrics might include:

  • Increased moral
  • Improved communication across key departments
  • Better safety
  • Increased brand reputation
  • Higher job satisfaction
  • Qualitative metrics are fine to have but make sure you have a variety of metrics to validate your training effectiveness. For example, an intangible metric like improved safety, could be measured through worker opinions gathered in a survey plus evidence of reduced incidents over time.

It’s important to gather feedback at multiple stages of project implementation to ensure that tactics are effective.

Feedback can be obtained through a range of means, including:

  • Conducting regular (e.g. three months out, two weeks out, 2 days out) Change Readiness Assessments of the key stakeholder groups
  • Review engagement results across the business via the Buy In Index
  • Obtain feedback from those attending training sessions
  • Obtain feedback via formal and informal feedback tools (e.g. Online surveys)
  • Canvas feedback via the Change Champion network
  • Run workshops and issue resolution forums
  • Conduct one-on-one sessions with key stakeholders
  • Track employee complaints and issues via Human Resources.

Regardless of the means through which feedback is collected, identified potential improvements (e.g. Communications, Training, Engagement, Business Readiness) are to be incorporated into the Transition Plan for implementation and tracking.

Finally, it’s worth repeating that change management is a process – not an event. It starts with understanding the objectives, then preparation, testing and measuring, and finally, large-scale roll out.

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Last Steps – Post Implementation Reviews

  • Earlier I walkabout and not learning from experience as a reason for failed implementation.
  • This is because the Post Implementation Review (PIR) are not conducted. These should the run during the closure phase of a project to identify practices that can be fed back to the Program Management Office (PMO) and used to improve the projects in the future.
  • The Post Implementation Review also involves the evaluation of project performance against the original business case objectives and key success factors to identify opportunities for improvement to processes and procedures.
  • It is an important step in ensuring continual improvement in the deliverables of the change management team, enhancing its position as the change management experts within the organisation.

As part of a Post Implementation Review, consider the following:

    • Review the outcome of the Transition Plan
    • Evaluate whether critical timelines were met
    • Identify any business situation that impacted on transition planning outcomes that should be addressed in future activities (e.g. conflicting priorities, mixed messages, lack of management support etc)
    • Lessons learned – unexpected costs, issues arising, risk mitigation strategies
    • Key contacts made across the involved Sensis departments (e.g. Care, Production, Corporate Affairs, Marketing, Sales, Legal etc)
    • Project Team feedback on Communications and Change Management activities

The level of effort expended on a Post Implementation Review will vary depending on:

  • Whether the initiative is a pilot or primary project – PIR is particularly important for pilot initiatives as the learnings are applied to the larger project
  • The scale and impact of the project to the business
  • The similarity of the project to previous initiatives (i.e. more detailed review for new initiative types)
  • The final gaps between project objectives and deliverables

There is a lot to say about these including running retrospectives during projects. But for now, just make sure you get together and evaluate how you went.
The thing about change management is that you, as a change manager, are there throughout the entire life of the project and you are accountable for adoption and usage. So, it’s up to you to design effective metrics up front.

So, measure your intended results. Make sure your metrics are outcome-based, quantitative and qualitative.

Summary
Phew, that’s a lot. But change management is no walk in the park. Galvanising an organization to change behaviour takes something. In this guide, I outlined how to do that, step-by-step.Now, over to you. Let me know how you go, what you struggle with and what share your successes.

Step 1: Define the change and create a strategy

Step 2: Assess the organisational readiness to align peoples perceptions

Step 3: Design your approach to engage peoples hearts and minds

Step 4: Implement and give people the tools and skills

Step 5: Embed and maximise your ROI