Most businesses will, at some stage, embark on some form of change management program. However as many find these things are not easy.
While change management includes an element of project management it is not *Just* Project management and to treat it as such can lead to a range of problems.
Let’s start with what Change management is.
Change management takes resources, tools and company funds to change (sometimes significantly) a business.
This could include
* Rolling out a new product
* Changing to a different IT system
* Reorganizing the company structure
* and many more.
When it comes to change management there’s plenty of grim reading out there. However, change can be successful though it does require the right resources & adequate motivation to adopt to the change being put forward.
From the perspective of some senior managers change management might just be to order people to do something. But without adequate motivation (i.e. the change may make individuals working life easier) this technique is doomed. Whatever the reason the modern workforce do not enjoy being told to simply get on with it and if your about to embark on change then stakeholder engagement should be right up on your priority list. And also don’t forget the volume of change, many businesses seem to embark on a constant cycle of change with multiple (seemingly never-ending) programs underway the resultant employee change fatigue should come as no surprise.
So what aspects are important in making change management a success…..
1/ The Benefit
Clearly, if the tool to derive the benefit is not appropriate then you’re not off to a good start. Poor solution design can kill a transformation project quicker than you can count to ten and you must not underestimate the effort required in getting this right. How can you model the end result and the benefit? Are multiple deliverables required to achieve the desired result (for example how many IT projects have you seen fail where the business places it’s entire hope on *just* the IT team without clearly recognizing the issue being addressed?
2/ Communication and stakeholder management
If you fail to communicate to your audience effectively how do you expect them to adequately participate? Ask yourself, is the intent of what you’re trying to do clear? You might find yourself giving the same benefits speech multiple times but consider it’s not just about “why” the program is underway but also “how” it’ll be done, what will participants need to do, how long do you expect it to take, what will the future post change look like, how will you measure the success etc.
3/ Transparency
People will have concerns and issues it’s a fact of life. Be transparent in how you address these, the team (and stakeholder community) need to be brought along with you on the change journey and to do this effectively needs to be built on a level of trust. Without transparency, this trust will be eroded.
4/ Manage issues
Invest in an appropriate issue management process, don’t ignore problems (they WILL bite you later). Ensure the change team knows how issues will be logged & tracked and how communication works back to the stakeholders on issues raised. Just remember that no-one knows how thier job role functions better than your stakeholders and what might not appear to be a big problem to you could be a massive issue once your change has been implemented.
5/ Learn
Don’t forget continuous improvement during your change project. Things will go wrong, learn and evaluate what’s working and always look to learn, modify and improve. Consider how you will take feedback from the project team (what’s your review cycle?). Being honest about what’s working and what’s not will help you tune your project and better equip it for success.
So there are our 5 tips on change management – have your own thoughts/ideas – we’d love to hear them in our comments section below.