Welcome

Welcome to my blog.

I will be collaborating with the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Learning, Education and Development Community of Practice (PMI LEAD CoP) on promoting Change Management as a means to proactively identify and address transformation and change-related issues that might popup during program/project implementations. For those who are not familiar with the organization, PMI is the largest association for the project management profession, they currently have about half a million members across the globe, and it is the organization that issues the PMP certification. The LEAD Community of Practice is a wonderful medium for project managers to share knowledge and the community also aims at providing a bridge between practitioners and educators. You can also find them on LinkedIn and Facebook. It is a pleasure to be involved with PMI’s LEAD Community of Practice.

My background is primarily business transformation and strategic change. Over the past decade, I have worked with project and program managers across a wide range of functional areas to establish frameworks that enabled and supported successful business transformation implementations. Even though one might find a plethora of models, frameworks, tools on the topic, I’d say that managing change and transforming the way an organization operates is difficult, and making the changes “stick” can be a Herculean task.  In the next couple of months, I will be focusing on various topics related to the role of Change Management (CM) as a key enabler to successful Project and Program implementations. My goal is multi-fold:

• Promote Change Management/Change Enablement (preferably a systemic approach) as key component of projects that have direct or indirect impacts on people in an organization
• Share tools and approaches that enhance the skill set and change management competencies of project managers
• Push the envelope and engage our readers in discussions around various topics related to Change Management (CM) and Project Management (PM), specifically around what doesn’t work when it comes to managing change
• Attempt to serve as a bridge between academics and practitioners running projects.

On my end, I’ve been working on a series of papers on Change Management and this blog will allow me to share them with practitioners and bounce off ideas prior to publishing. My overarching aim is not to undergo an academic exercise but to engage practitioners, capture their perspective on the challenges that plague their implementations, identify potential solutions, and define the key components a practical and successful CM strategy.

I will be publishing this blog both on the LEAD CoP blogging medium and here. My goal is not to preach a certain flavor of change management but to engage people with as many view points as possible. Please don’t hesitate to comment on the blog or contact me with your feedback.

Regards,

Al Stines.