How does a well designed Change Management strategy increase project success?

When it comes to projects that will impact the way a business operates, Change management and project management activities are complementary. Project management processes provide the building blocks for the transformation and when properly administered, change management serves as the bonding agent that can make the different elements of the initiative that didn’t initially seem to fit, stick together: change management activities can fill gaps and help realign various organizational components.

Over the past half century, Project Management (PM) has been evolving into a defined discipline. Over the past decades, the Project Management Institute (PMI) has played an important role in promoting a unified body of knowledge. On the other hand, change management (CM) has evolved into various schools of thought with very rich knowledge bases. The impacts of change on organizations have been analyzed from various perspectives: ranging from a business strategy or operations stand point, to the social, psychological, anthropological perspectives. The conclusion is always the same: managing change that is happening in an open system with a multitude of variables that are sometimes unpredictable is a daunting task. As Linda mentioned in her comment on last week’s blog: “Change is never easy, even when the audience knows and wants it” (posted on the PMI LEAD CoP blog medium).

Even with all the progress that has been made to advance this multidisciplinary field, the Change Management body of knowledge remains fragmented. Even though it has become a popular term that is increasingly being used within many functional areas in contemporary corporations, the term “change management” (as it pertains to organizational change) holds a different meaning depending on who you ask. In the context of this blog, which focuses on change management as it pertains to project implementations, I’ll define change management (CM) as the set of activities that takes place in order to align all organizational components: stakeholders, policies, processes, technology,… It ensures that groups of impacted stakeholders are prepared and empowered so that they can successfully transition from the current state to the new way of doing things. From beginning to end, the stakeholders should be at the heart of the change management strategy; its purpose should be to address their concerns, to align them, to enable them, and to equip them so that they can successfully operate in the desired future state. CM activities should further help enable and reinforce the realization of the benefits identified in the initiative’s business case.

Communications management is NOT change management, simply delivering training  is NOT managing change; even though, in most situations, a comprehensive communication plan and a robust training program may be two of the most important instruments in the change management toolbox. The goal is to proactively identify organizational hurdles along the way that might be an obstacle to the project (or program’s) success and attempt to address them so that the project team can execute. At the end of the day, if the change management component of an initiative is handled properly, some of the issues that typically plague projects can be avoided. That means the project is  IMPLEMENTED  WITH  the stakeholders, as opposed to having the project be  IMPOSED  ON  the stakeholders:

• Impacted stakeholders are properly identified and engaged, which in turn allows for better management of potential resistance to the change.
• Better alignment and better feedback loops exist between the project team, the business leaders, and the impacted stakeholder groups.
• Business ownership is maximized and the burden for a successful implementation is shared.
  - Key stakeholders across the organization clearly understand their roles and responsibilities as enablers of a successful implementation and are accountable their small, defined piece of the puzzle.
  - Change agents are properly identified and engaged. A common mistake is to assume that the best change agent will be someone in a position of authority and that is not necessarily the case.
• Expectations are managed across the board.
  - The level of benefits anticipated is realistic and linked to clear accountabilities on the business side.
  - The impacted stakeholders fully understand not only the project's benefits but also its shortcomings and any collateral/side effect. If the shortcomings are identified and understood early enough, the impacted groups can begin to prepare to address any adverse effects.
• The implementation plan takes into account organizational culture and the rollout is design to address cultural hurtles that may negatively impact the execution of the project and/or the realization of anticipated benefits.
• Risk management is expanded to proactively identify and tackle organization-related issues that might negatively impact the project.
• Change management activities pave the way for a smoother transition to the desired future state and establish an environment that can sustain the new way of doing things.
• Impacted individuals are adequately equipped to operate in the new environment.

As a Project or Program Manager, how do you deal with the challenges that stem from running an initiative that will impact the way a business operates? How do you typically deal with culture? How do you align stakeholder groups that seem to have divergent goals? How do you define “change management”?

Leveraging Change Management as one of the key enablers of successful project/program implementations

We have been hearing for decades about the important and daunting task of managing change as organizations try to transform themselves into entities that are more effective, more efficient, more agile, more innovative, …. Many articles and books have covered various aspects of the challenges associated with the proper management or the mismanagement of the change process. Even with all the research that has been conducted and all the models that have been devised, the statistics remain dismal: as we near the end of the first decade of the 21rst century, many consulting firms are still reporting that only about 30% of transformation initiatives are successful.

In 2008, a McKinsey survey of 3,199 executives from around the globe reported that only about 1 in 3 such initiatives were successful. A 2009 article in McKinsey Quarterly noted that surveys conducted during the previous 10 years yielded the same results. They of course cited John Kotter’s research in the 1990s which led to his seminal 1996 book “Leading change”; at the time, his research estimated that only about 30 percent of change-related  initiatives were successful. IBM’s 2008  “Making Change Work” study surveyed 1,500 practitioners worldwide (project managers, sponsors, change managers, …) and the projects surveyed ranged from a wide spectrum of transformation initiatives: customer satisfaction improvement, sales and revenue growth, cost reduction, process innovation, technology, implementation, new market entry and organizational change. That study’s researchers concluded that about 60 percent of the projects FAILED to fully meet their objectives. This is again in line with results from various surveys that have been conducted in recent years which seem to indicate that more than half of projects/programs/initiatives aimed at transforming or changing the way a business functions are not likely to fully meet expectations.

How can one explain that 20 years have gone by, yet success rates related to projects that are transformative in nature have not really changed? I would argue that the problem is not just a lack of awareness around the importance of change management, but it’s also due to deficiencies in implementation teams’ ability to properly anticipate, identify, diagnose, and address the challenges that stem from initiatives that aim to change the way an organization/business operates. Very few organizations own an in-house change management group, it is a service that is in many cases outsourced, and a domain that is primarily controlled by consulting firms. Therefore, if we want to look at potential deficiencies, we should start there. 

I must start this paragraph by saying that there ARE consulting firms that are thought leaders and do contribute to the advancement of the change management field but they are probably the exception. In my opinion, a good number of the consultancies out there view their change management offering simply as an additional means of revenue, a “flavor of the month” that has endured, so they are milking it as much as possible, it’s a “collateral”/secondary source of revenue with their real competency being somewhere else (e.g., IT or another functional area of expertise). The sad thing is that there is excellent research that is done on the academic side but for some reason, most of it doesn’t seem make its way to the practitioner side. 

To me, Change Management (CM) is multidisciplinary and it is the art and science of attempting to forecast the unknown, and addressing complex issues that arise in very complex organizational systems. Because of the level of complexity that can occur, in my view, it is close to impossible to develop a systematic, step by step change management package that can be applied “out of the box” (without a considerable level of customization) to effectively address project challenges; yet many consulting firms out there claim to have such tools, and they are selling them.

I believe the answer to making change management one of the key enablers of successful project/program implementations lies in engaging and educating Program and Project Managers so that they can leverage and adapt change management tools and frameworks to address the challenges they face. In large or complex programs/projects, it is likely that there will be the need for a full-time role (or a full-time team) that is solely focused on change management. If project leaders and sponsors have a better grasp of the field they can better assess the work of the resources they have dedicated to managing change and preparing the ground work that enables a successful implementation.

Over the next few months, my goal is to hopefully engage other practitioners, especially front line practitioners and project managers who struggle with identifying and addressing business/operational/organizational change-related challenges. I hope we can identify pain points and potential solutions, while understanding that when it comes to organizational change, one size never fits all but (1) some of the most common problems can be identified early so that solutions can be devised before risks become big issues, and (2) tools or approaches that were successfully used in the past can be adapted so that they help others address somewhat similar challenges.

Your thoughts?

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.