Change Management: necessity or yet another check box?
Many managers are unaware (or chose not to be aware), but the more closely connected change management planning is with project planning, the greater the chances that your project will:
- meet its objectives
- stay on schedule
- stay on budget
Unfortunately many projects are put into jeopardy because we fail to start change management planning early enough - or not at all.
‘Change Management’ is what, exactly?
Change Management is about creating awareness around the overall transformation process: identifying job roles impacted, defining future skills and competencies for employees, developing coaching and mentoring strategies for front-line supervisors, executing change work plans, engaging employees in the change design process, and gathering feedback on the change. It is also about adapting change management plans as necessary, coaching sponsors and training employees. Change is a process that helps move an organization to its desired state, yet recognizes that not everyone in the organization changes at the same pace.
Major change initiatives happen all the time
Change in an organization can come about for any number of reasons - downsizing; mergers; department and company reorganizations; reengineering, management by objectives and matrix management; new compensation programs; implementing a strategic planning process; implementing new technology and software packages; doubling production productivity; relocating facilities; adopting new appraisal processes; and changing work requirements, including doing more with fewer resources, to name but a few.
Change Management vis-à-vis Project Management
To ensure a successful implementation that is on time and within scope and budget, projects of these sorts are naturally undertaken as comprehensive and detailed project management initiatives. However, project management represents the technical side of change. The personal energy/time required for success, which represents the people side of change, is often underestimated or avoided. Upper management makes statements, forms task forces, and waits for the change to rollout. Lower levels do what is forced and wait it out.
Project Managers embrace Change Management?
In my experiences working on various projects with the Government of Canada, many change interventions prescribed for a department or agency come from outside groups such as the Treasury Board Secretariator in the form of recommendations to be implemented following a study or review. Few individuals inside the department or agency psychologically own the solution and "walk the talk".
Recent best practice studiessuggest that project teams are more or less evenly split between those who feel that change management is either critical or necessary, and those who feel that change management is just another activity or a nuisance with no value.
It has been our experience that the odds of project success are significantly increased when:
- Project Management and Change Management processes are seamlessly integrated;
- Senior leaders connected to the project have experience with, or knowledge of, change management;
- Project mangers recognize the importance of change management and support its inclusion in the project;
- The organization has previous experience with changes where the people side of change was either effectively managed or ineffectively managed; and,
- Change management activities were incorporated into the launch of the project.
So, do you routinely include Change Management in your project plans or do you think it is just another required activity with little or no value? Are there examples where the “people” component of a project is inconsequential to the ultimate outcome?
A senior consultant with Delta Partners, Allen has successfully managed an assortment of projects in several Departments of the Government of Canada, covering a range of issues in organizational management, project management, change management, and organizational development. See his full profile on LinkedIn.
