Change management
You will find many definitions of change management. My preferred definition is :
Change management is a series of processes and tools designed to support each individual in the organization throughout the transition from the current state to the future, desired state, in order to realise the expected business outcomes of a particular project.
As we all know, change is part of our personal and professional lives, and we also know that change does not happen on its own. To be successful, you have to thoughtfully plan, communicate, implement and sustain change.
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Organizations are usually very good at developing and deploying new IT solutions, designing new products, building new offices, etc. This is called Project Management. However, the people, who are the most important drivers of any change, are usually left on their own to understand and make sense of the change, creating unnecessary stress, anxiety, demotivation and even resistance to change.
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Change depends foremost on people. The earlier and more thoroughly the people across the organization are prepared, equipped and supported for change, the more they will embrace it and the more likely it is that change will succeed by reducing the time needed for the adoption of the solution, speed up the rate of adoption past the "tipping point" and maximise the proficiency with the solution.
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Research shows that change initiatives - more particularly, where the achieved change is substantially less than the expected value - have failures rates as high as 70% to 80% (King and Peterson, 2007).
However, some context needs to be taken into consideration when citing the 70%-80% rate of "failure". You can find this context in this excellent article from 2011 in Journal of Change Management by Mark Hughes describing where the 70% failure rate figure originated.
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According to Prosci® (2012), with its focus on project change management, the top 2 "lessons learnt" from previous change initiatives were both about preparation are :
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Get sponsors actively involved at an earlier stage (from the very start of the project).
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​Start change management activities as soon as possible, right from project initiation.
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For strategic changes projects, however, much of the research points to change management involvement from an even earlier point. Change management input can help executive leadership to think through the context and approach to change and its implications even before explicit projects are defined.
The change manager plays a role in ensuring change initiatives meet objectives on time and on budget by increasing employee adoption and usage. He focuses on the people side of change, including changes to business processes, systems and technology, job roles and organizational structures.
His primary responsibility is to create and implement change management strategies and plans to maximize employee adoption and usage and minimize resistance to change.
He works to drive faster adoption, higher ultimate utilization of, and proficiency with the changes that impact employees. These improvements increase benefit realization, value creation, ROI and the achievement of results and outcomes.
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While he may or may not have supervisory responsibility, he works with and through many others in the organization to succeed. He acts as a coach for senior leaders and executives and helps them fulfill the role of change sponsor.
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The change manager also provides direct support and coaching to middle- and line managers and as they support their direct reports throughout the transition.
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Finally, the change manager supports project management teams in integrating change management activities into their project plans.
Change managers
Do you want to lead your employees throughout their transition ?
Reach out to me to see how I can help your organization achieve successful and lasting change by :
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Identifying all of your organization's business outcomes it wants to achieve through this project
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Identifying all the stakeholders (internal and external) who will be impacted by this project
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Draw up a list of the resistances (active or passive, internal or eternal) that this project could generate
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Communicating to all your employees a clear strategic vision of this project and a planning of its impacts on the working processes
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Developing a people-focused communication plan (internal and external) for this project
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Identifying the metrics (time, budget, % of adoption, etc.) that will allow it to measure the progress of this project
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Establishing a catalogue of the skills and competencies that your employees and managers will need to allow them to successfully adopt and implement the new working processes
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Preparing a training plan to allow your employees and managers to acquire the above mentioned skills and competencies
Let's discuss your transition plan