Successful Management Of Change Programmes (April 2007)

Successful Management of Programmes
An Introduction

Change Management – introduction
This presentation is designed to introduce the management of change within large, complex programmes
Topics covered:

Why manage change at all?
Being successful at change
Overcoming common problems
The change project lifecycle

Why manage change at all?
The purpose of change is to solve business problems and deliverbenefits to the organisation e.g.
Reduced costs
Increased revenues
Increased profits & increased shareholder value
Move ahead of the competition
Delivery of a system (or any other type of business change) without achieving any benefits to the organisation is not a successful change

Change is rarely one-dimensional
Rarely does a solution only involve one aspect of the organisation.
To deliver the benefits, many associated changes may need to defined and implemented.
Define new strategic direction
Change behaviours
Change skills base
Change sourcing strategy
Business Solution
(A combination of these – one is rarely enough)
Introduce new technology
Business problem
Define new processes
Restructure
Introduce new products
Refresh Management Team
Even the introduction of a new system may involve the definition of new processes, changes in skills and changes in behaviours to deliver the benefits that the business needs.

Some common problems with change projects
Business fit
No-one wanted to use it
It didn’t work the way we needed it too
No one could make their mind up what they wanted.
What we got was not what I asked for.
Governance
It cost much more than planned and was very late.
It got out of control and we stopped it.
The scope implemented was much less than scope we set out with.
It did not deliver the benefits….
Some 75% of projects fail to deliver against original targets1
1 Source Gartner, 2002

How To Ensure Success – the Do’s
1. Programme Governance
Strong Programme Management
Create a focused strategy for change, prioritised on economic benefits for the business; base the strategy on objective analysis rather than on the sum of current management opinion; suspend/restrict current “pet” projects.
Employ strong project management and work to a recognised project lifecycle.
Install project teams with the right balance of change experience and business knowledge.
Create a structured approach to change programmes; insist the structure is followed.
Commit your people to agreements which incentivise completion to time, within cost, and to agreed (benefit-based) deliverables.
Manage interfaces and work across functional boundaries – especially when using enterprise solutions.
Leadership & vision
Ensure strong and visible sponsorship from the appropriate director(s).
Create a compelling vision for the future
2. Proactive benefits realisation
Focus on a benefits led solution with measurable outcomes – define success.
Create a benefits realisation plan, linked to a feasible roll-out arrangement.

3. Business Engagement
Structured Communication
Establish a well structured, focused communication strategy with appropriate interventions at all stages of the project lifecycle.
Constantly review communications for effectiveness.
Create Ownership
Ensure there is sufficient business input at all stages.
Enable the business to participate actively in the design – create a core design team
Manage Stakeholders
Know who’s affected and how it will affect them.
Set expectations appropriately.
Involve every layer – create a network of committed champions, as well as local transition teams, to extend the programme team’s work

4. Align the Solution
Develop a total solution – define a robust technology solution that considers and works with people, organisation, process and culture.
Technology must be aligned to business needs and the design must be accessible to the business (interactive/RAD).
Select the correct solution by considering all of the options.
Ensure both the IT and HR Departments are aligned and engaged; create joint budgetary control between Change Programme and IT/HR spend.
5. Embed the change
Embedding change requires people to consistently and permanently adopt new practices, behaviours, skills or capability
Embedding takes time - prepare for an on-going cycle of development
Prepare people for the change and support them through the change – make training appropriate and timely
Follow up – re-align employees’ KRAs and KPIs measures to desired performance

How to Ensure Success – the Don’ts
Focus on the technology and ignore the people that will use it
Hope that staff will make the solution work, even if it isn’t up to the job
Over communicate when there is nothing to say
Assume people will find out what is happening and when
Forget the business until it’s time to implement the system
Put inexperienced staff in project leadership roles
Forget to plan and cost for resources in the business for essential preparation activities such as data migration, testing, pilots etc.
Cave in to constant changes
Allow the scope to creep
Fail to review the programme in the light of emerging findings, economics, changing market conditions.
Disband successful change teams and discard methodologies; ignore the necessity to build and maintain effective change capability.

The key activities

Programme Governance: Strong programme management
Work to a recognised project lifecycle
Projects & programmes are high risk activities – prepare for risk
Change is the biggest and most disruptive risk of all – change must be resisted where possible and managed in a structured way where absolutely necessary
Create baselines and manage changes in performance against them
Use an honest and appropriate reporting process that shows progress, milestones, risks & issues
Regularly report status of anticipated benefits and how they are being realised
Log and control all inter-dependencies
Experienced project team

The team must be led by experienced Project Professionals - resist using too many rising stars from the business in lead roles.
The team should have significant representation from the Business Units affected to provide current business knowledge, ensure solutions fit to the business and to become experts in the new solution.
The team needs to be augmented with change professionals to ensure the project really changes the business
Ensure the team has strong project management skills with project management disciplines such as Base-lining, Process Mapping, Business Case preparation, Planning, Risk Management, Reporting and Cost Control

Programme Governance: Leadership and vision
Sponsorship should be strong and visible from an appropriate Director
Director who manages the Business Unit; usually Board Director or CEO
Directors must commit to agreed changes to their businesses; If the Director is not passionate about change then DO NOT DO IT
Director must ‘WALK THE TALK’ .
Director must find time to provide guidance to team, lead communications activity and manage key stakeholders.
Staff take their lead from the top – if passionate and articulate they will follow.
Senior Management Support
Support from Senior Management will be critical – especially with regard to the business case and ensuring continuity of the programme
Gain support to secure involvement of critical business resources
Compelling vision
The programme needs a vision that is compelling for the business
The vision has to be clearly and simply articulated
The programme should have a common picture that can be understood by all

Proactive benefits realisation
Identify benefits from the beginning

Clear business objectives and outcomes for the programme should be identified from the start
Use root cause analysis to help identify possible benefits and link elements of the solution to solving root causes
Ensure all solution elements are linked to specific benefits

Develop a realistic approach to measuring benefits

Identify measures to prove/disprove benefits; keep it simple where possible - don’t make KPI measurement into a cottage industry.
Determine when to start collecting data – baseline measures before implementation
Collect performance data at an appropriate time after implementation – don’t expect all benefits immediately

Benefits driven solution

Any activity not linked to benefits should be stopped
Any change requests must also pass this test

Business Engagement: Structured Communication
Manage a well structured Communications Strategy & Plan
All affected staff must know what is happening and be prepared for change – no-one likes surprises, or being told to commit significant efforts without justification.
Staff must be enthused to support what’s happening. This comes from providing a vision and clear leadership as well as from good communication.
Know the audience and have clear, simple objectives for every communication.
Plan communication in advance and keep up the momentum
Co-ordinate simple messages using a variety of communication channels. The more impact the message has on the audience, the more personal the communication should be. Examples include:
Articles in staff magazines
Web site on company intranet
News Sheets/Fact sheets
Cascade packs
1:1 briefings for senior staff
Road Shows/Fairs
Technology demonstrations
Craft the communications to the effect you are trying to achieve within the programme life cycle; – timing is everything
Your people need facts and guidance, not high-level platitudes or vacuous repetition.
Continually review communications and adapt the plan throughout the programme

Business Engagement: Create Ownership
Significant input is required from the business at all stages
The solution must be owned by the business – otherwise it won’t be used nor the benefits fully achieved
Appropriate staff members must have input to the solution design – use the best and well respected staff to help shape the solution – the core design team
Empower core team members to be able to make informed choices – ensure they can understand the impact of any choices they make, especially if it involves technology
Widen the numbers of people involved through review teams – use them to review the design and test for robustness
Walk through the solution design with all affected staff – allow them to ask questions and understand fully what the impact will be

Business Engagement: Manage stakeholders
Know who the stakeholders are
Who will be affected by the change and how will the change may affect them
Establish early where the cultural hurdles lie (Know whether they are positive, neutral or negative towards the change)
Manage expectations
Be realistic and truthful about what the change will involve,.
Air difficult subjects early especially in terms of large changes in job content and headcount reduction/migration– it gives people time to adjust. If swept under the carpet it becomes a bigger problem later
Build a network of people to help with the change
Identify ‘champions’ for change across the business – they will extend the reach of the programme team
Identify local transition teams
Make them an extension of the project team, who share intimate knowledge of the solution

Align the solution
Designing technology is very difficult and detailed

Visualising the client need is challenging for IT staff.
Understanding what the designers are saying is challenging for business staff.
Actively seek out “hybrid” skills to manage the interface between the Business and Technology Change Teams.

Avoid written specifications for Business users

Start by articulating business process and mock this up in the system.
Use an interactive process.
Go round the loop 2 or 3 times.

Avoid bespoking

Use packages wherever possible & resist changing them.

In a large programme deliver useful functionality regularly in a sequenced roll-out plan.

Do not wait 5 years for a big bang
Allows time to ensure solutions can work
Allows lessons to be learnt
Releases benefits more effectively by taking into account the rate at which the workforce can absorb change.

Embedding the change
Change needs to be embedded to achieve the benefits

The toughest challenge may be the organisational and behavioural change to your workforce.

This means:-
Headcount reduction; ensuring the “leavers” area as far as possible the ones you want to shed
Transformation (often radical) of job content and skill requirements, particularly at supervisory level. This implies re-selection of managers.
Documentation and consistency of job descriptions, KRAs, KPIs with heavy reliance on your HR function.
A tough series of decisions from your Directors and senior managers.

Use a maturity model to determine what capability is required for functions or processes.

Develop a route map to build competence initially, develop capability over time and finally to aim for excellence
Plan reviews – test progress against the maturity model and route map

Cultural change needs to managed with resolve – management must lead by example

Embedding the Change
Provide support initially to help people ‘get it right’

Develop work instructions – work through how each job role can do their job with a new system in detail - this will help to reinforce good practice and avoid going back to old ways and old systems

Provide appropriate and timely training so that staff can use what they’ve learnt immediately
‘Floorwalkers’ provide on the spot help in the early days of implementation to avoid frustration
Use coaching to praise new behaviours observed and to address old behaviours

Provide adequate IT and process support

A typical Change Project Lifecycle

Contact
TIPS Consulting Ltd
Hamilton House
Mabledon Place
Bloomsbury
London
WC1H 9BB
Tel - +44 (0) 207 554 8637
Fax - +44 (0) 207 554 8501
Web – www.tipsconsulting.co.uk