Successful Management Of Change Programmes Embedding Change (April 2007)

The Successful Management of Change Programmes Embedding Change

Embedding Change

This presentation is designed to provide a set of principles and guidelines for embedding change within large, complex programmes

Topics covered:

Why do we need to embed change?

Building competence: Preparing people for the change

Building competence: Supporting people through the change

Developing capability

Planning for excellence

Why do we need to embed change?

Embedding change requires people to consistently and permanently adopt new practices, behaviours, skills or capability

If the change is not embedded, old ways resurface. This undermines the vision and solution being implemented. Inefficiencies and ineffectiveness creep back in.

Benefits can only be achieved if the change ‘sticks’

Benefits cannot be achieved if only a few people adopt new ways. The whole organisation needs to adopt new practices.

Embedding change requires a long term approach – preparing, supporting and developing people throughout the change and beyond. This needs to be planned for and form a crucial part of the programme.

Principles for Embedding change

Understand what new practices, behaviours, skills and competence is required for achieve the benefits. Know what the changes are and develop a plan to address the changes.

Prepare a long term plan. Don’t expect people people to immediately adopt new ways.

Plan for incremental changes, review progress and revise the plan if required.

Aim for basic competence initially; then develop capability and finally plan for excellence.

Prepare and Support the people through the change to develop their individual competence.

Develop people beyond the change to develop the organisation’s capability.

Consolidate, refine and improve to achieve excellence.

Build activities to prepare, support and develop people into the overall programme plan. Spend as much effort on this as systems development.

Be realistic about how mature the organisation is in terms of capability and plan accordingly.

Preparing people for the change Supporting people through the change Plan for excellence Building Competence Develop capability

Preparing people for the change: Guidelines

Ensure, through the communications plan, that people know about the change – what is happening and when.

Brief people ahead of time about the details of the change. Brief them before the training so the training is a consolidation of their knowledge. This will help to increase their competence.

Plan training and time it so it happens just before ‘go-live’. Information learnt and put into practice immediately is retained for longer.

Organise training by role. Training will be more effective if it is pertinent to someone’s job. Train on the system and new process at the same time.

Provide reference material. Handy reference guides (how to prepare reports, navigate screens etc.), flyers and well structured brochures will be easy reminders when people first use the system. Also provide more detailed material (such as training manuals) for reference when people are more competent.

Prepare day 1 pack. Give people everything they need to know to get started on day 1.

Supporting people during the change: Guidelines

Don’t expect people will remember everything they have been taught – expect teething problems. Plan and cost the provision of support resources during the change.

Queries may be about the system, new ways of doing things, exceptions not discussed in training. Provide system and business support.

Queries or issues unanswered, especially if work volumes are high provide a perfect opportunity to revert to old ways just to get the job done. Provide immediate and visible access to people who can help – floorwalkers.

Train the Local User Representatives, Champions and floor walkers first. Equip them to become ‘super users’ ready to answer questions about the system operation, new practices and business related questions.

Have a dedicated telephone hotline and have the project team on hand to help with any project questions and to support the floorwalking team.

Plan and cost for steady state support. Provide an IT helpdesk, business and systems expert and on-going supplier support.

Developing capability: Guidelines

Identify base practices in the organisation (these could be against functions or processes).

Use a maturity model to determine what level of maturity is required in the future for each base practice

Establish the organisation’s current capability & maturity in performing base practices.

Develop a route map to show how capability will mature.

Build the desired competency into a competency framework- map the skills and competence required for every role.

Assess staff against the competency framework and produce clear development plans.

A llow time for the solution to ‘bed’ in before starting development plans . T he first few months of any new system deployment will be chaotic until operation of new systems and processes are automatic.

Competence Framework - Maturity levels Process continuously improved based on quantitative feedback in pursuit of defined performance improvement targets. Continuously improving (optimising) 5 Quantitatively managed and controlled (predictable) Well defined Planned and tracked / managed Performed informally (Initial) Not performed Description Measured goals established for each process and associated work products. Detailed measures of performance are collected and analysed. 4 Base practices performed to corporate standards throughout the organisation using approved, tailored standards and documented processes. 3 Performance of the base practices is planned and managed. People are trained to perform the processes, and performance is measured and tracked. Process is repeatable, but not necessarily across the organisation. 2 Performance of the base practices is dependent on the knowledge and efforts of individuals (heroes). Successes are not repeatable by others. 1 Base practices are not performed by the organisation 0 Characteristics Maturity Level

Assessing Maturity in Base Practices Functions Estimating & Cost Analysis Planning Risk Cost 0 Not performed 1 Performed informally 3 Well defined 4 Quantitatively managed 5 Continuously improving 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 1 0 1 We are organised around a set of key Functions. Each Function performs a set of base practices which are essential for excellent performance. 2 Planned & tracked 2 2 2 2 Our capability & maturity in performing each base practice can be measured on a maturity level scale. This profile can be assembled for either a function or a process area. Maturity level Base practices Validate 3 rd party cost estimates Obtain cost data Define Work Items Use Standard Breakdown Structures Produce Project Cost Estimate Collect cost feedback information Identify cost drivers EST01 EST02 EST04 EST05 EST06 EST07 EST03

Worked example: Maturity levels for producing estimates Assumption : a base practice for ‘Plan, schedule & cost’ is the ‘preparation of a cost estimate’’

Tolerance limits established for each class of estimate

Performance analysed, and process improved such that confidence limits narrow over time

All projects use the defined process to produce estimates to the defined standards. Out-turn is compared to estimate and reasons for variance analysed. Standard for estimates is defined, some projects produce estimates to the required standard Some projects have approved estimates, usually from specific estimating managers / investment boards Projects do not have approved estimates Characteristic

% of estimates within target tolerance for estimate class

trends in confidence limits for estimates at each level.

4 & 5 trends in estimating accuracy 3 % projects with compliant estimate 2 % projects with approved estimate 1 0 Measure Level

Developing People Using Competency Frameworks Create a model competency for each role based on Competency framework for base practices Measure existing performance against required performance Identify training / development needs Undertake development Identify career aspirations and identify skills requirements from models Appropriately skilled staff Clear Development Path Review progress Competent & Capable Organisation

Planning for Excellence: Guidelines