Change Management, the "Metro Map Concept"

Change Management – “The Metro Map Concept”

Change Management
“The Metro Map Concept”

H. Brittmann, on Becoming a Manager 1


Preamble

During my many years of working in Fortune top 500 companies; I have been through my
share of reorganizations. Some went better than others, but I still lost two good jobs to
poorly managed processes. Not that I was made redundant, I am politically savvy and
therefore know how to render myself non-expendable, but more often than never, because I
was disagreeing either on the process followed or on the direction of the reorganization, I
had to pack my bags and leave. This, for a manager, is the honorable thing to do when you
find yourself at odds with the objectives of your employer; still it’s not very nice. This was
the starting point of my interest for change processes and change management.

Concerning the direction and rationale for reorganizations, I have nothing much to write.
When an organization grows apart from its business, it needs to take drastic measures to
recover and reorganization, or change processes, comes handy then. This won’t be the point
of this paper. What I find interesting is the change management activities associated with
these processes.

Often change management is merely seen as a by-product, a balancing exercise, or worse;
some executives seem to think that reorganization is change management since they are managers
changing organization charts, such an activity could be referred to as “change management”,
when really they are doing nothing more than playing musical chairs while listening to a little
corporate communication tune.

In this paper, I will explore a simple change management concept I call the “Metro Map”
concept. It doesn’t encompass the whole change management process, but it’s an interesting
approach to make change management an inclusive process.

What is common to Metro maps and Change management? Well, besides my interest for
change management, I also happen to be a worldwide traveler and I noticed that, whenever I
am in an unknown city, I always can find my way around provided that:
1. I know where I want to go.
2. I have a decent map showing me how to go there, and how not to go there
(This where the metro map is superior to any other map)

So, you start to see the concept? Give me another 8 pages and you’ll become quite an expert
at change management yourself.



Change Management Step #1 - Where are you going? (and Why?)
The obvious first step to do anything really is to figure out where you are going and having a
clear idea about how your destination looks like. Change processes aren’t different from that,
whether the change is about going from a divisional to a matrix organization, whether the
change is about selling services or products, whether the change is about accelerating
decision making. Making a positive change starts by identifying:
o A - What is the issue you are trying to solve?
o B - Where should you end up once the change has been completed successfully?
o (and while you’re at it) why are you doing this in first place?

You will note that I did not list “How are you going to get from A to B?”, because change
management is precisely about doing that; figuring what mode of transportation you will be
using and figuring out how this transportation system is supposed to be working after the
change.

This seems so terribly obvious that it pains me to be writing it, yet many business
consultants make fortunes just helping you with this straight forward question, and to give
them credit, very often this initial statement isn’t that obvious at all. For example, I was
involved in reorganization where the stated final objective of reorganization was to
accelerate decision making. All-in-all, not a bad ambition to have; faster decision making
means greater ability to react to customer demands, I can live with that. What made it
somewhat more difficult is what wasn’t stated:
- What type of decisions had to be accelerated?
- What was the current “speed” versus the desired “speed”?

This resulted in yet another musical chair exercise, where some functions were flattened,
others extended, but where fundamental issues such as an antiquated information system,
the lack of decision making ability at the lower levels were not addressed. The approach
chosen wasn’t based on the decision process but rather on a traditional organizational
concept. Top management congratulated themselves on a well executed strategic change and
no one bothered measuring our increased decision making “speed”; which was fortunate
since probably we would have found no acceleration whatsoever, or worse maybe,
deceleration due to lowered morale following the realization that nothing really had changed.

Change, big or small, is about taking a strategic decision. It’s serious and needs to be
analyzed as to define the environment, the destination, and the implications. These are
(some of) the elements that should be part of the corporate litany supporting the change
process. The obvious first step to change anything is to define the nature of the change, when
you don’t know where you’re going and why, any destination will do fine.



Change Management Step #2 – Time for a vacation!
So let’s assume that you are a strategic thinker and that know why you need to change and
have some concept of what the result of this change should look like; what should be your
next executive step?

I bet the most popular answer would be to figure out how the company will travel from A to
B? And that would be exactly the wrong answer! This is the very difference between trying
to change people and changing with people. In other words, like Peter de Jager would say:
“change is not what you do to people; it is what you do with people.”

When one starts getting involved in the implementation, then one starts changing people,
and people, us, we don’t like being changed. We like change alright, we learn new skills all
the time, we learn languages, we go on vacation to discover exotic places that will change us
from our ordinary gray mornings, we get married and have babies and those tend to change
our habits and relationships quite a bit, but what we do not like is when someone else starts
choosing our vacation spots, or when our parents decide who we should marry, or befriend.
For anyone to endorse change requires that this change is something we want or design
ourselves. So, the best thing to do once you have identified what needs to change and why,
is to hand the change process over to those who will have to change.

Figuratively speaking, it becomes the perfect time to go on vacation because that would
remove you from the change process, of course it is not an option as it would not necessarily
be understood by the rest of your group. Further, your people may need a little bit of
leadership in this time of change.

So how could you hand over the change process in a structured way?
Clearly state the reasons and the objective for the change – this should be understood at all
levels and by everyone. Corporate communication is generally in charge of this process, but I
find that face-to-face discussions, forums, and such are what work best. It is about showing
the reality to people and letting them reflect and comment on it for as long as necessary so
that they finally understand what’s going on, so that the reason for change becomes
undeniable. Different people, different type and magnitude of change will therefore require
different means and timeline of communication, because the email or quarterly meeting will
not get the message across to everyone in the same way in due time.

Once the necessity for the change and the picture of what it should look like is clear to
everyone, it is time to design the “Metro map”. The key element of this phase is to
encourage participation in order to make everyone part of the change. The way for a
manager to support this process is to provide the tools for figuring out how and what to
change, communication is one of the tools the “Metro map” concept is another.



Change Management Step #3 – Designing the “Metro Map”

Let’s start with the characteristics of a Metro map:
o It shows the starting point of a journey
o It shows the end point of a journey
o It shows the stations on the way
o It shows lines intersections leading to other modes of transportation.

How does that relate to an organization, function, or department? Every process, every
decision can be drawn as a Metro Map.
o A process, a decision, an activity has a start and an end point.
o Metro stations are people, machines, and decision points.
o Some stations intersect several processes or involve several people.
o Some stations link to other processes outside of your organization (e.g. B2B).

CASE STUDY – CHANGING THE TRAINING DEPARTMENT
Let’s consider a department delivering classroom training to an organization. It has:
o 1 x training coordinator - Bob
o 1 x instructional designer - Marta
o 1 x trainer - Bill

You have realized that this training model does not function anymore for several reasons:
o Most of your staff is mobile and hardly present in the office.
o They are now getting information right on the spot using various mobile devices.
o You do not get enough ROI for your training operation.
o Bill and Marta are bottlenecks in the process because although they function well
together, the training requests you are receiving cover a broad range of topics, not all
of which are their specialty.

Step #1 – Map the current business process. If you’d ask them to draw their “Metro Map”
at this stage it would look something like that:



Bob Measure and communicate results

Bill Deliver training

Bob Schedule training

Bill Pilot material

Marta Create material

Marta Training needs analysis

Bob In: training request

As stated earlier the change process starts by knowing where you want to go. Where could
one want to go given this situation? Well, probably somewhere that looks like:
o Less cost
o Increased ROI
o Increased flexibility in training methods and subjects
o Faster customer response

Step #2 – Identify the change forces at work – You would have then to analyze what will
contribute positively to the change you want to implement and what will work against it, a
simple force field analysis would do fine:
Forces driving change Forces limiting change
Wide choice of technology → ← Poor IS support
Marta is quite versatile → ← Large staff
Direction is desired by many → ← Classroom mentality

Now you have a better grasp of the reality in which the change has to take place, next steps
consist in figuring out the way you could draw a “Metro Map” that delivers the benefits you
want to achieve taking in account the reality in which you live.

Step #3 – Remove the names from the map (it’s tough to consider that removing the
delivery step will pretty much remove Bill’s job…).

Step #4 – Analyze the current process in the light of the stated objectives, the characteristics
of the process are that:
o There are many steps synonymous of slow customer response
o The process is linear and cannot accommodate a lot of requests at once
o Measurement is not necessarily effective as Bob doesn’t necessarily know what to
look for
o It’s inflexible offering a single training method (classroom)

Step #5 – Figure out what changes are necessary to comply with the change targets; there
are many possibilities; one that comes to mind would look something like this:



Measure and communicate results

Delivers training

Schedule training Create Material (as necessary)

Training needs analysis
+
Select training method / provider

In: training request

How does this new process support our objective?
- There are less steps = faster customer response
- (Once you put the names back on) there are less actors = less costs
- Measurement is linked back to training requirements = increased quality
- Several processes run in parallel = increased delivery ability
- Using external providers = new delivery methods and limited use of internal IS.

This change can be measured against new performance criteria (time to market, total cost of
delivery, number of deliveries, type of delivery, and so on).

Now comes the difficult moment to put names back on the map, and consider the human
aspects of the change, which could look something like this:

(Marta)
Measure and communicate results

(External)
Delivers training

Schedule training Create Material (as necessary)
(Bob) (External)

Training needs analysis
(Marta) +
Select training method / provider

(Bob)
In: training request

The way you put back the names on the map depends highly on the company culture and
change process. Contemplating a possible redundancy requires a very high level of maturity.



In the most efficient process I have observed so far, the company executives had defined
key positions. People at these stations were declared indispensable and excluded from the
reorganization process (I was one of them which gave me a strong sense of being valued),
others got the possibility to apply for any “open” job in the new organization (including
theirs). At the same time, redundancy packages, outplacement efforts, and training programs
were launched to support everyone in continuing their jobs, moving into a new role inside
the company, or possibly outside. This was conducted with intense communication at all
levels, and a clear and respected timeline. I’m not sure what the people who lost their job
thought of it, but I thought it was respectful, clear, and as humane as it possibly could be.

Independently of the method chosen, Bill has lost his job to the reorganization and it will
not be easy to make him see the bring side of the picture. The only thing to do is to support
the process with open communication and active support for those who will leave, but also
for those who will stay. The only recipe for success is to treat everyone with respect, dignity,
and outmost professionalism.
WHAT TO MAP AND HOW TO MAP?
Anything that needs changing can and should be mapped:
- Business processes
- Decision making processes
- Information infrastructure
- and so on
What you should map are:
- Existing processes that will remain the same
- Existing processes that will change
- Existing processes that will be discontinued
- (and of course) New processes

Why is it important to map all this? It makes the change tangible for the people who stay, it
makes the change tangible for customers, and it highlights processes that could have fallen in
between the cracks. I was once called by a manufacturing company after a reorganization
which wanted to know how to get product training since the department providing it had
decided to discontinue this activity without transferring it or informing anyone of the
change.

Further the mapping is very simple, since Metro maps only using very few symbols:

This is a task, a person, or a decision.

This can be:
- An intersection of tasks or decisions
- A critical task or decision
- A person or function

This is the flow between two tasks or decisions in your process (use dashes for
external processes).

This is a discontinued process (for which you will indicate how it will be handled)



The only additional things you need are 3 colors (for internal, external, and discontinued
processes).

The advantage of this mapping technique is that it is accessible to everyone, and the results
are more understandable than the traditional business process drawings which before you
know it will look something like this:

Summary

After less than ten pages, we have covered quite a bit of ground. Change management starts
with a desire to change from something into something else. This requirement constitutes
the infamous change request at the starting point of the process. Any lack of clarity in the
reasons for changing, or the state to achieve as a result of the change will adversely impact all
your change management efforts, since as stated earlier: “when you don’t know where you’re going
any destination will do just fine”.

The second element of the process looks at current processes as well as drivers and
inhibitors standing in between you and your desired objective. This is the feasibility study
that can result in GO, NO-GO, or (most of the time) “let’s try it out, it’s going to hurt, but we
have no other choice…”

In the third stage is when we apply the “Metro Map Concept”. Where most traditional
change management approaches would go into change planning, we went into change
mapping with the idea that “change should be done with people, rather than to them”. This inclusive
practice is meant to reduce resistance and leverage drivers as much as possible. It also
clarifies which processes are going to continue, which ones are going to be discontinued, and
which ones will have to change making it easier to deploy supporting change management
activities (redundancy, training, counseling, and so forth) exactly where it is needed. It also
helps associates and customers alike understand what exactly has changed in the company.

Once the organization has figured out how to go from A to B in a way that is consistent
with the change requirements, then only would you go into the planning and execution,
which would now be greatly simplified having a change emerging from the company rather
than forced upon her.

The final stage consists in measuring, rewarding, and sustaining the change which are not
necessarily the most difficult part of this process.


Change Management, the "Metro Map Concept"

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