Change Management is a journey. Understanding the root cause of change and building a comprehensive plan is essential. Keeping change alive and on track is more difficult than simply stating the goal. It may seem counterintuitive but change is not self-sustaining. A plan that is equal parts roadmap, process, technology and systems with well-developed communication themes is necessary. It needs to be nurtured with active support and management guidance. If that weren’t the case, incumbents would always be re-elected.

1. Change Management for
Project Managers
A Journey Planner
October 2013
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2. This proposal is protected under the copyright laws of the United States and other
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permission of LERNER Consulting, llc is prohibited.
2011 LERNER Consulting, llc (unpublished).
All rights reserved.
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3. Overview
• Arguably the two greatest inventions of the 20th century
were
– Management
– Globalization
• Management enabled us to run businesses in multiple
locations and geographies
• Globalization changed the way we interact, purchase
and think about Supply Chains
• Technology comes into play and is successful because
of the role it plays as a change agent
• These are the catalysts to “Projects” and the change they
create
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4. Overview
• Project managers are often the greatest
catalysts for change
• Yet they are split or conflicted as to their
responsibility
• Change activities must go hand-in-hand
with Delivery elements
– Run them in parallel
• Not all projects are right for a full Change
Management program
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5. “It is good to have an end to
journey toward; but it is the
journey that matters, in the
end.”
Ernest
Hemingway
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6. JCPenney “An Unexpected Journey”
•
Johnson not addressing anyone in
particular
•
Those in charge of communication
(middle managers, PR, Marketing)
removed before a new strategy was put
in place
Media is highly critical but no
responses from management
“Lurching” within the strategy
•
•
•
Think of yourselves as the CEO of your
project
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7. A Journey, not a Destination
• Change Management starts at the beginning of a project
– It needs to happen throughout the project and measured for effectiveness
– If you bring it in during the project, you must overcome
• Objections
• Habits that have already formed
• The Status Quo
• Listen
– “I don’t know what’s going on but what I hear isn’t good”
– “I thought you meant…”
• It important to use what you pick up and learn along the way
• Needs change, events happen, priorities shift
– Having a route to your destination allows for course corrections
• The problem with JCPenney’s change was not setting the expectation
of shoppers
– Worked for Apple stores because technology is change
– Clothing is not
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8. Growth vs. Transformation
• There are two fundamental types of change
management projects
– Growth
– Transformation
• Growth
– Adds to the way we are doing things
• Transformation
– Change the way we are doing something in holistic fashion
• Both require resetting of expectations
– Inform and mange your stakeholders, team and end-users
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9. Change via Constructive Disruption
• Start with the root cause of the change
• Technology projects are generally disruptive
in nature.
– They break the status quo in order to enable
advances
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10. What is Constructive Disruption?
Disruption brings about the often-needed
transformation in organizations that ask
why the status quo isn’t achieving their
goals. Constructive is the well-laid out
journey to growth or transformation.
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11. Change Enabled by Constructive Disruption
• Uncover
– Discover without trying to understand
• Examine
– Take apart and understand the need
• Prepare
– Develop a solution and material that
supports the need
• Satisfy
– Present the solution to the need
• Active/Passive Learning
– Supporting process through
knowledge acquisition
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12. Phase I – Uncovering the need
• What’s the motivation behind the change?
• It’s almost never technology. Inspect
– People
– Process
– (Operational) Systems
• Healthcare Exchanges
• Loan Origination
– Economic
• Can you identify the themes?
– Regulatory or compliance needs
– “We need to grow market share”
– “Too much waste in our product development initiatives”
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13. Journey Planner
•
Assess
– Understand environment (People, process, behaviors, beliefs)
– What is influencing and creating the need?
– What are analogies from like problems in other areas?
– How does the organization behave under change?
•
Observe
– Listen
“Don’t arrive before you get there”
Lesson #26
– Question
– Interact (Be here; now)
•
Organize
– Develop a vocabulary
– Create a matrix of what was uncovered
– Build a Semantic Map of opinions, beliefs with examples
– What is unexplored?
– What don’t you know?
•
Don’t make any judgments, yet
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14. Change Assessment
• Review outstanding cultural issues with members of the Management
team
• Conduct Skill vs. Will assessments
• Interview project participants to understand their perspective
• Identify change agents and candidates for re-purposing amongst the
groups
– Work with them to understand and address cultural issues
• Develop action plans to address the issues
• Place emphasis on those areas felt to be most at risk through
– communications,
– training,
– tangible performance metrics,
– incentives
– and penalties.
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15. Skill vs. Will
• Ask “Who?” early on
• Get to know all the users involved in
change
– Think about it like jury selection
• Identify the “WIFM”
– “What’s in it for me”
• Don’t under estimate emotional
investment or intelligence
• Understand user sentiment
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16. Help Users: “Where do I fit in?”
• Change is the New Normal
• People want to know how they remain relevant
– Penney’s employees didn’t know where they fit in the
new order
– Customers were confused
– Inadequate communication and communication
mechanisms to the new customers
• Help the users with “Where do I fit in?”
– Audience engagement – Empower, guide and reward
– Training
– Role re/definition
– Timing
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17. Deploy Your Change Agents
• Deploy Change Agents to work on
– Socializing awareness and promoting change
– Encourage behaviors that support new systems
– Gaining a breakthrough in knowledge
– Alter the current mode of thinking
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18. Chaos Group Then/Now:
Drivers of #FAIL and Success*
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Lack of User Input
Incomplete Requirements
Changing Requirements
Lack of Executive Support
Technology Incompetence
Lack of Resources
Unrealistic Expectations
Unclear Objectives
9. Unrealistic Time Frames
10. New Technology
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Direct User Input
Prioritized Requirements
Aligned Requirements
Clear Executive Support
The Right Technical Skills
Effective Resourcing
Aligned Expectations
Aligned Objectives
9. Credible Delivery Plan
10. Current Technical Skills,
Architectures and Frameworks
*The
Standish
Group
1994,
2004
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19. Another Standish Group Slide
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20. Develop a Semantic Map
Early stage company
– Well-funded
– Social Media Company
– Well known CEO
– Team leaders with deep domain experience
What the CEO said
What the Team said
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21. Root Cause Analysis for Change
•
Start with Process Maps at Level 1 or 2
– Define business needs and handoffs
between functional units
•
“Run the business” – Level 3 and Level
4 maps
– Define responsibility at the individual
role level
•
Identify how specific business
processes will be integrated near and
long term
1. Help improve communication and
understanding
2. Define hand-offs between groups
3. Define roles and responsibilities of the
groups during project initiation phase
Best practice: 90% Process 10% Common Sense
4. Define workflows
5. Indicate control points, where
applicable
Identify the
groups involved
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22. Phase II – Examine
•
Analyze
–
Take apart and categorize
–
Discover elements (reduce simplest form)
•
•
Properties
•
–
Methods
Attributes
Discover relationships in simplest form
•
Isolate and address issues
•
Re-organize
–
–
•
Refine vocabulary and system of classification (taxonomy)
Refine relationship map (semantic map)
Exercise parts of the need
–
–
Example consistency in context of larger scope
–
Examine outcomes
–
•
Examine for consistency in statements, processes and elements (are they in simplest form possible) in context of
problem statement
Observe and record
Research
–
Find related or useful data, information and beliefs
–
Find related and undiscovered parts of the need
–
Combine with data/elements previously discovered
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23. “Influence Only” Change
• Have specific examples to
discuss
• Make it about the numbers
• Demonstrate sensitivity
• Work backwards from dates and
milestones
• Behavior change is a lot like
marketing
Themes&heard&most&o,en&
We’re&like&three&different&
companies&
We&have&no&direc7on&from&
execu7ve&leadership&
Priori7es&change&almost&daily&
We&have&no&technical&direc7on&
I&love&this&company&and&its&poten7al&
– It requires reinforcement
– Frequent messaging
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24. Mapping The Change Journey
•
Develop a set of internal themes for communicating the reasons and
measurements for change
•
•
All communications should be based and revolve around these central themes
Identify three to five core measurements by which everything is driven. Sample:
1. Reduction of defects –> Reduce/remove business impact of defects in Production
2. Overall productivity improvements in SDLC = Improvements in Development + QA
3. Improved responsiveness to business needs
4. Measurably better use of IT resources
5. Process improvements
•
•
Identify different stakeholder and ‘at-risk’ groups and develop tailored messages
Utilize multi-modal communications (presentations, meetings, memos, website,
FAQs)
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25. Mapping The Change Journey
•
There cannot be enough communication in a major change program
– One of the biggest problems is ensuring an adequate amount of communications
•
Make sure that communications are always two-way
– Listen to the feedback and loop it back into the process
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26. Engineer Success
• What are the metrics?
• Make the metrics SMARRT
– Specific – Identify very well-defined measurements
– Measureable – If you cannot measure, you cannot manage
– Reasonable – It must be within the capabilities and reach of the team
– Reliable – Are the metrics persistent?
– Timely – Pick a frequency (monthly) that’s appropriate (monthly)
• Engage your Change Agents
• Improve your hindsight 20/20. Six months after we go live
– Finish this statement “I am glad we did this for the following reasons”
• 1
• 2
• 3
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27. Demand
Planning
Release 1
As Required
Feature n3
Architecture
5
Architecture
n1
Emergency Release
(on standby)
Developers,
Analysts and
Tester
Developers,
Analysts and
Tester
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Developers,
Analysts and
Tester
User Stories
Architects,
Analysts and
Tester
Delivery
Coach
Product
Owner
Feature6
Architecture
4
NFRs/Security
Feature n2
User Stories
Release
Manager(s)
Feature n1
Feature5
Feature3
Architecture
3
Release n
Feature4
Feature2
Architecture
2
Architect
Roadmap
Release 2
Feature1
Technical Stories
Product
Backlog
Product Owner(s)
Architecture
Portfolio
Objective
Feature/Function
Program/Release
Design
Pattern
Release 0
Agile Teams
Framework
Architecture
1
Business
Priorities
Business Vision
User Stories
Program
Backlog
Compliance/
Regulatory
Planning
Business
Owners
Business
Value
Business
Portfolio
Agile Portfolio Model
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28. Other Components of Change
• Tie the change initiative to the tangible
– “Greater Good” isn’t enough
– People want to see you/us succeed
• Don’t problem solve alone
– Fix the process not the steps
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29. Engaging others in the Journey
Keeping change alive and on track is more difficult than simply stating the goal. It may
seem counterintuitive but change is not self-sustaining. A plan that is equal parts roadmap,
process, technology and systems with well-developed communication themes is necessary.
It needs to be nurtured with active support and management guidance. If that weren’t the
case, incumbents would always be re-elected.
•
Take the time to do your journey planning first and completely.
– While there may be detours in the road, a well thought out plan helps you to
journey’s end
•
Create a set of external themed communications and have all of your plans
driven from there
•
From those themes identify five key metrics to judge success. If you cannot
do that you will never know how close you are to journey’s end
•
Today’s employees use many modes of communication!
– Mirror them with websites, brown bag lunches,
– FAQs
– Internal tweet(s)-of-the-day
•
Identify different stakeholder and ‘at-risk’ groups and develop tailored
messages
– All stakeholders must have “a seat at the table.” Ensure you know who they are
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30. Lessons Learned from Change Management
•
•
•
•
The journey is more important than the destination
Bad decisions can be reversed, slow decisions sow doubt
Know how your corporate culture thrives during change
Be firm but not aggressive
– When push comes to shove, management must be willing to
step in and do what’s necessary
• Be sensitive to middle management, they have it coming
from both sides
• Mean what you say, say what you mean
• Say it all or not at all
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31. Thank You!
Lawrence I Lerner, President
LERNER Consulting
lawrence@revolutionaryinnovator.com
+1.630.248.0663
@RevInnovator
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32. exc ellence .perspective.innov ati on.