Insight on Coaching
Successful Technology Implementations Transcript
Prepared for: Prepared by:
IEC: Insight Ubiqus Reporting
Educational
Consulting

Time Speaker Transcript
0:30 Tom Floyd Hello everyone and welcome to Insight on Coaching.
Insight on Coaching explores the many facets, flavors, and sides of the emerging
professional coaching field.
I’m Tom Floyd, the CEO of Insight Educational Consulting and your host for today’s
show.
Well Today’s show focuses on how coaching can help to ensure a successful
technology implementation or rollout.
You’ll learn how professional coaching can help individuals at all levels within an
organization during an implementation from anticipating obstacles and removing
barriers to communicating the benefits of change and staging the actual launch.
So let’s set the stage – when we say large scale technology implementation – what
are we talking about? For the sake of today’s show, when we say technology
implementation or software rollout, we’re talking about enterprise applications
including, but not limited to:
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
HR Software
Marketing Resource Management (MRM) software
eBusiness
Business Intelligence
Medical software
Retail software
Let’s look at some data our research team pulled up through a few quick searches, in
terms of general challenges companies tend to experience when rollout out a large
application like one of the ones we just mentioned.
One article our team looked at was within the IT Toolbox, and it was related to a blog.
Based on respondents' responses to a survey the IT Toolbox folks sent, lack of
employee buy-in is the biggest problem facing ERP project teams. 38% found this to
be the most challenging issue.
A large group also found lack of ERP expertise to be the biggest problem (33%),
while 19% identified a lack of project resources. Only 10% indicated that lack of
project budget is their biggest problem.
Perhaps the most surprising result is related to executive buy-in. Not a single
respondent identified executive support as their biggest challenge.
Our research team also found some data on CIO.com related to CRM rollouts, and in
terms of challenges some included:
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Relying on CRM when it is not the right tool for the job.
Counting on the software alone to produce value, rather than using the
technology solution to support a sound, market-driven strategy.
Counting on a CRM package to deliver results \"out-of-the-box.\"
Neglecting to integrate CRM throughout the business processes.
Failing to segment customer data effectively - that is, seeking a \"360 degree
view\" of the customer, when the majority of the benefit may stem from just a
small portion of the data collected.
Additionally, there was an article on Computer World that talked about some of the
challenges with open source software applications, and many of these challenges
seemed to be more technical in nature, related to:
Support availability
Functional limitations of the software
Software license terms
Rapid software release cycles
Package road maps or future plans
Now with my IEC consultant hat on, from my experience what I’ve found in managing
and consulting on enterprise rollouts, is that project planning and management
throughout the project, organizational change management upfront and throughout
the lifecycle of the project, and training throughout the organization prior to the
introduction of a new system as well as after it can definitely help in addressing many
of these issues.
But can coaching help to address any rollout challenges – especially from a human
or people perspective?
Well that’s the question of the day on today’s show, and we’ll be anxious to hear our
guests’ thoughts on the topic.
Let me give a quick overview of each of our three guests today.
Majid Abai is President/CEO of Seena Technology Corporation, an information
management consultancy located in Santa Monica, CA.
During the past 24 years, he has focused on providing enterprise IT & information
strategies as well as implementation of major business systems to Fortune 2000
organizations.
Majid coauthored “Data Strategy” book published by Addison-Wesley in 2005 to
provide a comprehensive roadmap in building a sound data strategy for
organizations. He has developed and teaches classes at the University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA).
Majid is a regular contributor to CIOupdate.com. He is continuously invited to consult
and lecture on various information management and enterprise architecture subjects
globally.
Welcome to the show Majid.
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6:20 Majid Abai Thank you.
6:21 Tom Floyd Our next guest is Susan Alvey.
Susan Alvey is an expert in organizational and leadership development.
She designs and delivers groundbreaking leadership development solutions for
corporate clients and works closely with executives to ensure that their leadership
capabilities support their business strategy.
As the head of organizational learning and development for Harvard Business School
Publishing from 2001 until 2006, Susan drove the learning and development efforts
for this multi-faceted publishing company.
She served as a Subject Matter Expert for Harvard Business School Publishing’s
eLearning programs on leadership and management development and is on the
Professional Development Review Board for Harvard Business School Publishing’s
eLearning products.
She also worked with HBSP corporate clients to develop and deliver on-site
management development programs.
Prior to her work at Harvard Business School Publishing, Susan served in various
positions at Tufts Health Plan, including Director of Organizational Learning and
Communication and Director of e-Commerce.
Other previous positions included Associate Professor of business at Endicott
College, consultant with Arthur D. Little, and staff consultant with the MITRE
Corporation.
Welcome to the show Susan.
7:27 Susan Alvey Thank you very much.
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7:28 Tom Floyd And last we have Jeremy Lurey.
Dr. Jeremy S. Lurey is the Founder and Principal of Plus Delta Consulting, LLC.
Dr. Lurey specializes in organization and leadership development and works closely
with his clients to manage large-scale organizational change initiatives.
With more than 12 years experience as a management consultant, he has worked
with clients ranging from small start-up operations to Fortune 100 corporations.
Dr. Lurey has particular expertise in transforming business processes, facilitating
executive and management development, and enhancing team performance.
Highlights from his experience include:
Leading several change management efforts to reduce employee resistance and
enable faster transition processes during SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, and other
systems implementation initiatives.
Designing and facilitating customized leadership development programs,
including one-on-one coaching and group workshops, to enhance senior
leadership skills and improve management team performance.
In addition to his work as a consultant, Dr. Lurey has written several publications on
organization development, leadership excellence, change management, and virtual
team effectiveness. Before establishing Plus Delta, he worked at both
PricewaterhouseCoopers and Andersen Consulting.
Welcome Jeremy.
8:41 Dr. Jeremy Thanks Tom, pleasure to be here.
Lurey
8:43 Tom Floyd Pleasure to have you.
Now today’s show is going to be a group discussion.
I’m going to pose questions to our guests as a panel to get the group’s thoughts, and
now that we’ve talked a little bit about what an enterprise or large-scale technology
implementation is I’d like to start by talking about what an implementation typically
looks like before we talk about how coaching can we used as an intervention during a
rollout.
So here’s my first question; what are the primary phases that the three of you see in
a large-scale technology rollout?
In other words what’s the lifecycle of a technology implementation look like?
Majid, let’s start with you.
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9:20 Majid Abai Thanks Tom.
The phases that I’ve thought about regarding this question typically are based on
Rational Unified Process.
A large implementation is broken down into four phases; phase I is called inception
where organizations basically decide that they’re going to go forward and they go
ahead and think about the process and the project that’s going to be taking off.
The second phase is called elaboration where they elaborate on basically the details
of the project.
The third one is considered construction when the actual system integration is taking
place.
And the last but certainly not least is transition where they do make the
implementation, they do transition, they work over and train users on what needs to
be done and how the system needs to be used.
10:22 Tom Floyd So that was inception, collaboration, construction, and transition?
10:26 Majid Abai Elaboration.
10:27 Tom Floyd Elaboration, got it.
10:29 Majid Abai Construction and transition.
10:30 Tom Floyd Okay, got it.
Susan is there anything that you would add to that?
10:34 Susan Alvey No, I think those phases I would definitely agree with and in a lot of situations that
I’ve been involved in the groups use kind of a project management theme through it
and define the project into or the program into different phases corresponding to what
project management might call them, so for example it might be planning to start with
which would include your sort of I think what Majid said is the inception process.
11:01 Tom Floyd Right.
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11:02 Susan Alvey Which defines scope and roles and business requirements and things like that, and
then move into design as the next phase, development for the actual creation of the
technology that’s involved, and then implementation which is the rollout and
involvement of stakeholders.
11:19 Tom Floyd Got it.
Well I’m hearing the commercial believe it or not for our first break so let’s go ahead
and go on pause for a second and when we return more on how coaching can be a
useful tool in doing large-scale rollouts, stay tuned.
14:05 Tom Floyd Welcome back to Insight on Coaching.
Well today’s show for those of you just joining us we’re talking about how coaching
can be an effective or useful intervention during large-scale technology rollouts, and
where we left off we were setting the stage and we were talking about some of the
primary phases during a large-scale rollout and one our guests, Majid, had defined
those as inception, elaboration, construction, and transition.
Another of our guests, Susan, was talking about how a lot of clients or organizations
can tie it more too standard project management phases as well such as planning
and implementation, planning design I should say, implementation things like that.
So kind of moving onto the next question is as we start to talk about coaching a little
bit one thing that I think all of us have probably heard is that systems implementation
efforts actually have a better chance of failing than succeeding.
I think a lot of us have probably seen that in action sometimes as well.
As guests from all of your perspectives do you find that that’s true as well?
Jeremy, what are some of your thoughts?
15:12 Dr. Jeremy Absolutely Tom.
Lurey
In our work with clients we talked about the 80 percent factor, 80 percent of all
change efforts tend to fail to deliver some kind of intended business result.
It could be that they’re not completed on time, could be that the final functionality
that’s delivered by the technology team just doesn’t meet the business need so we
try to bring our change management and coaching approaches to really help focus
on the end users to make sure they understand what the change is all about, make
sure that we have executive commitment and buy-in throughout the process so that
we bring that up to more positive, more productive numbers.
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15:49 Tom Floyd Now the piece that you mentioned about not meeting business needs I think is
interesting. I found from my experience sometimes you’re sitting around the table
with the people during a large-scale rollout and if you ask a simple question like why
are we doing this again?
You kind of get this look like well the software was fantastic and blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, and they talk about that but you’re thinking but why are we
doing this if I have my with them head-on what’s in it for me?
What’s in it for our users too?
So you find that that generally is an issue as well?
16:20 Dr. Jeremy Absolutely.
Lurey
I mean and when we start asking some of the initial questions early in the lifecycle of
a project people have no idea what’s in it for them, they have no idea what the impact
to their jobs may be, and that’s our role as coaches and consultants working with the
project team to make sure over the course of what could be a 12, 15-month, or even
longer project that we help educate people so that by the time they do flip that switch
as we call it and the system does go live people are informed, they are ready, willing,
and able at that point to use the new system.
16:51 Tom Floyd Majid, what are some of your thoughts?
16:54 Majid Abai For a long time I have been telling my clients and my colleagues that if the
implement, a large-scale system, an application and no process changes we have
wasted our money, and to me that’s a problem that continuously happens where we
basically implement a new large-scale application but our teams, our inducer teams
are hesitant to change.
And I believe that coaching and supporting throughout the effort actually helps in
them being able to make that transition easier.
17:41 Tom Floyd Do you find or do you think that a lot of companies from your experience expect
nothing to change as a result of introducing something new, alike, especially
something big and new in this case like an enterprise application?
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17:56 Majid Abai Well I don’t think that they expect nothing to change I don’t think they think about the
process enough.
It basically becomes a technology implementation and they think we just get a bigger,
faster, larger system where as I said my belief is that that’s just a waste of money if
you don’t improve our processes and methods of doing business.
18:21 Tom Floyd And Susan, what are some of your thoughts?
Do you think or find as well that a lot of the folks that you work with don’t think about
the process enough?
18:29 Susan Alvey Absolutely, and actually the way that I look at it and often work with clients is that
there’s really in any kind of large-scale technology implementation there are really
three things to be thinking about in terms of what’s changing; one is technology and
that’s what they seem to be readier to think about because often that’s what drives
the new program, but also process, the process changes that are necessary for
supporting that technology change, and the people.
So what is it that people have to think or do or in what ways do they have to behave
differently as a result of this and so changing as people process and technology
changes altogether that have to be led, and so looking at the implementation that
way in terms of the three legs of the stool if you will that have to be considered then
that’s, and coaching leaders to think that way is extremely critical if they don’t think
about it that way already.
19:27 Tom Floyd So along the lines of people let’s talk a little bit about change and the people.
During a large technology rollout from your perspective why do people seem to be so
resistant to that technology change?
Susan, let’s-
19:44 Susan Alvey Oh I’ll take this one.
19:47 Tom Floyd Go ahead, yeah.
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19:49 Susan Alvey I think a lot of it is they first of all in any large technology change there are lots of
different stakeholders and each one has a different viewpoint in terms of where the
business impacts them and also what their expectations are, and at any point in the
process their expectations can be different.
So I actually am a strong believer that in looking at the people part of
implementations it’s a lot about expectations management, and for the people what
will this be, what will this change be, what will it involve, how will it impact them, what
will be different for them?
And the better job that leaders do in defining those expectations even if they change
along the way because I think as somebody else had just recently said this could be
a really long time for this implementation and things can change through that, so
refreshing and maintaining and good effort for managing expectations is really going
to help the people change, help them get on board, help them be satisfied in the end
with they’ve got something they wanted, so expectations management is an
important part.
21:02 Tom Floyd So it’s really kind of clearly setting the stage around this is what it is and this is what it
isn’t, this is what it is going to do and this is what it is not going to do.
If you’re expecting it to make coffee it’s not going to do that.
21:12 Susan Alvey That’s right.
21:13 Tom Floyd Got it.
21:14 Susan Alvey That’s right.
21:14 Tom Floyd And Majid, what’s been some of your experience around that?
Have you found that expectation management has been important as well?
21:21 Majid Abai Absolutely.
That is in my opinion what counts the most as one transitions a large-scale
implementation into other production ready environment because in a lot of cases
end users are not ready at all; they do not know what to expect, they haven’t had
enough training, they do not know how processes improve as a result of this new
system, and that’s where our challenge is knowing where to begin.
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21:57 Tom Floyd Got it.
Jeremy, anything that you would add in terms of expectation management, and
particularly around end users in this case being ready or in the know so to speak?
22:07 Dr. Jeremy Absolutely.
Lurey
I think resistance is really important to look at in a large technology change. Most
project managers or IT folks that I’ve partnered with in various client projects think
resistance is a bad thing, and I would encourage all of us especially as coaches to
look at resistance for what it is.
It simply is an end user or someone pushing back and saying wait I can’t buy into
that yet, something doesn’t feel right here.
And we work at three levels of resistance; one is simply a lack of understanding
where people don’t get it, and then all of the communication tools within our arsenal
are great for understanding, send one more e-mail, have one more town hall, put
together another spreadsheet of analysis on benefits and so on, but the majority of
the resistance that we face is at a deeper level, it’s either a level II if I don’t like it
some kind of a fight, flight, a fear response kicking in, or even level III which is
around trust and at those levels of resistance you can’t send one more e-mail and
expect people to get it.
You have to start having group conversations, even one-on-one conversations which
is right where I think the coaching comes in to play.
You need to understand what people are reacting to, what is it that they’re resistant
about? Is it that maybe they fear their jobs are going to be lost?
Part of the trust issues I’ve faced is people have come from different organizations
where they were told SAP won’t be reason for getting rid of jobs, we’re not going to
have lay offs because of this technology implementation.
Well the reality is that they got laid off. So now when as a consultant I go in and say
don’t worry about the lay off it’s not going to happen, that’s not the goal, they don’t
trust me.
So you need to get at those deeper issues to understand where the resistance is
coming from and then see what you can do to harness it.
It may be that people have great ideas about the technology and you just need to ask
them for their input.
They want to be able to design the solution, not just have it forced upon them.
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24:01 Tom Floyd One thing I really like about the model that you mentioned too that if I put my change
management consultant hat on as well is that people go through any time there’s
change in life professionally or personally they go through a wave or process; it’s
shock first and then it’s anger and then it’s exploration, and finally it’s acceptance and
adoption, and I think a lot of that at least what I’m hearing in some of the things that
you’re saying too is that it’s meeting people where they’re at in that process too.
So if they are in shock still at that phase and you’re sending e-mails about how it’s
great and it’s going to improve their jobs and it’s almost like they’re stepping back
and saying well wait a minute I don’t care that it’s going to improve my job because
I’m in shock that I even have to do this first.
So it’s really meeting people where they’re at as well, at least that seems to be pretty
important too. How about any of our other guests?
Anything that you would add on that note?
Susan or Majid?
24:58 Susan Alvey Yeah, I think that addressing resistance or first just acknowledging that there is
resistance in understanding how to deal with that resistance brings up an important
skill set that leaders have to have through technological change and that is that they
need to be aware of their own behaviors and the impact that those behaviors have on
the business, on other people.
This is something that a lot of, I’ve found a lot of technology leaders aren’t so aware
of their own behaviors, aren’t aware of what impact they have on other people, and in
managing resistance it’s really important to be able to pay attention, to listen, to
understand, what those other stakeholders at whatever level they are, they could be
internal or they could be external, what they’re going through, what their level of
resistance is because if I as a technology leader don’t acknowledge that, am
unaware of what my messaging or what my behaviors are conveying and the impact
of those then I’m going to miss it, I’m going to miss opportunities to build
relationships with stakeholders, I’m going to miss opportunities to clarify the vision, to
set expectations, to create relationships, all of the things that would enable success
in the implementation overall.
So behaviors and awareness of behaviors and the impact of those behaviors is a key
skill set that leaders need to have through these kinds of implementations.
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26:34 Tom Floyd Yeah, I can definitely see that’s important, particularly because they’re so up in front.
I mean they have a high amount of visibility.
Now when we talk about the types of people are the key roles who are typically
involved during a large-scale rollout, some of the roles that come to my mind and I’ve
already heard some of these terms come up today, you’ve got executive sponsors,
you’ve got stakeholders, you’ve got project managers both on the IT side and on the
business side, and you’ve got the end users, you’ve got the people that are going to
be using the application when it’s rolled out.
Any other groups that any of you would add to that list?
Or has your experience kind of been along those same, working with those same
types as well?
Majid?
27:19 Majid Abai No, basically I believe that you covered all of the teams, I cannot think of any other
groups.
27:25 Tom Floyd Okay, great.
29:57 Tom Floyd Where we left off we were talking a little bit about some of the different groups of
people that have been in organizations who were impacted or involved in a
technology rollout.
We talked about executive sponsors, stakeholders, project managers, end users.
During the break everyone on the show and I were just talking and some other
names that came up were the core project team, the folks actually responsible for
making sure the project is a success and then continuing to keep it up and running
after the lights have been turned on so to speak and also various business units
within the organization as well.
Well let’s talk about how a coach can be effective, I’m getting my tongue tied here,
effective in working with each of these different groups, and let’s talk with executive
sponsors or focus on executive sponsors first.
So Jeremy, I’d like to start with you.
From your experience how can or how could a coach typically help an executive
sponsor during a technology rollout?
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31:10 Dr. Jeremy For us it really starts right in the beginning Tom and we like to make sure the
Lurey executive sponsors before we even get into that coaching opportunity that they
understand what’s at stake, that they define their criteria for success right at the
beginning of the project.
We’ll actually hold an executive alignment workshop with that executive steering
committee, the executive working committee, whoever those executive sponsors are
we want to make sure they’re all in the room and commit to whatever success is
going to be, we’ll actually develop an executive charter for the project so they can go
around the room and hear themselves say this is what I’m committed to and this is
what I’m willing and able to give to make sure we get there.
And then from there moving on over the course of the very long, potentially very long
project making sure that we partner with them on a very regular basis not just once a
month in executive steering committee but sit down with them and ask them how’s it
going, ask them if they have talked to their direct reports, to their end users, for
example it could be a CFO.
We want to make sure that that person, he or she, is in touch with all of the potential
folks in the finance department who may be impacted by the change.
32:23 Tom Floyd And in terms of the involvement that you have with them are these typically one-on-
one sessions with the primary executive sponsors?
Are they group-facilitated types of sessions?
What does that look like?
32:35 Dr. Jeremy It’s often both.
Lurey
We will try to sit down one-on-one with that executive sponsor, call it the CFO for the
moment, make sure that he or she is visibly involved and informed throughout the
whole project and doing what they can.
We’ll also sit down with him or her and their direct report, make sure that the core
finance team, the senior finance team, is there because ultimately it’s not the CFO
who’s going to roll out this message day in and day out it’s going to be their direct
reports and middle management so we use a cascading effect by not just doing one-
on-ones but also doing some of that group facilitation is important too.
33:09 Tom Floyd Got it, and so really kind of using both group sessions and one-on-one sessions as
needed to kind of keep them on track.
33:15 Dr. Jeremy Absolutely, absolutely.
Lurey
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33:16 Tom Floyd And how do you hold them accountable to those goals that you’ve defined with them
kind of once you’ve set them up front a lot of things can happen on a large-scale
rollout, an executive in particular can get distracted by a lot of different things.
How do you keep them on target or focused with those goals once they’ve been
established?
33:34 Dr. Jeremy I’ve learned over time as a person helping manage the change, providing the
Lurey coaching and support, which I’m not in control.
Whether I’d like to make decisions or not that’s just not my place.
So for me it’s actually just about holding up that flag, keeping people aware, and
honest to their commitments, and when priorities change call it for that but if this
project is the number one priority for the organization for the next year I’m going to be
in their face on a daily or weekly or monthly basis reminding them that it doesn’t feel
like this project is being treated as a number one priority, it may have slipped down,
and let them decide is that going to be okay or is that not what they were committed
to doing.
34:15 Tom Floyd So kind of conveying the information to them and saying I can’t make the decision
here for you but you’ve got the power to do this, is this something that matters?
34:22 Dr. Jeremy Correct.
Lurey
It goes into what I think Susan was referring to before basic project management
principles.
Part of our role as a coach or as a change consultant is to identify risks and help
minimize them wherever possible but we often times can’t make the decision on what
to do it’s up to the executive sponsors to decide which actions are appropriate.
34:41 Tom Floyd Got it, absolutely.
Majid, what are some of your thoughts?
What have some of your experiences been when trying to coach executive sponsors
during a technology rollout?
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34:49 Majid Abai In my opinion the historical aspect has been that IT has been completely separate
from business and basically they give us our requirements and we did the work and
then we threw it back over the wall at them and say here you go, here is your system.
But lately because of coaching a lot of times IT and business are trying to align and I
think coaching really, really helps because they’re still stumbling through the process
of being one team as part of the same organization.
We really have thought of each other as two separate organizations, and I think
coaching would help a lot as Jeremy said from very, very top, even from the CIO
Organization with all of the business organizations getting them together and helping
them understand that they’re really on one team and they must have that level of
alignment in order to implement the true rollout of the technology system.
35:58 Tom Floyd So it’s really around a benefit that you see for executive sponsors in this case is that
really making sure that folks on the business side and the IT side are on the same
page.
36:08 Majid Abai Exactly, continuously.
36:10 Tom Floyd Got it.
36:10 Majid Abai Continuously on the same page.
36:11 Tom Floyd And in terms of some of the goals that you would try to establish or you think would
be a good idea to establish on both sides from a business perspective and an IT
perspective what would one of those goals be?
36:24 Majid Abai The goals would be that the most important thing should be that success of an IT
implementation is basically based on the cooperation of the two teams as such the
concept of finger pointing should go away and as I said a concept of teamwork
should be brought up.
To me that’s the main goal of understanding that if the project fails both groups have
failed and they have not been able to take the organization to the next level as
should be the true goal of an IT implementation process.
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37:10 Tom Floyd One other thing that comes up a lot with coaching and that I definitely believe in with
coaching is that I think some people can look at coaching as a fix-it solution and not
realize that coaching really isn’t a good fix-it intervention it’s more about self
realization.
When we think about finger pointing have you found that it’s challenging or is it easy
to get folks on either the business or the IT side to really self realize you know what
I’m blaming other people in this situation and it’s not about them it’s about me and
I’ve got the power to fix it or to do something?
37:47 Majid Abai Are you asking me?
37:49 Tom Floyd Yes.
37:50 Majid Abai What I have found really is that we still haven’t gotten out of our historical
organizations of IT being completely separate from business.
38:04 Tom Floyd Yeah.
38:04 Majid Abai We have always been a customer-centric organization, and I’m talking about IT
where businesses are customers and we are really our own self-contained
organization.
Where now our business executives, business teams are really technology savvy
and we should really want them to come in and as such finger pointing really doesn’t
work, and I agree with you we should, coaching will help doing this.
We should start self realization of finger pointing is not going to help anybody but
teamwork is where we can go to the next level.
38:41 Tom Floyd That’s critical.
Now Susan, one of the things that you had mentioned earlier in the show was the
importance of expectation management.
When you’re working with executive sponsors who do you manage their
expectations?
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38:55 Susan Alvey I actually focus it on how do I help them to manage expectations for the teams that
they’re working with or that they’re leading because my focus in coaching executives
especially executive sponsors in this kind of a situation is that it’s their job ultimately
to build the skills to be able to build relationships and be that kind of team member as
Jeremy and Majid had suggested and work across different kinds of functional
boundaries that they may have so that they can manage expectations, and one of the
things I think about is what is the risk or what are the issues that executive sponsors
face?
And so they have to think about what those issues are and prepare themselves and
take a kind of preventive approach if you will.
So for example, one of the downfalls of a technology implementation is when there’s
lack of buy-in or there’s political infighting that occurs in the organization that either
diminishes the commitment to the effort and sometimes ends it completely, they also
have scheduling delays that can then bump into other strategic initiatives, and
executives can also face issues of the fingers being pointed at them so the process
scope or schedule or budget-
40:31 Tom Floyd Right.
40:31 Susan Alvey No one is aligned with strategic initiatives and so now everyone is pointing at the top
technology person and then what they have to do is prevent being defensive about
this and so as I say well here’s a lot of issues that executive sponsors face and if
they think about this and kind of plan for this in advance they can do it as best they
can to prevent it and a lot of the prevention is in the kinds of things Majid was just
saying which is what I would call relationship building.
Building relationships and understanding and trust with other folks in the organization
especially the executive sponsor is usually a high level in the organization and has
influence and needs to maintain that influence to help the project succeed, and so
the coaching, I may have deterred a little bit from your original question but-
41:23 Tom Floyd No problem.
41:24 Susan Alvey But the coaching can really assist them in understanding how to build these
relationships so that they can then themselves facilitate the implementation from the
level that they need to facilitate.
They can be aware of the influence they need to have in the organization and the
behaviors that they have to maintain that influence, to gain and to maintain that
influence.
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41:48 Tom Floyd So if we think about it in terms of competencies, if a coach were, if an executive
sponsor were to engage a coach to help them during a large-scale technology rollout
one of the things from your experience that you’d recommend then is that really
establishing goals or focusing on relationship management and the importance of
that.
42:05 Susan Alvey Absolutely.
42:07 Tom Floyd Anything else?
Any other, and I’m asking this to the three of you as a group, any other key
competencies or skills that a successful executive sponsor or leader should have that
you feel a coach should really focus on with them during an IT rollout?
42:20 Susan Alvey Well just to add to relationship building I think part of that probably is communication.
42:25 Tom Floyd Okay.
42:26 Susan Alvey And really being good at communication and sincere and timely communication goes
back to managing expectations because that really does help not just to tell the rest
of the organization where they’re at in the implementation but to really build buy-in.
42:43 Tom Floyd Got it.
Well I’m starting to hear the music for our next break.
Just to sum up it was three great competencies listed there; relationship
management, expectation management, and communication.
When we get back we’ll talk a little bit more about some of those some competencies
or ways that coaches can also work with the project managers involved as well so
stay tuned everyone.
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45:18 Tom Floyd Right before we went to break we were talking about how a coach can help the
executive sponsors involved on a project and we’re going to change gears a little bit
now.
Let’s get further down the food chain so to speak and let’s talk about how a coach
could be helpful in working with the project managers or the folks running the
timeline, making key decisions, making sure that everything is on track on the IT in
the business side.
So Jeremy let’s start with you kind of with your coaching hat on if an organization
was to hire a coach or bring some folks in to really coach their project managers
throughout the implementation of an application what are some things that that coach
could do that could help and what would be some of the goals that the coach would
really work on with those project managers?
46:16 Dr. Jeremy Tom, this is actually where we as a team at Plus Delta kind of focus most of our
Lurey energies. It’s not as much at the executive levels it really is at the project managers
where I’ll extend this a bit to some of the other core project team leaders.
46:29 Tom Floyd Interesting.
46:30 Dr. Jeremy Whether it’s the person who is tasked with the people side of the change
Lurey management or it could be the finance team leader who is in a functional kind of a
role.
46:39 Tom Floyd Okay.
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46:39 Dr. Jeremy And specifically here we refer to this as more of a functional coaching where we are
Lurey sharing methodologies around managing the people side of change, helping people
understand resistance as we were talking about as a group earlier today, and how to
overcome that to develop a positive change strategy with communications and
training and so on, so a lot of our coaching tends to be more of what you call
functional around what are the end users going through, what does that transition
look like, what are some of the specific activities that we can as a team embark on to
make sure that we minimize resistance and increase user acceptance by the time we
do go live.
One of the other key areas where we focus our coaching is around project team
effectiveness.
Our entire methodology is not framed around the end user with most other coaches
or consultants we actually focus a lot of our energy around the core project team who
is responsible for making this technology change a success.
So we’ll partner with our project managers to do team performance surveys,
understand where there may be some gaps, we’ll even do some group workshops
around giving feedback or setting goals and so on to make sure that our core project
team is cohesive and performing at peak levels throughout the life of the project.
47:58 Tom Floyd And are a lot of these sessions with the project team and with the project managers
is it one-on-one sessions?
Is it mainly group sessions?
Is it a combination of both?
48:06 Dr. Jeremy Again, our approach is both as I was mentioning with executive sponsors.
Lurey
We’ll work one-on-one with the project manager hopefully sitting in that program
manager in office side-by-side with them, and say here’s what we’re seeing, here’s
what we recommend doing about it.
48:19 Tom Floyd Right.
48:20 Dr. Jeremy Ask them how are you doing, what are you experiencing, where can we help you,
Lurey and then also extending that in a group level to all of the team leads for example and
making sure that they are getting the benefit of that same information.
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48:32 Tom Floyd Got it.
Now Susan, one of the things we were talking about with executive sponsors was the
different competencies, you had mentioned communications being particularly
important and relationship management.
With your coaching hat on when you’re coaching project managers involved in the
implementation what are some of the competencies that you try to focus on with
them or skills that you really try to help them hone during the rollout?
48:54 Susan Alvey I think it’s similar but usually more specific to specific levels of the project that they
are working on but it’s a lot of communication skills; listening, clarifying expectations,
facilitating, how to facilitate because they’re usually leading a group meeting and
they’ve got to facilitate that so that the mission is accomplished if you will of each
team, of each team session, and they manage to handle the disparity of viewpoints
that may be around the table.
Another skill is being able to articulate positions of decisions that are made or
directions that the team is going on and what they’re doing and what they’re not
doing, articulating positions includes here’s what the scope is not.
But I also think another important one is managing conflicts because conflict will
derail the team meeting, it will derail the team, it will derail the project, and it often
falls on the team leader or the project manager to be able to manage that conflict,
and to do it in such a way that they remain objective and can focus on process of
managing the conflict as opposed to getting ensnared in one side or the other of the
conflict.
50:16 Tom Floyd So for example if you were talking about maybe a one-on-one coaching instance that
you were having with a project manager and there was a conflict that they already
knew about or were aware of would you see yourself or a coach working with them
and saying okay let’s kind of focus on how you can remain objective during that.
50:33 Susan Alvey Exactly, what specific things?
It might come down to how to script them, developing a script that they can use
under situations like that to really help them. Give them something to lean on when
the time comes.
50:46 Tom Floyd Got it.
Majid, what are some of your thoughts?
What’s been some of your experience and things that have come up when you’ve
coached the project managers during a rollout?
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50:57 Majid Abai The part that I just enjoyed was what Susan just said.
An important concept is managing conflict because that often we’ve seen that
happen.
The second part is that making project managers on both sides understand that as
implementations, technology implementations are rolling out business does not stop
so understanding that end users, people who are going to do the actual work they
really need to learn the new technology and still get their normal day-to-day work
done.
51:43 Tom Floyd Got it.
51:43 Majid Abai And as such allocate more time within the project for such transition.
Usually this transition is done very, very rapidly not leaving enough time for training
and actual getting used to the system and a coach would be able to help project
managers overcome that deficit.
52:05 Tom Floyd So really focusing on transitioning as a skill and the importance of that and how to
handle that effectively.
52:11 Majid Abai Correct.
52:12 Tom Floyd Okay.
Well we are almost towards the end of our show and really the last question that I
would ask the three of you is kind of in 30 seconds or less and I’ll go around to each
of you, if you really had to make the case kind of in summary or in closing of how
coaching can be helpful during a large technology rollout what would the things be
that you would leave our listeners with today?
Jeremy, let’s start with you.
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52:40 Dr. Jeremy I may take a different tactic on this one Tom than others will but for me I’m not sure
Lurey that one executive coach is the end all be all in a large-scale technology project and
part of what we try to do is instill a sense of coaching or create a coaching culture
within our client organization and specifically that core project team to make sure that
we’ll implement an adoptive sponsor program so that we filter the coaching to the
team leads and people most informed about the business so that the coaching goes
on not just with us. I mean especially in a virtual environment where you’ve got
teams distributed across the country or even the world.
53:15 Tom Floyd So really creating a culture for coaching is the key takeaway.
53:18 Dr. Jeremy Absolutely, and keep that front of mind for everyone.
Lurey
53:21 Tom Floyd Okay, Susan what about you?
What would be the last point you’d make?
53:24 Susan Alvey Yeah, I certainly would agree with what Jeremy said.
I like to focus those people on the behaviors at whatever level they execute and the
impacts that those behaviors have because that’s what in coaching anyone one-on-
one that’s what they have control over or can have control over is what their
behaviors are and what results from that, and I would include in that behavior
especially at higher levels the behaviors that they have for coaching their own
people.
53:52 Tom Floyd Got it.
So really focusing on behaviors and creating a culture for coaching.
Well a huge thank you to all three of you for being on the show today and as always
a huge thank you to our guests and listeners as well for spending time with us today.
For more information about the show you can look us up on the Voice America
Business Channel.
You can visit our website at www.ieconsulting.biz, and you can feel free to e-mail
me at tfloyd@ieconsulting.biz as well.
Don’t forget you can access us through Apple iTunes as well, just go to the Music
Store and enter Insight on Coaching and you can listen to the podcast version of our
show as well.
Thanks everyone, we’ll see you next week.
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