1.
Change management for
content strategy projects

2.
How d’you do
Kirk Grayson
Principal, Pedamento Content Strategy
Andrew Peachey
Change Management
Specialist

3.
Let’s talk about …
• What change management is – and what it isn’t
• Where does a change plan fit in a project?
• Keys to successfully managing change
• Analysing & planning
• Setting up your vital sponsorship network
• Identifying and managing resistance

4.
What is change management?
And why is it important?
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5.
Managing change
• Makes good business sense
• Understanding – change is difficult
• People need assistance and time to transition
• Change management speeds the process

6.
Installation vs implementation

7.
On time
On budget
Technical objectives met
Business objectives met
Human objectives met
Installation vs implementation
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8.
Who loves change?
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9.
The stages of grief (change)
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10.
3 keys to successful change

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1) Analysis & planning
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Defining the change
• The difference between current and future states
• Reasons for the change
• Benefits of the change
• Stakeholder inventory – each group that will be affected
• Timelines
• Measurement – how will we know how successful the change is?
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Assessing readiness
Understanding how each group is feeling about the upcoming
change
• Aware?
• Supportive and positive?
Factors that could have an impact:
• Other changes at the company
• Other major events (annual planning, budgeting)
• Upcoming technology changes
• Change history
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14.
What is a change plan? Where does it
fit?
• CM is scalable
• CM is specific to each project
• Change plans are part of a project plan
• They’re flexible, changing to meet
changing needs

15.
2) Cascading sponsorship
“They always say time changes
things, but you actually have to
change them yourself”
-Andy Warhol

16.
Roles
•Sponsors
•Change Agents
•Targets
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Role of sponsor
•Authorize, legitimize and
demonstrate ownership
•Have enough organizational
power and/or influence to
−initiate resource commitment,
or
−reinforce the change at the
local level
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18.
Effective sponsorship
Sponsors need to be:
• aligned
• active and visible
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Change agents
Have implementation responsibility through
planning and execution.
•Successful personal and company history
•Knowledgeable about the field; believe
in the project
•Credible with key sponsors and target groups
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20.
Targets
•Each group affected – including sponsors – are targets
first
•Targets need to know:
• Impacts
• Benefits - WIIFM
• Is it real (really going to happen)
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21.
Successful sponsorship strategy
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Authorizing Sponsor
Target/
Reinforcing Sponsor
Target/Agent/
Reinforcing Sponsor
Target

22.
Unsuccessful sponsorship
strategy
BLACK HOLE
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23.
Content strategy example
VP Corporate Affairs VP Operations
Director, Corporate
Communications
Manager
Marketing
Manager
Digital Services
Copywriter
Videographer
Digital Comms
Specialist
Social Media
Specialist
Director, Product
Development
Manager
Product X
Manager
Widget Y
Product
Engineer
Technical
Writer
Product
Engineer
Technical
Writer
Authorizing Sponsor
Targets/
Reinforcing Sponsors
Targets/Agents/
Reinforcing Sponsors
Targets

24.
3) Managing resistance
“Taking a new step, uttering a
new word is what people fear
most”
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky

25.
Resistance is…
• Inevitable
• Natural
• Manageable
• A sign you’ve touched on something important
• A desire to control the change
• A good thing
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Resistance is not…
• Logical
• A sign of disloyalty
• Something to overcome or combat
• Personal
• Designed to discredit your competence
• Indicative of poor performance
• A sign that the change process is out of control
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Surface and validate
• Explain the change in terms of how it impacts each group
• Make it safe to surface resistance
• Surface it early and keep it overt
• Identify magnitude of the impact
• Take action
• Repeat the process
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Involve
•Give impacted people
the opportunity for input
•Defining the problem
•Developing the solution
•Designing the approach
•Planning and/or executing the implementation
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Communicate
•A plan to support the change
•Not one-way, top-down
•Not once and done
•Customized for impacted groups
•Variety of formats, channels, media
•Right message, right audience, right time
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30.
Train
•Essential for a successful implementation
•Build in $$ and time
•Plan for ongoing
training
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31.
Reinforce
•Reward efforts at adoption
•Increase effort needed to
perform old behaviour
•Increase negative consequences for old
behaviour
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32.
Successful change
“The world as we have created it
is a process of our thinking. It
cannot be changed without
changing our thinking.”
-Albert Einstein

33.
Look for …
Ownership & adoption
• Commitment
• Ability
• Behaviour
Plan for…
•Ongoing governance, training, communication,
reinforcement
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34.
Watch out for…
•Lack of sponsor engagement or buy-in
•Poor change history
•Time-&-money constraints
•One size fits all
•Misaligned reward system
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35.
Tying it all together
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36.
Analyse the organization
• Define the change
• Assess readiness
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37.
Understand the people
• People don’t love change
• They need help to move through it
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38.
Cascading sponsorship is
critical
Authorizing Sponsor
Target/
Reinforcing Sponsor
Target/Agent/
Reinforcing Sponsor
Target
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39.
Manage resistance through:
• Involvement
• Communication
• Training
• Reinforcement
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40.
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“Change is hard at first, messy in the
middle and gorgeous at the end”
- Robin Sharma