An article on the change process from some work I have done.

1. 32 PM NETWORK MAY 2014 WWW.PMI.ORG
Kate Bukowski, PMP,
healthAlliance, Auckland,
New Zealand

2. MAY 2014 PM NETWORK 33
Securing
SupportHow to get stakeholders to stop resisting
change and start embracing it.
BY AMY MERRICK
A
s new business climates upend old forecasts, organizations
face a stark choice: Change or risk falling behind. The need for
change may be clear to an organization, but it can be threaten-
ing to its stakeholders—and earning their buy-in is not optional.
The more that employees, clients and community members
support strategic initiatives, the more likely those projects will succeed. Organiza-
tions that are highly effective at organizational change management report that 69
percent of their strategic initiatives are successful, compared to only 41 percent
at organizations that are minimally effective, according to PMI’s 2014 Pulse of the
Profession® report.
Seventy percent of respondents report that stakeholder involvement makes an
organization highly effective at change management, according to PMI’s Pulse of
the Profession In-Depth Report: Enabling Organizational Change Through Strategic
Initiatives. The report also finds that poor stakeholder management is one of the
top three reasons that strategic initiatives fail.
Securing buy-in for change means targeting an organization’s top tiers: Strong
executive sponsors drive lasting change and ensure it thrives. Giovanni De Angelis,
PMP, team manager for IT company Doxee in Goiânia, Brazil, cultivates executive
sponsors who can direct resources and training to strategic initiatives as needed.
He identifies the most positive and active stakeholders on a change project and lets
the executive sponsor know who they are. An informed sponsor thus becomes a
PHOTOBYBRYANLOWE
CHANGE

3. 34 PM NETWORK MAY 2014 WWW.PMI.ORG
much more engaged one, Mr. De Angelis says. “It’s
a great motivational tool.”
When stakeholders understand the benefits of
change, they experience less anxiety about it. When
they engage in the change process, they recog-
nize how their performance helps the organization
achieve the expected benefits. And when they are
encouraged to collaborate, they take ownership and
assume responsibility for results.
Plan to Communicate,
Communicate the Plan
A project team could roll out a strategic initiative
and then simply hope for the best. Or, as in the case
of a healthcare organization in New Zealand, the
team could first identify the stakeholder challenges
that might impede the change and then methodi-
cally build a communications plan to address them.
Kate Bukowski, PMP, a project manager at
healthAlliance, which provides IT and other ser-
vices to district health boards, looked before leap-
ing. She anticipated obstacles before the launch of
Comfort Zone Creator
“
When I worked as program manager
for a major investment bank, we
had to relocate about 15 percent of
the employees, roughly 250 people,
from our Tokyo headquarters to a
new office. It was a few miles away and a less con-
venient location for workers.
It was the first time that the Tokyo operation
would be in two locations, so there were quite
a few concerns on the impact it would have on
people, the operation and the ability to retain tal-
ent. Representatives from all departments mov-
ing to the new site were invited to join a steering
committee to document concerns. One issue we
discussed was the loss of face-to-face interaction.
To address this, integrated video/IP phones were
provided at each desk to give some of the face-to-
face interaction that people were used to.
To help workers feel more comfortable with
the area surrounding their new office, we printed
a pocket-sized fold-out map with listings and
location of important services nearby, like the
post office, banks and restaurants. Transportation
routes from key commuting areas were included,
to provide the people in the new office with as
much information as possible to ease them into
the new environment.
On move-in day, the project team ensured that
a one-year project to establish a new audit system
for general practitioners. The software would help
doctors and nurses quickly filter hundreds of pages
of electronic patient medical records to find the
most pertinent information, such as patients due for
immunizations and screening. By improving patient
care, the new system could capitalize on financial
incentives from the New Zealand government.
To identify potential roadblocks, Ms. Bukowski’s
team devised a questionnaire and disseminated it
to stakeholders. That feedback spotted three major
challenges: doctors’, nurses’ and administrators’ lack
of time as well as varying degrees of computer lit-
eracy and access.
“One of the key obstacles I see with change ini-
tiatives is that people are too busy or don’t have
enough space in their day to embrace them,” says
Ms. Bukowski. “I find it is really important to gain
a project team’s cooperation right from the outset.”
Ms. Bukowski created a detailed communications
plan that engaged clinicians and other staff members
responsible for introducing the software. To keep stake-
Geno Baruffi,
PMP, is project director
of the project manage-
ment office at AXA Tech
Services, Tokyo, Japan.
LEADING
CHANGE

4. MAY 2014 PM NETWORK 35
each person would have a good experience by direct-
ing people to the correct elevator. Then members of
the logistics team made sure every person was able
to find their desk and other services. Breakfast was
also provided on that move-in day, to further ease
people into the new environment.
That experience changed the way I approach
new projects. During the planning of each project,
I more carefully look for what impact this project
could have on the way an individual works or views
their environment, and then develop a rough action
plan to address each area. Another lesson learned:
Don’t be cheap. Sometimes spending a little
money—like the pocket-sized maps we printed—
can go a long way to making people feel appreci-
ated or comfortable with the new change.”
holders informed, her team posted regular updates
through email and on the organization’s intranet.
Sixty-eight percent of respondents reported that
strong communication plans make an organization
highly effective at organizational change manage-
ment, according to PMI’s Pulse data. Ranked close
behind in importance: communicating the intended
benefit of the strategic initiative, a factor cited by 62
percent of respondents.
But the project team knew it couldn’t ensure adop-
tion of the change on its own. So the team identified
stakeholders who would serve as ambassadors for
the organizational change—or, as Ms. Bukowski calls
them, “clinical champions.” Chosen for their com-
munication and leadership skills, the clinical cham-
pions comprised a professor, university dean, general
practitioner and nurse practitioner. At continuing-
education events, they showed general practitioners
and nurses how the software could help them improve
their patients’ health. In other words, the change
agents made clear to their colleagues that the change
would be worth the investment of their time.
Around
every
bend of a
strategic ini-
tiative lurks a
potential derailer.
Watching for these
likely suspects—and
steering past them—helps keep change
projects on course.
Culprit: Missing Sponsorship
Without an actively engaged spon-
sor, a change project can founder once
the initial excitement fades. “Often
we forget to involve the organization’s
executive committee on issues related to
additional resources and training,” says
Giovanni De Angelis, PMP, Doxee, Goiâ-
nia, Brazil. He recommends cultivating a
strong relationship with a sponsor who
will add team members or cover training
costs to prevent possible fast-tracking
situations and fill skills gaps.
Culprit: Cultural Resistance
Inertia and lack of trust can stop change
in its tracks. To overcome resistance,
naysayers should be identified early in
the project—and then won over by mak-
ing sure they know their work matters.
Mr. De Angelis spots the people who
raise objections, then asks them to find
solutions to their concerns.
Culprit: Lack of Readiness
Even when stakeholders are willing
to change, sometimes they lack the
knowledge or skills to do so. Project
managers who identify the necessary
growth areas at the outset can build
training into their plans.
Culprit: Not Enough Time
Lasting change takes time—and orga-
nizations can be impatient. A project
practitioner who recognizes that
change must be deep-rooted—and that
it requires repeated messaging—will
champion a realistic timetable.
Change
Derailers

5. 36 PM NETWORK MAY 2014 WWW.PMI.ORG
their diabetes, understood the risk of cardiovascular
disease or got their children immunized, the team
concluded that the strategic initiative had a positive
effect on patient care.
Feedback: A Two-Way Street
If stakeholders know only their own respective
parts, any change to the script can seem disruptive.
But if they learn how a change in their roles benefits
the larger story—or the organization’s strategy—
they’re more likely to appreciate the new direction’s
value, and support it.
At Tofino Security Inc., a computer-network
security firm in Lantzville, British Columbia,
Canada, salespeople would often handle customer
requests by contacting development engineers, who
then had to drop their own project tasks to address
the questions. As a result, the engineers fell behind
on creating new software. The organization set out
to change this workflow structure so that develop-
ment engineers could focus on what they were
hired to do: Develop new products.
“This extracurricular work was disruptive, to say
the least, and it would cause great stress on the
engineers and the ongoing project’s schedule,” says
former Tofino project manager Dario Sumano, PMP.
Mr. Sumano realized that employee stakeholders
needed to define the differences between techni-
cal support and research that could lead to future
developments. Technical-support requests would
be scheduled on a weekly basis, perhaps using one
engineer for a few hours, while development work
In addition, Ms. Bukowski hosted a panel discus-
sion among her clinical champions and uploaded
a video of the event to the healthcare organiza-
tion’s education website. Finally, she organized
video Moodles—modular, online courses about the
audit system—that earned clinicians continuing-
education points.
To assess whether doctors and nurses had bought
into the change, Ms. Bukowski and her team culled
extensive feedback. Through pre- and post-project
surveys of the healthcare organization’s managers,
general practitioners and nurses, the team found
that the software had been successfully imple-
mented. Also, by measuring outcomes such as the
numbers of patients who quit smoking, managed
“One of the key obsta-
cles I see with change
initiatives is that
people are too busy
or don’t have enough
space in their day to
embrace them.”
—Kate Bukowski, PMP
Stronger—Across the Board
Strategic initiatives of Change Enablers perform better in every category,
compared with organizations that are minimally effective at change
management.
Meet goals On time On budget
n Highly effective n Minimally effective
65% 64% 63%
34% 36%31%
Source: Pulse of the Profession In-Depth Report: EnablingOrganizationalChangeThrough Strategic Initiatives, PMI

6. MAY 2014 PM NETWORK 37
LEADING
CHANGE
“
My team has worked through a state
of high ambiguity, due to U.S. health-
care reform. We did not have to spend
time creating a burning platform for
change—the federal government did
this by passing the Affordable Care Act. What we did
have to do was help our employees become more
comfortable with the high rate of change. In a typi-
cal project, you would lock down requirements and
then you’re off to build. Because requirements were
changing week to week, we all had
to get comfortable with change and
ambiguity.
To prepare, we brought in all
the key subject matter experts and
developed a business conceptual
model. Collecting all the informa-
tion we knew allowed us to high-
light what we didn’t know. This
helped us to acknowledge on an
intellectual and emotional level that
we didn’t have all the answers in the
beginning.
We made a constant effort to
keep our finger on the pulse of the
work and the changes. We were con-
tinuously messaging to the teams:
It’s OK that we don’t have all the
answers, it’s OK that everything
won’t be perfect, it’s OK that we
will have more defects. Employees
needed this reassurance, and as leaders it was our
job to reassure them. On an internally driven project,
we typically have more control.
There were an excessive number of hours required.
I had to stay close to the leaders to ensure we did not
have high employee burnout. There are employees
who become deeply involved and attached to their
project. Many of them do not want to take time
off, and as a result they burn out and become less
effective. There were times when I had to say to an
employee, ‘You’re taking a long weekend.’ And when
I heard employees say, ‘I have vacation, but maybe I
should put it off,’ I reminded them that they earned
their time off and they deserved to enjoy it. During
times of unprecedented change, people go through
many intellectual cycles and emotional cycles, and
they need time to recover.
There can be too many inte-
gration discussions. When the
conversation becomes a rinse-
and-repeat exercise, and the
team is just hashing out the same
things, they are stuck. Sometimes
you need to shake things up and
have someone not as close to
the problem come in to help the
team move forward. We had a
situation between two teams, one
waterfall and one agile, around
an integration issue. Each team
was kind of entrenched in its solu-
tion. We brought in someone from
our business-process team, and
that helped them find a solution.
Teams can get stuck in a pat-
tern if they’ve been approaching
their work the same way for years.
Then when the business changes—you go onto a
new platform or regulatory environment—it can
be difficult for employees to see outside of their
established day-to-day patterns. We often bring in
business-process consultants to help teams begin
thinking about the future.”
At Ease With Ambiguity
Samantha
Bureau-Johnson
is vice president of business
process excellence and proj-
ect management office at
Blue Cross and Blue Shield
of North Carolina, Durham,
North Carolina, USA.

7. 38 PM NETWORK MAY 2014 WWW.PMI.ORG
Before a strategic ini-
tiative can take off, a
communication plan
must be set down.
These four key commu-
nication models, detailed
in PMI’s ManagingChange
inOrganizations:A Practice
Guide, can be used hand in hand:
Steady messaging. Typically de-
livered by a senior leader, steady
messages confidently convey that
change is necessary and that team
members will benefit from it.
This messaging emphasizes goals,
plans and expectations.
“Terminology is akin
to culture, and it can
change from site to site,
even within a company.”
—Dario Sumano, PMP, formerly of Tofino Security Inc., Lantzville,
British Columbia, Canada
research. Once they reached agreement on what
to call their activities, the stakeholders could deter-
mine which activities to schedule weekly and which
to categorize as strategic development projects.
“Had I not cared to explore why some team
members were adamant about these terms, the pro-
cesses and definitions would have been incomplete,”
Mr. Sumano says.
Most important, as a result of the feedback
process, the entire group—from development engi-
neers and quality-assurance specialists to product
and account managers—became aware of how
their daily work contributed to the organization’s
strategic goals, whether by satisfying immediate
customer needs or building new software versions
for future business growth.
Seven weeks into the project’s timeline, Mr.
Sumano knew he had secured stakeholder buy-
in. Tofino’s technical sales leads began to contact
him and the product owners to discuss technical
support, rather than asking the engineers for help.
Meanwhile, the engineers complained less about
“extracurricular” requests that distracted them from
their scheduled work, and they reported progress
on their development projects.
Change can create resistance, but for organizations
that devote the resources to securing stakeholder
buy-in, it can also lead to substantial benefits. PM
Talking
Points
Cyclical messaging. Like steady
messaging, cyclical messaging
occurs at planned intervals, but
the content of cyclical messag-
es adapts as the change project
progresses. It might include, for
example, emotional support
from a manager working closely
with those impacted.
Feedback messaging. How’s
the change going? How might
it go better? Feedback helps
answer these questions.
Requesting feedback regularly
helps to identify risks and craft
solutions.
Situational messaging. Some-
thing unexpected happens;
some new problem arises.
Situational messages provide
short bursts of information
when a stakeholder learns
important new information or
when a problem is identified
and resolved.
The most effective communi-
cations plans take advantage of
not just one of these messaging
approaches, but a combination
of them adapted to the varying
needs of the strategic initiative
and its stakeholders.
required a business reason and a plan, and it could
be scheduled during slower periods.
Mr. Sumano held meetings with all of the stake-
holders to ask them about the differences and
similarities of the work that, until then, had been
jumbled together.
He soon discovered a roadblock: vocabulary. “Ter-
minology is akin to culture, and it can change from
site to site, even within a company,” Mr. Sumano says.
The choice of words became a source of tension, as
employees debated at length the use of terms such as
“issue,” “fixing it” and “investigating it.”
Instead of forcing a top-down solution, Mr.
Sumano used the stakeholders’ feedback to develop
consensus. A series of group conversations led to
vocabulary that satisfied everyone: “maintenance”
for technical support and “rapid development” for

8. MAY 2014 PM NETWORK 39
LEADING
CHANGE
Motivation Whisperer
“
I was involved in an initiative to
optimize the process for handling
training evaluations. First, I spent
a lot of time
understanding the
current context and situation,
including all the process compo-
nents and involved stakehold-
ers—not just the people directly
involved in the process but also
the steering committee members,
etc. In particular, I tried to under-
stand each stakeholder in terms of
his or her power, interest and role.
This was a key point for the rest of
the project, and helped determine
the right communication and
reporting modalities.
To get people on board, it was
important to understand their
perspectives and propose a clear
vision of the optimization process.
That time investment definitely
paid off when the time came to
analyze and to start proposing
possible improvements.
Before starting anything, we organized several
meetings during one full week with all the stake-
holders in order to explain why we were running a
design of experiment (DOE) as part of the project.
The DOE—where stakeholders are presented with
a variety of scenarios to gather information on
which would yield the best results—is
very challenging and hard to explain.
People were lost with all the tasks to
be modified, depending on a given
scenario. In order to solve the issue,
we created a document for process
owners that detailed scenarios and
related tasks. We also explained to
people the ‘why’ associated with
each scenario, so they could better
understand the related actions. The
result was to get people involved
with attention and dedication.
People have to be involved imme-
diately, at the beginning of the proj-
ect, so they understand the ‘why,’ the
‘what’ and the related ‘how’ together.
As a consequence, they feel a part
of it and better perceive their role,
responsibilities and contribution.
Based on this project experience, I
would suggest that project leaders
take the needed time to be sure everyone has
really understood the ‘why’ behind the change
initiative. It is the key for a good project run and
deployment.”
Jean-Roch
Houllier, PMP, is
the international learn-
ing director at Thales
Université Internation-
al, Paris, France and the
academic development
director of the PMI
France Chapter, Paris.
“To get people on board, it was important to
understand their perspectives and propose a
clear vision of the optimization process.”