by The Change Compass | Change approach, Change Initiatives
Thanks to the growing frequency and magnitude of organizational changes the change management profession have been undergoing growth. However, some organizations are still struggling with understanding the value of change management. Subsequently, some change practitioners are still challenged to prove ‘their worth’.
Those working in the projects organization will be familiar with the scenario of being involved towards later stage of project delivery when things are starting to go wrong, or when it may be too late to put in effective change interventions. For those working within business units, common experiences may be difficulty influencing stakeholders on the importance of change management. Senior stakeholders focused on top line and bottom line challenges may not be convinced of the value that change tactics may bring. With the focus of senior leaders to meet financial goals and other ‘tangible’ business measures, change management practices may often be seen as a nice to have rather than a must-have.
What is a change practitioner to do in these situations?
ROI approach
One approach to proving the value is to use the return of investment calculation. In this approach, the dollars spent on change management is used, compared to the expected project benefits. Within this, it proportions the part of the benefits that are dependent on adoption and usage. For a great example refer here.
Whilst this is a good way to examine the return on investment, the problem is that the focus is on a project context. It does not take into consideration the value of change management from an overall business capability improvement perspective. It also does not call out the tangible and measurable parts of change management in adding business value.
Many organizations only realize the value of change management with experience of failed change attempts, and from this start to realize the risk of not having effective change management.
Here are 2 other ways to tangibly prove the value of change management
1) Planning and sequencing benefits
With quantitative data of change impacts on the business, this allows the change practitioner to work with the organization to better plan for change roll out. With one view of change impacts across different parts of the business, it is clearer to see when, what and how change is happening.
This data enables the identification of potential risks of having too much change in the plan. With historical data it is possible to see what happened to business performance last time it experienced a particular level of change. With this analysis, better sequencing and prioritization based on change impact may be made. It is important to call out that this process requires taking into account a range of business factors and not just change data. Critical factors to take into consideration include resourcing, customer or work volumes, and business performance indicators such as customer satisfaction scores, service response times, sales volume, etc.
It is easy to collect data on the negative impacts of having too much change on the business from these business indicators compared with other times where there is less change volume. For example, the business could have suffered negative work performance as a result of change magnitude that is not optimal. Anecdotally managers may understand the impact of having too much change on the business. However, the collective totality of all the business indicators can paint a convincing picture of what happens when effective change planning is absent.
2) Impacts of change on business performance
In previous examples, we’ve illustrated the impacts of too much change. For example, regulatory changes could mandate additional processes and customer communication content that could slow down service provision. However, sometimes the impact of change can also be positive (assuming there isn’t an overwhelming amount of change). For example, implementing technology automation and improved user interface on systems can improve user performance and customer satisfaction.
Correlations may be made between quantitative change impact data and business performance indicators. With a forward view of change impact data, it is then possible to predict the impact on business indicators. This is possibly the ultimate in proving the worth of change management. Senior business stakeholders will absolutely pay attention when the clear link between change and business performance is put on the table.
The same can also be said for change impacts on customers. With the right data, the change practitioner can provide a definitive analysis of what are the changes impacting a segment of customers at any given time, whether there could be too many changes, and whether the changes may be perceived as having positive or negative impacts. An increasing number of organizations are jumping on the bandwagon of customer centricity and customer experience. This is another way to prove the value of change management.
We at The Change Compass are working on incorporating machine learning and artificial intelligence so that change impact data may be used to predict business performance. This means that you are able to inform the business the likely scenario of business performance trends given the forecasted picture of changes. We anticipate the launch of this portion of the tool in early 2019. Stay tuned.
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by The Change Compass | Agile, Change Initiatives
There is now a lot of content out there on how to manage agile changes, including agile methodology and agile ways of working. This includes early and continuous engagement, creating a multidisciplinary team and designing smaller iterative changes. There are kanban and scrum approaches. What actually happens in organizations in terms of how people experience this? Most organizations experience this is a series of multiple initiatives going on, all iterating at the same time. The effect is various ripples of changes coming from different directions, with each initiative driving separate ripples.
Impact of agile changes
Let’s dive deeper into what this experience feels like for the organization. For the employee, changes are becoming more rapid than before with agile changes. Most organizations have at least several initiatives going on at any one time. Therefore, the employee will likely experience different changes at the same time. This could feel very overwhelming and hectic as the employee tries to keep up with a myriad of initiatives that are all working on the goals of the particular initiative.
For team managers this could also be equally overwhelming as various sources of initiative information is handed down and they are expected to be delivering and engaging their teams on the changes. Getting the details right is often a challenge and it is easy to just ‘pass down’ the given write-up about the initiative without talking through what it means specifically for the individual.
On top of this in a typical agile environment, there are always release changes and changes in the timeline. So, one of the challenges is that what is communicated through the various channels to engage employees will often be inaccurate as the dates change. This could create frustration and lack of trust as what is communicated keeps shifting.
For business unit managers the trick is to balance business-as-usual activities for employees and the demands of change initiatives. There can be occasions when there are simply too many changes at the same time impacting the same group of employees, whilst other times there seems to be little change – feast or famine. In this situation, there can be significant business performance impacts if there is too much change. Customer service levels may drop, customer satisfaction levels may be impacted, or work efficiency and work allocation may be impacted.
In a nutshell, the different ripples from different directions could all intersect and meet in one particular part of the business and create potential turmoil and business disruption. Which initiative is trying to do what? Which one benefits us more than the other? Which one requires more effort to get ready? These are typical questions faced by the business.
So how do we resolve this?
Planning and prioritization
Effective planning across initiatives is critical to managing the various ripples. There needs to be effective agreement across the organization which initiative has the priority using a set of agreed criteria. Typical factors include benefit size, strategic importance or any non-negotiables such as regulatory requirements. Both businesses and projects need to be part of this process. Data to support this process need to include all initiatives impacting a particular part of the business, whether it is deemed a ‘program’, ‘project’, or ‘BAU initiative’. The groups should look for opportunities to potentially ‘package’ certain changes that are more alike so that it is easier for employee absorption and adoption.
A key part of the input into this discussion is change impact. With clarity of the quantum and nature of change impact at any given time, along with other initiative information, decisions may be made on prioritization and sequencing. To read more about change portfolio management click here.
Communication and engagement
To effectively communicate with employees within an agile environment where there is constant shifting of timeline some use monthly release blocks versus communicating actual dates. Another way of addressing this challenge is to continuously remind employees the ‘why’ of the shifting timeline. This is focused on building employee expectation for the agile environment that there will often be constant shifting of dates and releases.
With multiple changes, it is also important to effectively link initiatives to their intent and goals. An overarching grouping or linking of initiatives to organizational strategies could be one way of doing this. In this way, it is easier to draw linkages for employees to seemingly disparate initiatives.
Business forums and routines
As a part of running an effective business operation, it is important to establish the right forums and routines to ensure that there is ongoing visibility of change impact. The routine should focus on examining the data on what the changes are at any given point in time, what happened previously in implementing changes, what will happen in the next quarter or month, and what actions are required to get the business ready.
There should also be regular examination of the level of ‘change heat’ to effectively manage business performance. Where there is a lack of heat there could be opportunities to fast-forward certain changes to balance the overall change loading.
The discussion on business readiness and capacity for change should be a balanced one, taking into account any operational challenges. These could include sales target stretches, resourcing levels, customer contact volumes, and other operational activities. In this way, the understanding of the employee capacity for change is taking into account a range of activities and focus areas at a given point in time.
The importance of change data
A critical part of creating an agile environment is a reliance on data. Agile teams are reliant on data in how solutions are developed, tested, deployed and evaluated. Without data it is not possible to test the hypothesis. In a similar way, the organization also needs to look at how it is collecting and analyzing change data to make effective business decisions. Managing the various ripples within the organization requires data-based decision making and not gut feel and hunches.
Read more about agile and change management in our article ‘The ultimate guide to Agile for change managers’ or ‘What we need to know about agile we learnt from change management’.
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