From the beginning of civilizations, storytelling is a way to help us understand what is happening. In caveman paintings, the pictures reveal a lot about the significance of the pictorial story and the message being conveyed. Cave art is considered to have symbolic or religious purposes. Even oral stories can be passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. The bible is an example of how stories can be passed down and documented. Children’s fairy tales are also examples of powerful stories.
Stories are easily remembered and inspire understanding and belief. This is why the industry of influencers is such a large market. We connect to influencers because we associate with them, find them interesting, or aspire to be them. Influencers share their everyday stories with us and through this, we grow increasingly connected and engaged with the messages they are conveying.
Here is an example of powerful storytelling. The Australian Broadcast Corporation which is a public TV channel aired a show called ‘War on Waste’. The purpose was to inspire the public to change personal habits to reduce waste. The show was hugely powerful.
A report by the University of Technology Sydney’s Institute for Sustainable Futures found that the show triggered 452 high-impact waste reduction initiatives. These include supermarkets and hospitality businesses deciding to remove plastic straws from their stores in Australia and New Zealand, and states banning single-use plastic bags. Almost half of the 280 organisations surveyed in the report based their waste reduction ideas from the show. These were all just 6 months after the show had aired.
‘War on Waste’ show showing clothing waste
Imagine using the power of storytelling with change management data?
Yes, we’ve all been there. Remember the last time that you were at a meeting where there were lots of figures and data thrown around. With each PowerPoint slide, the presenter aimed to cover as much information as possible. An hour later, what did you remember from all the various data points shared? Probably not much beyond one or two points at the most.
This illustrates the power of storytelling. Rather than flashing lots of data at the audience, telling stories is a much more powerful way of conveying messages. In this guide, we will cover various facets of how to convey powerful messages through storytelling with change management data.
1. Types of change management data
Collecting and sharing change management data is critical throughout the implementation of the change process. It tells the impacted stakeholders where the change is taking them and is also essential to help stakeholders understand whether things are on track or not.
In this guide, we will not cover in-depth the various types of change management data. However, the key types of change management include:
Change readiness surveys
Training assessments & evaluation surveys
Communications metrics
Employee sentiments/culture survey
Change adoption tracking
Change leadership assessment
Change maturity assessment
Change management heatmap
Other capability assessments (e.g. sponsor, change champion)
In any business meeting context is critical. Whether you are in a meeting to make a key decision, to brainstorm ideas, to critique an idea, or to track team progress, the context of the meeting is critical. Without a strong and clear context, participants will not understand what the meeting is about nor why they are there.
When I was at Intel, in every meeting room there is a poster listing key meeting effectiveness etiquette points. One of the most important points listed is having a clear meeting agenda prior to the meeting starting. Even before you walk into the meeting, ensure that you have already communicated to participants what the context of the meeting is and what you will be discussing. This could be as simple as listing this clearly in the meeting invite agenda or sending a clear email to participants prior to the meeting.
If the subject matter is particularly complex it may be helpful to send an email of any ‘pre-read’ materials so that audience has time to digest various content prior to the meeting. This is particularly important if the subject area is complex and requires a lot of information context-setting prior to the meeting.
When you first enter the meeting it is also important to once again establish the context of the meeting in case your participants did not read the agenda or are not clear.
B. Crafting the story
Crafting a meaningful and compelling story that resonates with your audiences is not difficult. However, it follows a logical flow. The challenge is to craft the story in a way that achieves the balance of painting the storyline that gives the user sufficient ‘colour’ of the plot, without having too much detail and overwhelming the audience. On the other hand, storylines that have too few details are may not be compelling or impactful.
Here is a useful structure to follow – The story structure ring by Tomas Puego.
This structure can be applied to any story and is particularly suited to business settings.
The Story Structure Ring by Thomas Puego
If you are making a presentation to managers to senior managers who are often impatient and have little time you will need to tweak your storyline and flow accordingly. Whilst the bulk of the storyline structure ring can still apply, it is better to add to this an initial step on the key takeaway right at the beginning of the presentation.
Initial situation. This is when we show what the situation was like when everything was normal and prior to the problem occurring. This is an important part before it reminds the audience what the situation was like before the problem started.
Problem. Here we explore what the problem is and what happened. Go into what this means for various characters and their lives. What’s the result of the problem and what pains did it cause? What has the characters tried to do to resolve the problem? What has or has not worked?
Midpoint insight. This is a key reflection of the story when there is a particular revelation or insight that changes the storyline. With the new insight characters realise something they did not previously.
Explore the insight. Explore what lead to the insight, and what the insight meant to the characters. How do the characters see the problem in the new light? Did the characters approach the problem incorrectly and now with the new insight they are able to see what was wrong?
Solution. The character(s) finally realise how to apply the solution using the insight. It could be a series of struggles of trial and error. It could be using data-based insights.
Aftermath. After implementing the solution the characters are able to address the problem and resolve the pain. If you are making recommendations in a business context, this may not have happened yet. Instead, you can use this step to outline what will be the aftermath after applying the solution.
3. Presenting to managers or within limited time
This is proposed by the Barbara Minto Pyramid model whereby there is a pyramid of information that is recommended using a top-down presentation structure. It starts with the end or the conclusion first to satisfy the informational needs of those impatient managers and also to create curiosity from which to engage the audience and present through the rest of the storyline.
In this way, the audience does not get flooded with a myriad of information, data, and arguments and is able to clearly understand where the story is going from the outset.
The other highlight of using the model is to summarize key points at a high level first before going into the details of each point. This way you’ve already provided a structure of the storyline of what the top-level points are before you start diving into each point. This is critical because without the structure it is easy for your audience to get lost in the details.
The Minto Pyramid by Barbara Minto
The Minto model is very useful for those who rely on PowerPoint or document-based presentations where they walk the audience through the materials. This is common practice and it may be easier from a preparation perspective since the content prompts the presenter on what to say. A better way of storytelling is always to rely on verbal storytelling at least in the beginning to engage the audience and fully connect with them before launching a series of slides.
If you are only relying on slides to make your points there is a big risk that your audience is spending more attention looking at the words and details of what you have shown in the slides and this may conflict with what you are talking about. If what you are saying is not what the audience is reading into on the slide content this may create confusion. Slides are good at the right time with the right content to complement what you are saying, not the other way around.
In presenting to managers you also need to be very summarised in your overall presentation. Err on the side of talking at a high level with some illustrations of details. Prepare more detailed data and information as needed so that if asked to elaborate you’re able to dive into the details. However, the flow of the presentation should be fairly succinct and to the point. Often, your presentation may be shortened due to other agendas running longer than expected. It pays to be focused and summarised in your presentation.
4. Storyboarding
Storyboarding is a way to graphically show the flow of the story. Whilst it is a common technique in product development or learning content development, it originated from film/play development.
For screenplays, storyboarding is about physically drawing out each key scene to outline the overall story. Stick figures are sufficient and the drawings do not need to be artworks. They are simple depictions of what key scenes would visually look like.
Think about the angle of each scene, what the main characters are, what happens, and where it happens. Then for each scene, write brief short bullet points describing what happens in each scene. Use quotes as needed to portray what characters are saying.
In business, a lot of people don’t visually depict the storyboard, instead, reply on comments for each scene. More visually explicit stories will be more powerful, so it is better to practice to visually draw out scenes along with written notes. It helps you to picture clearly and visually the characters you are centering on, how they are behaving, and what situations or environments they are in.
You also don’t necessarily need to make the story a long and drawn-out one. A storyboard can be as simple as 3 scenes. A more rich story outlining the setting and context can be longer. Try to stick to no more than 6 scenes when you work on your storyboard. This will enable you to have ample content to outline the development of the story, the climax, and the outcome of the story.
After you’ve crafted a story, it’s time to work on what data visualisation to show in your presentation or discussion.
Principle 1: Visual charts
The first principle to remember is to always error on showing charts versus raw numbers. Charts are inherently more memorable and in general more impactful for most people. Of course this depends on exactly the point you are trying to make. Even if you are comparing the data across two areas of the business it’s still a better idea to show a simple bar chart with the 2 data points, versus just quoting the raw numbers. The simple bar chart will visually show the difference between the 2 numbers visually, and you can still show the actual numbers in addition.
Charts are general impactful than raw numbers
Principle 2: Less is more
There is a tendency for business people to show lots of charts in meetings. The thinking is that the more information that is shown, there will be greater clarity and fewer questions. In fact, the reverse is true. The more data you show, often this leads to confusion and lack of clarity. It is harder to stick to a simple storyline when the audience is overwhelmed by lots of data.
The charts are only there to illustrate and support your storyline. The immediate reading of the chart should relate directly to the point you are making. If the chart is conveying lots of other information, be careful. This can launch other questions and discussions and therefore lead the flow of the story away from what you had intended.
Where possible, stick to 2 or 3 charts for your presentation. You can always have a few backup charts if your audience wants to dive into further details. Again, the key focus is on you telling the story and the key medium of communication. The charts are a supporting medium to make things visual, and easier to understand and remember.
Principle 3: Avoid visual distractions
This principle is about the chart is focused on the message being delivered and avoiding any visual distractions that could create ‘noise’ and distraction for the audience. These include any graphic design, use of colour, lines, sizing, etc.
Below is an example of a typical change heatmap table chart used to depict the level of change impact across different projects. Let’s take a closer look.
Change Impact Heatmap Using Traffic Light Ratings
3. Using different charts
A. Focusing attention on the right part of the chart
To help the user zoom in on the point that you are making, your data visualisation should also draw attention to the point that you are making. Use colour highlighting to draw your audience’ attention to the data point you are focused on.
For example, to draw attention to the particular week that you wanted to highlight to the audience, use a darker shade of the same colour to the rest of the charts to draw the focus. But be aware that using too many different colours may end up confusing the audience instead. This is preferrable than using a circle to highlight the same data point, since this may also be another source of visual ‘noise’ in distracting the user.
Change Impact across time
B. Using pie charts
Pie charts are very popular with business users. They are useful and effective in comparing different data points. However, when there are too many data points, it becomes quite hard for the user to read and compare the different data points. For this reason, be very careful in using pie charts. When you are using more than three to four data points in the same pie chart, it may be better to use other charts such as bars charts or line charts. This is particularly when the data points in the chart are similar in value.
Have a look at the below 2 charts. One created using a pie chart and the other using a line chart. Both are exactly the same data. You can see that with the pie chart it is almost impossible for the audience to tell which Project has more impact hours than the others. Comparing the data points within the pie chart is extremely difficult. On the other hand, looking at the line chart it is significantly easier to decipher the data difference across the projects.
C.Treemap charts
Treemap charts are a great way to show, in a neat and tidy way, the relative data value across a number of data set. Ideally, the data set is not so great that it becomes too complicated to read (i.e. over 20 data points). This chart is a great visual when you want the user to see and compare the size differences of data points.
Now have a look at the below chart. Once again this is using the same data. If you would like your audience to compare the different hours of impact across each project it is very difficult for them to decipher which one has more impact than others. What this chart may be good at is when there is a big range of differences in data points and you want to be able to show the range of the different hours. However, when the range in differences are not great, which is the case here, it is better not to use this chart.
Now have a look at the below chart. You’ll see that it is much easier to see the data size differences because the sizes are quite significantly different. For example, if you want your audience to visually just how much the impact difference is, then this is a good chart. If you want to, you can always show the numerical values, if you would like your audience to see the numerical differences as well.
D. Using bar charts
Bar charts are one of the most common forms of data charts. There is a very good reason for this. Humans are very good at comparing lengths when they are aligned neatly next to each other. We can naturally see the beginning and end of each bar chart and be able to easily decipher the comparative differences across the bars.
There are many different types of bar charts including:
Vertical bar chart
Horzontal bar chart
Clustered bars
Stacked bars
100% stacked bars
Waterfall chart
Some of the tips in using bar charts effectively include:
Avoid using too many colours since the audience may be overwhelmed and focus on the colours instead what the chart is trying to show in terms of comparative differences
Ensure labels are clear and easy to read
Use a zero-baseline so that the audience only focuses on the difference at the other end of each bars
E. Using bubble charts
The bubble chart is a very visual chart and easy for people to compare across data points. The bubble chart is a good chart to use when there is a number of data points, but no more than 20. If there is over 20 data bubbles it starts to get too overwhelming for the audience. There are many different types of bubble charts
Standard bubble chart where there are no axes, with each bubble representing the different sizes (e.g. impact size, completion rate, etc.)
Scatterplot with 2 axes and changing bubble size. This chart shows 2 dimensions of data, i.e. the 2 axes and the bubble size. For example, bubble size could represent number of people impacted, with impact size and change readiness rating on the 2 axes
Scatterplot with 2 axes and no changing bubble size. This type of chart is useful to show the differences along the axes. The ‘bubbles’ or dots are simply representations of different data points since they do not have bubble size differences. For example, the horizontal axis can show time, and the vertical axis can show change readiness, with each dot showing a different project.
Change Impact Bubble chart
4. Colour blindness
Approximately 8% of men have colour blindness. The percentage is less for women. So, it is important to note that you will likely come across audience members who may not be able to see certain colours. Most business people do not make a point of designing charts that take into account colour blindness. However, you do not want to risk making a blunder with critical stakeholders who may not be able to see what you are referencing.
To check that you are using colours that are not going to disadvantage colour-blind audience, use ColorBrewer and select the colour-blindness safe box to come up with the right colours.
Colour-blindess tool ColorBrewer
5. Examples of story flows
What are some of the examples in which change practitioners can use data-based storytelling to influence stakeholders? In this section, we look at a few examples.
A key ingredient in all of these story flows is that they all contain a logical sequence of stories. A good way to add ‘colour’ and bring the story to life is to add quotes, and observations to support the data. This balance of quantitative and qualitative data can be very powerful and persuasive.
The other call out is that in each of the 5 steps, data may be used to support the story flow. The use of data does not need to only be injected in the steps of ‘Problem’ and ‘Insight’. It can be every or any single step of the story flow. In this way, the story becomes even more powerful and convincing. However, note again that having too much data may overwhelm the audience and create confusion. So, achieving a balance is key.
6. Making recommendations
Essentially, data-based storytelling is not just about informing the business of what is going on or what is going to happen. The value comes when you use it to make recommendations. Recommendations are hard to dispute when the story sequence is backed by data. When you make a sequence of logical deductions backed by data, the audience is naturally convinced by the recommendation proposed.
It is also a good idea to come up with options when recommending a solution. Ideally, create two scenarios for your stakeholders to select from, or a maximum of three scenarios or choices. Describe clearly what each scenario could look like and supplement the recommendation with the advantages and disadvantages of each scenario option.
Below is an example of a chart from The Change Compass where an alternative delivery sequence is proposed. It illustrates what the alternative change impact looks like for impacted business stakeholders across projects. The star indicates planned go-lives.
Change Impact Scenario Bar Chart
Telling compelling and persuasive stories using change data takes practice. Through regular practice, you will discover what your stakeholders resonate with and what they find challenging to understand. Tweak your presentation accordingly. Note any individual stakeholder differences. Also, note any commonalities of preferences across your stakeholder groups.
It is 2022 and a year ago most of us were praying for the end of Covid so that we can move back to ‘normal’. One year on, here we are again. Covid disruptions are even more severe and widespread. Not only are we still amidst continuous business disruptions compared to a year ago, but probably even more severe.
We see lots of memes around social media of people wanting to forget the past year with the difficulty of life caused by Covid. And a year ago it was the same. What we are learning is that change and disruption will not be going away any time soon. The only thing we can do to support our organisations is to continue to build change agility. With better change agility, organizations are better able to respond to constant and continuous change.
The big positive for change managers is more than ever, change is now the centre of attention for businesses. In the past, many would struggle to position management conversations about the importance of managing and leading change. That is no longer the case. Even the most backward and change immature businesses are thrust into the midst of constant change. We no longer need to raise this as a topic of focus.
This means now is the opportune time to utilise the focus on change to gear up the organisation’s readiness and capability to respond to the constant change in the longer term. More than ever now is the time to pitch to your organisation about the importance of building the right ‘change agility muscles’ so that the organisations can remain competitive and in business.
What are the benefits of agile organisations?
We can see quite stark examples of organisations that are agile versus those that are not. Businesses that jumped on web offerings have benefited significantly versus those that have relied purely on brick-and-mortar channels. Other businesses have diversified their offering whilst others have reduced their store footprint.
Mckinsey studies have shown that with successful agile transformations, organisations can achieve significant business improvements. Not just surviving, successful companies have achieved 30% better customer satisfaction, 30% improvement in operational performance, 5-10 times speed in driving change and decision making and ranking higher in innovation compared to peers. These organisations are also 30% better at engaging employees and 30% more efficient in their operations through fewer handovers, and reduced overhead with clear focus areas.
However, as a change manager, how can you move the dial on improving your organisation’s agility for change? As a solitary individual how does one person influence an organisation? This is especially when you may not have the decision-making authority or the power? As a change manager, you have your project work defined. How can you do this without boiling the ocean which may not be part of your bread-and-butter role?
These are 5 ways to improve your organisation’s agility as a change manager:
1. Influence your project sponsor and business owner to lead agility.
A part of the change manager’s role is to help influence and equip stakeholders with the right skills to drive the change. This starts with your own project. As a project, assess the skills of your project sponsor and business owner. Do they have the experience and skills to lead agility practices as a part of overall change leadership?
These may include:
Ability to spot changing and emerging trends that may impact the organisation’s business
Balance the oversight of immediate daily operational trends and insights, against longer-term and more strategic patterns and trends that may emerge
Ability to work across disciplines in influencing change
Promotion and advocacy of constant experimentation and testing of new ideas and concepts, supporting experimental failures as they arise
Lead behaviours that support organisational learning, whether it’s learning from within the industry outside the industry, using historical data, or through innovation incubation teams
Savviness with shifting technological trends and use cases that could implicate the business
Work with your sponsor and business owner and help to identify key required agility leadership behaviours. Partner with them and coach as necessary to support these behaviours. Collaborate and come up with a skills development plan if necessary.
2. Embed agility practices within the implementation of your project.
To support business agility the first step from a project perspective is to ask how the project benefits can be protected and sustained even in times of constant disruption and uncertainty. Asking this question is the first step to take. Simply asking this may help you re-shape the project’s approach in its implementation and the work involved.
Some of the ways in which you can design agility into your project include:
Designing flexible role and team structures where appropriate to ensure that any workload or role changes can be easily flexed and catered for in case of future changes
Designing the right skills and competency requirements into business roles as a part of role requirements, including agile leadership, experimentation, work approach flexibility, and reporting/data fluency
Building agile business rhythms and routines into business readiness and future end-state designs. These may include stand-ups, business scanning and review practices, and agile iteration practices
Work closely with your business representatives and subject matter experts within your project and leverage them as anchors for agility practices into the business
Leverage your pilots as agility experiments in designing agility components into your change implementation. For example, use the pilot as a test from which to build agility components so as to further change agility in the rest of the project roll out
3. Proactively participate in the change centre of excellence, or if this does not exist, build a change network with other change managers and interested business representatives
Leverage the power of other change practitioners in other projects and across the business to collaborate and build a common approach to further change agility in the business. Work with others to come up with ways to influence the business and build practices that will help the business strive in times of disruption and change. Don’t underestimate the power of like-minded representatives across the business. Each representative acts as an influencing node from which powerful tactics and practices can be driven into the business.
Work across projects to build one view of change impacts. By building this integrated view of change impacts across multiple projects, you are also helping the business connect the dots and build an integrated way of getting ready for all changes, not just yours. An integrated view of change can help you:
See a holistic picture of what is going to change
Prepare the business for what is going to change across the board, and this is made easier by knowing what will be changing
Utilise the changes in the roadmap to design a series of agility tests to prepare the business for challenges further down the track in the roadmap
4. Liberalising data and support swift decision making
Historically, in hierarchical companies data is usually restricted to select managers. With digitisation there is an opportunity to give power to a much larger number of employees to access data and through this be more aware of the changing needs of the company. Liberalising data to make faster and better decisions is one of the key trends of digitisation. This is also a key enabler for change agility. With easier data access for a greater number of employees, decisions can be made by those who are most familiar with the work context, in a timely fashion. This ease of data access means that someone does not need to wait for rounds of approvals to make decisions.
This also applies to change data. Rather than restricting the access of change impact data to a select few managers, liberalising this across a larger number of managers and team leaders can help to paint a clearer picture of change and help equip the business’ readiness for change.
The ease of acess to data does not just mean the raw data itself, but ease also implies the ease of understanding the format of the data. Pre-configured data visualisation and charts are valuable since the user will not need to go through long training sessions in order to use the data. By making the data easily understood and make sense, the business can then balance forecasted change against impending change disruptions that may not be forecasted.
5. Conduct change scenario planning
Scenario planning is an exercise where a facilitated team reviews the existing operations and the external business environment to try and forecast differing business scenarios. Scenarios are then used to build the right tracking signals. The business may have already built safeguards toward this scenario, or a clear set of next steps in which to deal with the progress toward this scenario.
Not a lot of projects conduct scenario planning, as scenario planning is typically conducted by strategy and planning functions. However, undertaking scenario planning can help build in the right rail guards to safeguard against different scenarios before they emerge.
Work with your project team and business stakeholders to undergo an annual scenario planning exercise in which to prepare the business for various environmental disruptions and challenges. Scenario planning does not need to be a long, formal, drawn-out process. It could be as simple as spending a day exploring what the future holds, having done the homework to prepare for what the data could be telling us. After identifying various scenarios, ensure you name each scenario, with a meaningful analogy if needed so that it’s more meaningful and easier to remember for the team.
You can also put in practice scenario planning on a smaller scale. Within certain junctures of the project, you can build in mini-scenarios of the various change outcomes that may occur, and build in the right tracking metrics and reporting to see which scenario is emerging.
You can also use scenario planning to work through multiple changes across the projects and change landscape. Use similar concepts to work-through options in sequencing and prioritisation and what this means to change implementation timelines and tactics. For example, are there ways in which implementation may be combined across projects? Or can releases be broken down into smaller change bites to aid adoption and cater to limited business capacity?
There are many ways in which you as a singular change manager can influence and drive significant agility changes within your organisation. Here we outline 5 major ways in which you can do this. Since disruption and ongoing change are not going away, this is the opportune time for change practitioners to grab this window of opportunity and work with the business to develop and design change agile organisations. Not only will your project have a significantly better chance of realising its targeted benefits, but so will other projects in the pipeline.
Often we hear change practitioners call out the challenges of working with organisations that are not change mature. Yes it is easier for change practitioners to work within organisations that are more mature in managing change. This means that the change concepts and approaches are easily understood and adopted. This also means that you don’t need to spend a lot of time covering the foundational approaches of change before driving project results.
When organisations are less change mature, change practitioners need to do a lot more level setting work to explain their role, and foundational change management concepts. For example, the importance of engagement and authenticity, and getting feedback from stakeholder groups prior to change implementation.
Structured communication and learning channels may need to be setup. Without these being established, messages may not be flowing between the targeted stakeholder groups.
However, every organisation is in a different continuum in their development of their change maturity. How do we work with organisations that simply do not have in place a lot of the foundational capabilities of managing change?
Frame everything as a part of general business management
15 years ago when I was at Intel there was no change management function per se. There were also no dedicated change management professionals. What we know now as change management was covered under the work of Project Managers and the Human Resources Organizational Development function. Most managers were not familiar with change management concepts or applications.
However, from a learning and development perspective what Intel did well was to integrate managing change concepts within general management skills. All levels of management development included a component of managing change. After all, this is an organisation in a fast-changing hi-tech environment where change is a normal part of how the industry evolves.
In particular, first-line manager, second-line manager as well as senior manager development programs all had general management components. Everything ranging from setting clear goals and expectations, communicating clearly, asking for and receiving feedback, driving for results, supporting and developing the team, were all foundational parts of managerial development. As a result, the organisation is quite used to ongoing changes either operational, structural or strategic ones.
The point here is that in order to drive successful change, it may not be necessary to have a dedicated change function nor formalised change management development programs. Change management is a part of general management, just like human resources or operations management.
The challenge for the change practitioner is to diagnose which parts of the fabric of the organisation is not change mature, and therefore could become potential obstacles for successful change process implementation. These may include:
The ability of targeted leaders in leading change successfully (judging by previous change history)
The ability of impacted stakeholder groups including employees in trusting leaders in undergoing the change process
The existence of various learning and engagement platforms and processes from which change implementation may leverage throughout the initiative
Experience in undergoing change initiatives that follow a structured rigour where stakeholder consultation, ongoing tracking of results, and discipline in execution are adhered to
Planning capability in engaging stakeholders using clear fact-based visualisation of impact activities and using this to balance and sequence overall business capacity
After identifying those elements that could potentially impede the successful execution and adoption of change, the next task is to ‘frame’ your work around improving business processes and capabilities to support initiative success. And the trick of doing this well in change immature organisations is to frame it without using change concepts or jargon.
As hard as it may seem, some of the terms you may want to avoid include:
change leadership capability
burning platform
change champions
change vision
change approach/strategy
change readiness
I know! This sounds like an impossible feat not to use standard change jargon and concepts. However, this is the key to engaging with organisations that are less change mature. Instead of change-specific language, try using general business terms instead. These are some examples:
Instead of change leadership capability, leader behaviours required
Instead of burning platform, articulating the clear reasons for the change
Instead of change champions, business unit initiative reps
Instead of change vision, initiative end-state
Instead of change approach/strategy, leading our people through the initiative
Instead of change readiness, implementation or initiative readiness
Framing change concepts into general business speak
In framing your change approach and plan and ‘translating’ this into business-speak. There are 2 key levels to focus on.
1. Strategic
This is about cutting through to the core of why we are changing and how the change helps to meet a particular strategic goal. For low change mature stakeholders, this needs to be as basic as possible. So, none of the lofty elevator pitches that your corporate communications person has carefully crafted. But, a lay-man wording of why the change is needed and how this helps the organisation.
2. Operational
This is one of the most critical parts of dissecting the change. It is about breaking down your change approach into the various elements that impact the operations of the business. It is laying out the operational activities that are being planned to drive stakeholders through the change process. For example,
What process changes will mean for the frontline consultant, in terms of work steps, bandwidth, reporting, collaboration, work focus areas, etc.
What technology changes will team for team work in terms of who does work, the frequency of exchanges, the speed and process of decision making, audit tracing,
Frame change activities as a part of project steps
Another challenge in working with less change mature organisations is positioning project change implementation activities in a way that resonates and make sense. To make things simple for the business, try and use as least jargon as possible and explain the ‘why’ and purpose of each activity.
Here are some examples.
Change impact assessment -> Why is this needed?
The assessment defines in detail what is changing and how this affects different parts of the organisation, whether is people, process, customer, technology, etc.
How to use it? After understanding in detail what is changing, this then helps us plan out how to engage the impacted groups of people, and it also helps us to determine how to give them the right skills and support
Stakeholder matrix -> Why is this needed?
This breaks down which groups of people by business unit, function, team, role, in terms of how we plan to engage with them, using what engagement channels, and how critical or influential they are to the success of the project.
How to use it? The information on the groups of people impacted by this project determines those we engage with and how we engage with them. It also determines those we need to support with the right skills and know-how. Having the right information of those impacted means that we don’t miss groups of people that we should be engaging with.
It starts with one – finding the first sponsor/champion
Even if less mature organisations there will be managers who ‘get’ what you are trying to do in driving change. They may not know the terminology, the concepts nor the ways to measure change effectiveness. However, experienced managers should intuitively understand the importance of engagement, measurement, setting clear goals and expectations, skills, and capabilities.
When you start to work your way around the organisations you should come across them. They can help to either ‘sponsor’ your project if they are in the right position and their role has the influencing power over your project. He/She may not be the ‘project sponsor’, instead, a political sponsor who is influential enough to create clout to drive movement in the change process.
You may also come across various potential ‘champions’ who are passionate, positive about the change, and diligent enough that you can work with to channel change energy into the various stakeholder groups. These champions may be frontline level, first-line manager, or senior managers.
Remember, any change starts with one person. One by one, the change takes shape and the influence takes place through each interaction and each engagement. Even if you can only have a small number of champions, you will be amazed at the results you can achieve through the dedication of the few.
Use data to tell stories
Even in less change mature organisations, managers use manage to manage the business. This means, if you can gather the right change data to tell the story of how the initiative may pan out across the business, you can easily communicate and influence the business. Especially in less change mature businesses, data is absolutely key.
What are some of the ways in which change data can help to crystalise the importance of change tactics and approaches?
Examples of data visualisation from The Change Compass
Change impact data can tell a visual and influential story of what is going to happen to the organisation. For example:
Which parts of the organisation are more impacted? What roles? What are the relative sizes of impact?
How much time is required for particular roles as part of change implementation activities throughout the implementation phase?
What’s the timing of implementation activities and how do these overlap with other project activities or operational priorities?
Scenarios of implementation roadmap including potential risks and benefits of alternative scenarios
Other data can be used to tell stories of the progress of the project include, change readiness assessment results, training completion rates, training session satisfaction feedback, stakeholder readership of knowledge article pages, and attendance and engagement level at briefing or town hall sessions.
In most agile project delivery methodologies there is a clear absence of the specific roles and deliverables of the change manager. Almost every other function is clearly outlined. Look at the work of the project manager, developers, DevOps, quality, business stakeholders, and testing. Not so for change management. This is because the agile change management methodology is not clearly developed. Some even call out that the role of change management is diminishing within agile methodology.
So what is the role that change managers play in the agile product delivery process? What are the actions, approaches, deliverables and considerations required for change professionals in an agile environment?
We will address these in this article.
What is agile product delivery?
According to Scaled Agile, agile product delivery is a “customer-centric approach to defining, building, and releasing a continuous flow of valuable products and services to customers and users”.
Agile product delivery forms a core part of agile project delivery. Each project is delivering a particular product and this is concerned about delivering innovative products and services with the right solutions at the right time.
The mechanics within each product delivery add up to determine the overall project outcome. Therefore, the design of agile product delivery practices is absolutely crucial in achieving overall project goals. Let’s now examine some of these practices in detail.
Customer centricity vs project centricity
In agile methodology the end customer is the number one focus. In various organisations ‘customer’ may be used for various internal stakeholder groups. Yes, often projects may be delivering solutions that are only benefiting internal employee groups. However, the end goal for agile is focused on the end external customer.
This means, whatever solutions or benefits that the project is bringing to the internal stakeholder group, ideally these would support the organisation’s work in benefiting the end customer. In all aspects of prioritisation and discussions of solution design, the focus must always be on the end customer.
The role of the change manager in customer-centricity is to plan out and execute on the change process according to what supports the end customer. If the change has a direct impact on the customer this means engaging the customer (as needed through marketing groups). And if the impact is more on internal stakeholders, thinking still needs to be applied to facilitate the engagement, readiness, and adoption of the change so as to benefit the end customer.
Even when you’re working on internal stakeholders, being customer-centric means:
Putting yourself into the customers’ shoes – Using customer insights and data to inform insights
Focusing on the whole product vs individual features – Taking a holistic view of what is in the interest of customers, the design of the overall change should take into account how customers interact with the overall service or product
Designing change to the customer lifetime value – Most organisations would have a mapping of the value delivered to the customer across different phases across time.
Develop on cadence in agile change management
Agile teams have ongoing, structured routines that help them develop solutions on a regular basis. Within each iteration (a standard, fixed timebox where the team delivers incremental value) the team aims to deliver according to plan.
The Change Manager needs to understand the broader plan and milestones of key outcomes delivered by the project, as well as when each iteration will occur. From this project plan, a clear change plan detailing the overall approach in engaging stakeholders based on what will be delivered and the frequency and nature of communication should be formed.
Careful attention needs to be placed on setting the expectation with stakeholders on the readiness of developed solutions. A lot of stakeholders may not be comfortable with how fast solutions may be iterated and that the solution outcome may not be known until, often, closer to the release date. Addressing the stakeholder expectations of release cadence is critical to ensure that there is no misalignment.
Program Increments (PIs) informed the larger timebox of what will be delivered, whilst each iteration delivers a smaller set of solutions. From a stakeholder engagement perspective, there needs to be a balance of painting a clear overall story of what will be delivered within the overall PI, balanced by particular details contained within each iteration.
Working in program increments
To add value as a change manager across a program increment it is critical that you examine the overall program as a whole system. Across the work of each agile team and each iteration, the overall program solution starts to take shape. Your job is to interpret what this means to stakeholders and decipher this into engagement and readiness activities.
Sequencing and planning
The schedule of agile releases is mainly determined based on agile team resourcing and delivery deadlines.
Throughout the iterations, how do the release timings impact stakeholders against their existing business-as-usual demands as well as potential releases from other projects? This is a key contribution of the Change Manager in ensuring that change impact release plans are optimised from the perspective of the receiving business. How frequently should communication updates be undertaken for various stakeholder groups given the pace of the releases? Again, the design of this forms a critical part of the overall change plan.
Change delivery also forms a central part of agile team delivery. Change deliverables are often dependent on other agile team members. For example, to deliver change impact assessment you need the finalised solution to be defined by the Business Analyst. In order to deliver the right level of communication briefing to business stakeholders, you need to set the expectation of the timing and minimum information required.
Program Increment planning from Scaled Agile
Overall vision and narrative
Is there a clear overall vision and narrative from which individual release communications can build on top of? It’s critical to paint a clear picture of what the end state looks like without the nuances of the mechanics of the solution (as these will not be known at the beginning of the program).
Release on demand
Release on demand is a practice and a process whereby new functionality is deployed as needed based on stakeholder needs. Depending on the change impact of the feature the change manager needs to be ready to send communications and updates as needed, sometimes within a short notice period.
Note that not all releases necessarily require communications for users. And depending on the type of change being released different formats of communication may be leveraged. For example, system changes may benefit from within-app notifications versus emails or other forms of update.
Communications and engagement may also be bundled as necessary to provide a packet of updates to stakeholder groups versus constant and continuous updates. The change manager needs to examine the nature of change impacts and stakeholder needs to determine the right tactic to be used.
Release design
Change impact sizing and design is a critical role taken by the change manager. From change impact assessment, the change manager needs to consider the impact of the overall size of the change impact from a business stakeholder perspective. Where possible, a packet of change may need to be de-scoped to be broken into smaller pieces of change if this is going to be easier for adoption in consultation with stakeholders. On the other hand, many changes may also be bundled together into a larger change release, again based on optimal stakeholder adoption considerations. This form a critical part of lean flow design.
Bugs in agile change management
The change manager has a role to play in setting expectations with stakeholders that with agile system releases that go fast and constant, that there should be an expectation that bugs are probably unavoidable. Ensure that users are clear in terms of how to highlight bugs and how they will be kept in the loop as each bug is addressed.
On the other hand, bugs may be so disruptive that an effective roll-back approach must be in place in case the change did not land well. Effective communication content and processes need to be in place to manage this risk. This is a critical part of ongoing agile change management.
BAU integration
With frequent releases, care needs to be given to how the change will be adopted and embedded within the impacted business as a part of business-as-usual. For smaller changes, this may not be critical but for larger change impacts the change manager needs to weave each change into a coherent, overall change approach that includes post-release adoption strategies. This includes embedding roles and responsibilities, tracking, and reporting mechanisms.
Automation in agile change management
A part of agile is about delivering fast as frequently as possible. To support this automation of any part of the development process is encouraged where possible. For the change manager, various digital tools should be leveraged to support the continuous deployment. This includes scheduled digital communication, tracking of audience responses, knowledge article views, and digital versions of the single view of change.
Dashboard example from The Change Compass
Measurement in agile change management
Measurement is a critical part of agile change management. Without the right metrics to indicate how the change is progressing it is difficult to know if the trajectory is heading in the right direction towards the end state. A clear set of measurements needs to be in place to measure constant, and continuous change releases.
Most change practitioners follow a standard change approach. For the past 20 years popular change management content have focused mainly on one part of the discipline – change methodology. As a new-ish discipline there has been a big demand for the ‘how to’ in change management. These include how to follow a sequence of steps in executing a project, and step-by-step path to becoming a better change leader. Clear easy-to-follow steps with associated acronyms have dominated our discipline. A data-driven change approach has not been on the horizon for most organisations.
Is following a methodology bad? Well, not necessarily. A methodology helps to instil critical steps that may ensure that a minimum set of outcomes be achieved in implementing a change initiative. The assumption is that by following these steps, a set of basic work is done that it would be harder to fail. Especially for less experienced change practitioners, following a methodology is highly beneficial.
After while, many also tend to rely on their ‘experience’ and tend to apply similar approaches for most change initiatives. This may be OK if the stakeholders and change initiatives are all similar. However, as stakeholders evolve with changes and new changes take place that are more ‘transformational’ or require different attitudes and skills, then what has worked in the past may not work in the future.
We know that the most popular Google keyword searches in Change Management are mostly related to methodology. For example, some of the most popular keywords include change management process, prosci change management, adkar, etc.
The most popular Google searches on change management are mostly do with change methodology
However, the bigger question is should we continue to follow a methodology-driven approach in designing our change approach? In a nutshell, for more experienced change practitioners …. No. For the rest of the article let’s explore why this is the case.
What are the benefits of a data-driven change approach?
The design of the change approach is supported by data and therefore less biased by personal preferences and unsupported opinions, and as a result when you present the change approach you are less likely to face objections and disagreements
With the right data, you’re able to articulate the risk of not using a particular change approach
Ability to take a ‘whole picture’ view of the change landscape in making the right change implementation decisions
Match the right change approach to the sponsor and executive leadership styles so that the initiative is leveraging those leadership facets, with any supplemented tactics as needed
What is a data-driven change approach?
A data-driven change approach is a change approach that is informed by data. What does this look like?
Business case
With a data driven change approach, historical data of change and business performance informs the business case. Possible data that could be used for business case may include:
Historical data on business improvement performance results, especially targets vs actual results
Current operational indicator performance and any previous change and business improvement interventions
Change maturity of impacted business units including operational maturity in supporting change implementation
Scoping
During initial scoping of the initiative, the following critical data elements may be taken into account:
Use historical change initiative outcomes to rate potential sizes of impact on business units
Use easily available data in the areas of people, business operations, and process/systems to assess spread of the impact
Planning
This is traditionally one of the most important parts of change approach design and the phase where all facets of the determined change approach is documented and agreed by stakeholders. Taking a data-driven approach means:
Using only demonstrable data and evidence to derive an fact-driven change approach
If there are elements of the change where there has not been previous data available, then early experiments may be designed to test the selected change approach
Stakeholder engagement approaches are determined based on what has worked in the past, e.g. survey responses from town hall sessions, leader feedback,
Communications channel and content design are designed based on previous demonstrable methods, e.g. communications hit rate, ‘like’ rate, article viewership, etc.
Project priority ratings across initiatives to ensure clear alignment for stakeholders
Portfolio level change impact information from other projects to assist in change release sequencing and capacity planning
Examples of portfolio-level change data visualization from The Change Compass
BCG has come up with a simple 2 by 2 grid for determining change strategies. The 2 axes are ‘clarity of ends and ‘clarity of means’. Clarity of ends refers to what the end state looks like, and clarity of means refer to how clear the path is to getting to the end state.
Using this grid there are 5 major different types of change strategies:
River crossing
Escaping the swamp
Souting and wandering
Planned itinerary
Hill climbing
It is important to note that whilst this may be a good general reference in determining the change approach, leveraging evidence and data in other aspects of change can greatly determine the right change strategy to be adopted.
In fact if you’re driving a large multi-year transformation, it is likely that you may need to adopt different change approaches during different phases of the program. It also depends how your stakeholders are responding and what approach best suit the situation.
For example, a ‘hill climbing’ approach could be appropriate if it is clear from your stakeholder feedback that upcoming milestones are not super clear. On the other hand, the change is complex and requires persistence and unwielding push from the senior management to continue. Whereas, in the beginning of the transformation journey it maybe that a lot of exploration and discover is required to figure out what the change looks like. In this earlier phase, a ‘escape the swamp’ may be the change approach.
Implementation
This is one of the most critical parts of initiative roll out as this is when the rubber hits the road and change starts to take place. Some of the data-driven aspects of the change approach involves:
Continuous pulsing and checking of stakeholder readiness
Regular surveys and dip-stick checks on adoption behaviours and change sentiments from impacted stakeholders
Monitor business operations performance related indicators that track movements in change adoption
Social media sentiment analysis of impacted stakeholder groups, and types and amount of questions asked at appointed communication channels, and other potential indicators on people capability in adopting the change
Training attendance rates, and participant test scores
Ascertaining what the change environment looks like for impacted stakeholders is a key linchpin for a data-driven change approach during the implementation phase. When the ‘rubber hits the road’ as execution starts to take place, you may find that things are not going exactly as planned. It could be that stakeholders completely did not understand the positioning or that change tactics in imparting the value of the initiative did not resonate.
On the other hand, it could be that there is a myriad of other initiatives that the impacted business units are experiencing. Therefore, it is difficult for employees to focus on one set of changes, when there are several types of changes happening concurrently. With lack of focus, coordination and clear priority set by leaders, it often happens that none of the changes land successfully due to saturation and lack of focus.
With the right portfolio level data, it is possible to identify these risks and avoid them altogether. Even if you don’t have easy access to portfolio level change impact data, at least have the conversation with your business stakeholders to understand what else is happening and how are things landing from an employee perspective.
Post release
Even after go-live it is important to keep tracking the change adoption to ensure that there is sufficient continual focus to reach full benefits. In fact this is one of the key reasons why a lot of projects fail. It is because the whole project has been wrapped up too quickly post release and there is not enough accountability and focus placed on continually achieving the benefits targeted.
What are some of the data points to focus on? This depends on the nature of the change. Typical metrics to focus on include:
What does a data-driven change environment look like?
In the previous section we focused on all the various data points that can be leveraged throughout a project to make data-driven change decisions to move the initiative forward toward the right trajectory.
In an organisation where data drives how change is designed, orchestrated and implemented … what would this look like?
Let’s approach this in 5 different themes in order to describe core practices that should take place to support an environment that thrives on data-driven change.
1. Democratisation of data/Openness to share data
Data democratisation has been an emerging them in the IT and analytics world. What it means is basically that everyone has access to a range of data and that there aren’t unnecessary gatekeepers that control the data and stopping the data being shared. The data can be used to run the business, understand what is happening, conduct rootcause analysis and overall make better business decisions.
The overall goal is to have as many people as possible access data with little barriers in accessing the data and knowing how to read and understand the data.
Imagine an organisation where employees and managers have access to change data and have the ability to understand what is happening, how each other are responding to change, their concerns and how this is supporting or impeding change. There is significant power in harnessing the greater understanding for the change that is being driven, to garner involvement, engagement and connection.
2. Investing in capturing and publishing data
An assumption in the previous theme is that the organisation has the focus on collecting and harvesting the data. This includes change data. Without the investment in gathering change data there will be nothing to work with.
There is no doubt that most progressive organisations understand the importance of investing in data collection and analysis. There are many ways to determine the value of the data. These include opportunity cost, regulatory fines or settlement value. In terms of the value of change data, the best way to understand it is in terms of opportunity cost, where without the right data there could be significant cost in making the wrong change tactic decisions.
Further more, there is significant benefit in monitizing the company’s historical change data. Some examples of this include the ability to use historical change data to determine seasonal workloads on particular stakeholder groups and roles. Change data may also be linked to other business performance data to track overall change adoption and benefit realisation. Let’s say one project is aiming for $2 million in benefits, and across the project portfolio the total benefits targeted is $15 million. Even if change data supports just 20% of the achievement of full benefits, this equates to $3 million just in terms of tangible financial benefits. There are also non-tangible benefits that can be tracked as well.
3. Incorporating data governance
Data governance is about defining who within the company has control over data assets and how these data assets might be used. This includes people, process, and technology required to manage and protect the data assets.
For IT, Marketing and HR departments the concept of data governance is part of the expected parts of managing the function. There are often dedicated roles, teams and committees in undertaking data governance processes and systems.
For change data, there is also a need to ensure that there is some level of data governance. This does not necessary mean building a complex function if there is no need for such. What it does mean is to have concerted focus and effort to ensure that the change data is managed in a way to ensure that the data is achieving the value that the organisation is looking for.
Some elements of data governance here may include:
Data storage and operations: Ensuring that the data is stored in a safe, and easily accessible location
Data security: Ensuring that the right privacy and access level is provided, however without so much control that user access is inhibited
Data integration and interoperability: The change data should be easily extracted, shared, replicated and utilised across systems if required
Documents and content: There are different types of change data, and the trick is to ensure all these different types of files and data are easily accessible
Data quality: Ensuring that the data is updated sufficiently and can be trusted is key. “Rubbish in, rubbish out” is a common phrase that is true nonetheless. Data that is not constantly refreshed is also one that will not deliver value to the organisation.
4. Leadership support
Like everything with managing change, leadership support is critical. Some go as far as saying that without leadership support no change will fly. This may not be true since there are lots of examples of grassroots-driven changes that are not initially driven by leaders. The same goes with driving a data-driven change environment.
Getting the blessings from your senior leaders will go a long way to driving a ‘data is king’ change environment. However, even if your leaders do not start out being your champions, there are ways to nourish and develop their support.
In business, leaders naturally look to data to make various decisions. Traditionally in change management tangible and visual data has not always been plentiful to support decision making. As a result, leaders may not know how to read, interpret and utilise change data. You will need to educate and support leaders to understand how to utilise change data and guide them through examples and scenarios.
5. Collaboration across initiatives
Teams are effective for various reasons. When you’re in a team you are able to form strong personal relationships and receive that support that you need. Through ongoing work with your team you can focus on a set of outcomes that you can contribute together with the team.
However, the nature of teams is that you will by design see other teams as ‘outsiders’ and have less intimate relationship with them. Those you are less familiar with you also develop less trust.
And as a result, project teams tend to stick within their own teams and focus on working with their particular set of stakeholders. However, to design a better employee or customer experience in planning for change, initiatives need to work together. There will be plenty of situations where changes in releases, planned activities will be better shifted to achieve a better employee outcome.
In situations where there is multiple releases impacting the same stakeholder group, most will leave it to the project management office to make the priority call. However, the process of escalating the issue for decisions to be made takes time and may sometimes create unnecessary anxiety across concerned project teams. A better way to approach this with the right change data is that project teams can proactively work together as a part of release and stakeholder readiness planning.
What is the overall opportunity in taking a data-driven vs. methodology driven change approach? Hopefully this article has convinced you some of the advantages and how to go about applying it. “Data is the new oil for the digital economy”. With Covid the reliance of business on data has been a wakeup call. This will continue to intensity in the years to come. For change practitioners we also need to adopt a data-centric approach in our work with the organisation. The alternative could be that we lose our influence, trust and relevance for the business in this digital world where data is embedded within all facets of our lives.
What will your next step be in taking a more data-driven change approach?
