A solution demo showcases a product’s features and benefits, allowing potential customers to see it in action. It’s crucial because it creates engagement, addresses specific pain points as a part of key business objectives, and illustrates how the solution meets the audience’s needs, ultimately driving conversion rates and building trust in your offering.
Digital collaboration tool (Zoom, Hangout)
IN-PERSON
Whiteboard
Markers
Post-it notes
Timer
Instructions for running this Playbook
1. Background
Solution demo is a critical part of an agile project. It helps to demonstrate to stakeholders what the end solution could look like and ensures alignment by providing them with objective evidence of solution performance and giving them an opportunity to engage and provide feedback on what the project team has been working on.
How do you prepare for a successful solution demo?
To prepare for a successful solution demo, start by understanding your audience’s needs and pain points. Customize the demo to address these specific challenges while clearly showcasing your solution’s unique features. Practice delivering the presentation, anticipate questions, and ensure all technical aspects function smoothly to create a seamless experience.
A key gap for solution demos without change management input is one that is often focused on the technical or process features. Effective solution demos are designed with the customer needs and stakeholders’ needs in mind and is focused to help them easily picture themselves or their colleagues using the solution. The session is ideally a joint-session with the rest of the project team in designing the demo.
2. Prep
The following are critical prior to conducting the solution demo design session:
User journey – To ensure this can be referenced and utilised to illustrate the journey the user will go through in using the solution
User role profiles – To ensure that critical user profiles are clearly understood so that these can be utilised to outline their usage journeys
Change approach or Change Canvas – To help illustrate critical aspects of how users will be engaged be supported to use the designed solution
Scheduling:
Schedule the meeting when you have evidence that the solution is on track to be presented in case the solution
Include key project team members such as the project manager, business owner, lead developer and business analyst. Also include business representatives from impacted business areas.
Organisation:
Prior to the session undertake the following preparation:
Research previous solutions demos and understand key questions and concerns, especially those aspects with a people and change component (vs. technical issues)
Anticipate concerns and sentiments of targeted business representatives
Talk to business representatives to understand the history of changes that they have been through, how the group has evolved over time through changes
TIP: DESIGN
Focus as much on what a typical experience would be like from an end-user perspective versus on the technicalities of the solution itself.
Position the various scenarios and challenges that the user faces and walk through how these are resolved by the solution.
A good way to demo less technically focused solutions would be through role-plays to show what the solution looks like.
TIP: WHAT TO AVOID
The solution demo is about showing what ‘works’ in a realistic way. It should never be a powerpoint deck walk through.
Following agile principles, the focus is on ‘showing’ versus ‘telling’. The stakeholders need to be able to ‘see’ the solution versus ‘being told’ about it.
3. Run the session
Intro – 5-10 min
Walk through the purpose of the session and why this is required. Emphasise how important it is to incorporate people and change considerations within solution demo design to ensure session success.
1. Discuss overall demo design – 10 min
Overall demo agenda and run-sheet
Length of the demo (normally an hour, or 2 hours for complex solution demos)
Scope of the demo or the portions of the solution to be demo’ed
Roles of team members involved in leading the demo
2. Discuss incorporating user journeys and user profiles in demo design – 15 min
Be focused on the exact portion of the user journey you are going to demo and be precise and clear
Select key user profiles for the demo to illustrate how users will use the solution. This makes the demo much more engaging and real. Ideally use no more than 3 user profiles in most situations for the core demo. For other roles you can also talk through at a high level key usage models
Be focused on the people component in painting a picture of what each user profile is, what challenges they have, and how the solution meets those challenges
Highlight key benefits of the solution as you walk through the user journeys
3. Incorporate change approach in demo design – 10 min
Identify key change approach to call out throughout the user journey:
Focus on painting a clear picture for stakeholders throughout the user journey in how users are supported throughout the change process
Mention key change activities at key junctures of the user journey such as town hall sessions, training sessions, using sandbox to become more familiar with the solution, being supported by change champions, etc.
4. Incorporate key readiness and adoption measurement approaches – 10 min
Identify key change readiness and adoption measurement approaches and call these out and incorporate within the demo. The key is not to go overboard and focus too much on the details. Instead, highlight how solution usage is being measured and behaviours reinforced to achieve overall project objectives. For example:
Overview how change adoption is tracked during the user journey walkthrough
Highlight any behavioural reinforcements to sustain the change as a part of the user journey
Overview how change readiness is measured and reported as a part of the user journey
5. Capturing outcomes and actions required – 5 min
At the end of the session, capture key actions required, timeline required, and a follow up session as required.
What to do with the output?
After you’ve written up key agreements and solution demo run-sheet incorporating those design elements discussed, send these to various project stakeholders. Follow-up with action owners to get ready for the solution demo session.
Adopting a behavioural science approach to managing behaviour change means leveraging scientific research about human behaviours and using this to better manage employee behaviour and change. A lot of the common practices in change management are not always based on scientific research. What is assumed as common change approaches may in fact not be substantiated by research and data.
A behavioural science approach to managing change recognizes that successful change initiatives require more than just new processes or training programs—they hinge on shifting employee behaviour and embedding new behaviours across the organization. By drawing on evidence-based insights, such as the transtheoretical model, change practitioners can better understand how individuals move through stages of personal growth and adopt new ways of working. This approach underscores the crucial role of leadership, with the executive team and direct reports acting as role models who demonstrate and reinforce desired behaviors. Engaging small groups and the wider workforce in the process ensures that behavioural change is not only top-down but also authentic and sustainable, addressing the way people perceive and respond to organizational change over the long term.
Moreover, involving employees in both the design and reporting of change efforts fosters ownership and helps weave multiple changes into the fabric of the organization. Performance reviews and ongoing reinforcement are essential for sustaining new behaviors and achieving better outcomes. By prioritizing human-centric design and leveraging the power of relationships—such as the nature of leadership relationships and the influence of peer networks—organizations can create an environment where behavioural change is not just a one-off initiative but a continuous process aimed at long-term success.
How to create a behavioral and cultural shift?
To create a behavioural and cultural shift, engage stakeholders through open communication, set clear objectives, and model desired behaviours. Encourage feedback and recognize progress to reinforce the change. Additionally, provide training and resources to support individuals as they adapt, ensuring a cohesive transition towards the new culture.
We talk to an industry veteran of behavioural science, Tony Salvador. Tony has 30+ years of research background behind him and a long-time ex-Inteller and Senior Fellow. At Intel, Tony travelled around the globe researching human factors and how people behave with technology.
There are many valuable takeaways for the change practitioner.
Some of these include:
Engineering psychology and human centric design
Analogy of pickaxe and the change approach
Principle of aversion to loss
People involvement and transactional change
Determining the nature of leadership relationship with employees
Story telling and insight into change culture
Example of Brazilian translator and people’s stories
Power of observation and listening
The nature of relationships and how they determine change
Change rationale in weaving in multiple changes
Involving people in reporting to achieve authenticity
Building the case and involving employees to derive case for change
Change management practitioners are often tasked with ensuring that transitions are smooth and successful. However, to truly excel in this role, it’s crucial to embrace a systems thinking approach—an understanding that organisations are complex, interconnected systems where every change, including new core business processes and new processes, can create ripple effects throughout. One of the most potent tools for fostering systems thinking is the use of change data within change portfolio management. Here, we will focus on how change data can build interconnectedness across the organisation, enhance the management of change initiatives, and ultimately improve business results.
What is systems change management and why is it important?
Systems change management involves a strategic approach to transforming complex systems, addressing underlying issues rather than just symptoms, including important internal processes. It’s crucial for fostering sustainable development, enhancing organizational efficiency, and driving innovation. By understanding interconnections within systems, organizations can implement effective solutions that lead to long-term positive impacts.
The below are some of the core principles in Systems Thinking and how they may be applied to change portfolio management through data and analysis.
Principle 1: Interconnectedness
At the core of systems thinking is the principle of interconnectedness. Organisations are not merely a collection of individual parts; rather, they consist of various components that interact in complex ways. When change is initiated in one area, it can have unintended consequences in another. For instance, a change in the sales strategy might impact customer service processes, employee motivation, and even supply chain operations. By recognising these interconnected relationships, practitioners can make more informed decisions that take the broader organisational context into account.
In fact, change impact assessment is the process of identifying and ascertaining the linkages across the system. With each change, the various impacts across different processes, people working to support those processes and the systems involved in the processes.
Principle 2: Feedback Loops
Another fundamental aspect of systems thinking is the identification and understanding of feedback loops. These loops can be either reinforcing (positive) or balancing (negative). A reinforcing feedback loop occurs when a change in one part of the system leads to further changes in the same direction, creating a cycle of growth or enhancement. For example, an increase in employee training may lead to improved performance, which in turn boosts morale and reduces turnover, further enhancing overall productivity.
Conversely, balancing feedback loops act to stabilize the system. They can dampen the effects of change, preventing extremes from occurring. Recognising these feedback mechanisms allows practitioners to leverage positive feedback loops to enhance desired outcomes while being vigilant against the negative loops that may emerge, which could undermine the change initiatives.
Here is an example of a feedback loop –
Goal: Prevent stagnation or failure by adjusting strategies based on real-time feedback.
Use case: Ensuring that deviations or resistance are managed effectively to keep the change on track.
How it works:
Collect data from employee surveys, performance metrics, and feedback sessions to understand what’s working or not.
Identify points of resistance and take corrective actions (e.g., additional training or clarifying leadership vision).
Example: If employees express frustration with new tools, gather input and refine the rollout to address concerns.
Collect data from employee surveys, performance metrics, and feedback sessions to understand what’s working or not.
Identify points of resistance and take corrective actions (e.g., additional training or clarifying leadership vision).
Example: If employees express frustration with new tools, gather input and refine the rollout to address concerns.
What are key benefits of feedback loops?
Increased adaptability: Ensures the organisation can react to unforeseen challenges during implementation.
Engaged workforce: Employees feel more involved when they see their feedback incorporated into the process.
Sustainable change: Continuous feedback ensures that change efforts stay relevant, preventing them from losing momentum or being abandoned.
Principle 3: Causality
Systems thinking also emphasizes understanding causality—how different components of the organisation influence one another. This perspective is vital in change management, as it shifts the focus from merely addressing symptoms of problems to exploring their root causes. This can be applied throughout the change lifecycle ranging from understanding the impacts across the organisation, through to anticipating resistance and motivation levels to support the change.
Here is an example of applying the principle of causality in systems thinking
Change Initiative: Implementing a New KPI-Based Evaluation System
Initial Cause: Leaders decide to replace the existing subjective performance reviews with measurable KPIs to improve accountability.
Direct Effect: Employees shift their focus to achieving their KPIs.
This change seems positive—employees now have clear, measurable targets to meet.
Ripple Effects Across the System:
Short-term unintended outcome: Employees may begin to focus only on achieving their KPIs, ignoring tasks that are not directly rewarded, such as collaboration or innovation.
Behavioural impact: Some employees might feel micromanaged or disengaged if they view the new system as rigid or unfair.
Team dynamics: Competitive behaviour between employees could increase, reducing collaboration and creating silos.
Long-term Causal Feedback:
Lower collaboration can negatively affect innovation and employee morale, leading to attrition of high performers.
A balancing feedback loop emerges when HR notices a decline in collaboration scores and recommends revising KPIs to include teamwork-related metrics.
Principle 4: Holistic Perspective
Adopting a holistic perspective is crucial in systems thinking. Instead of viewing the organisation as a set of isolated parts, practitioners should consider the organisation as a dynamic whole. This approach enables better problem-solving and decision-making by considering all relevant factors and their interactions. A holistic view facilitates a deeper understanding of how changes in one area may impact others, ultimately leading to more sustainable and effective change initiatives.
For example, An organisation is running several parallel initiatives under a broader digital transformation effort, including:
CRM System Implementation
Agile Ways of Working Initiative
Cloud Migration for Core IT Systems
Employee Upskilling Program on Digital Tools
Application of Holistic Perspective
Identifying InterdependenciesThe CRM system needs to integrate with both legacy IT infrastructure and future cloud platforms, incorporating new features to enhance user experience.
The agile transformation affects how teams work, influencing the success of the CRM project and cloud migration by demanding faster collaboration cycles.
The upskilling program needs to ensure employees are trained not only in new digital tools but also on agile practices and cloud-based platforms.
Avoiding Initiative SilosWithout a holistic view, each project might focus only on its own goals, causing schedule conflicts (e.g., IT resources are overbooked for the cloud migration and CRM deployment).
Teams might experience change fatigue if initiatives are rolled out simultaneously without coordination. For example, employees may struggle to participate in the upskilling program while also meeting deadlines for the agile rollout.
Portfolio-Level Governance and PrioritizationUsing a holistic lens, the portfolio management team can sequence projects logically. For example:
First: Migrate critical systems to the cloud to ensure the CRM implementation has a stable foundation.
Second: Begin the agile transformation to align working methods before launching cross-functional CRM initiatives.
Third: Schedule employee upskilling to ensure readiness before key milestones in the CRM and cloud projects.
Optimizing Resources and Reducing RisksViewing the portfolio holistically allows management to optimize resource allocation (e.g., sharing skilled IT personnel across cloud and CRM projects efficiently).
By aligning initiatives, the company mitigates the risk of conflicting efforts and reduces change fatigue through coordinated communication and engagement plans.
The CRM system needs to integrate with both legacy IT infrastructure and future cloud platforms.
The agile transformation affects how teams work, influencing the success of the CRM project and cloud migration by demanding faster collaboration cycles.
The upskilling program needs to ensure employees are trained not only in new digital tools but also on agile practices and cloud-based platforms.
Without a holistic view, each project might focus only on its own goals, causing schedule conflicts (e.g., IT resources are overbooked for the cloud migration and CRM deployment).
Teams might experience change fatigue if initiatives are rolled out simultaneously without coordination. For example, employees may struggle to participate in the upskilling program while also meeting deadlines for the agile rollout.
Using a holistic lens, the portfolio management team can sequence projects logically. For example:
First: Migrate critical systems to the cloud to ensure the CRM implementation has a stable foundation.
Second: Begin the agile transformation to align working methods before launching cross-functional CRM initiatives.
Third: Schedule employee upskilling to ensure readiness before key milestones in the CRM and cloud projects.
First: Migrate critical systems to the cloud to ensure the CRM implementation has a stable foundation.
Second: Begin the agile transformation to align working methods before launching cross-functional CRM initiatives.
Third: Schedule employee upskilling to ensure readiness before key milestones in the CRM and cloud projects.
Viewing the portfolio holistically allows management to optimize resource allocation (e.g., sharing skilled IT personnel across cloud and CRM projects efficiently).
By aligning initiatives, the company mitigates the risk of conflicting efforts and reduces change fatigue through coordinated communication and engagement plans.
Principle 4: Emergence
Finally, the concept of emergence in systems thinking highlights how complex behaviours can arise from simple interactions among components. The principle of emergence in systems thinking refers to the idea that when individual elements interact, new patterns or behaviours emerge that were not predictable by examining the parts alone. In change portfolio management, this means that the outcomes of managing multiple change initiatives may be different—often more complex or unexpected—than the sum of each individual change project. Emergent behaviours can create both opportunities and risks.
Scenario: Managing a Sustainability Transformation Portfolio
A large organisation launches several interconnected initiatives to become a more sustainable enterprise:
Carbon Reduction Initiative – Shift to renewable energy and reduce emissions.
Sustainable Supply Chain Project – Engage suppliers on environmental standards.
Green Product Innovation Program – Develop eco-friendly products.
Employee Engagement Initiative – Promote green behaviours among employees.
Application of Emergence
Unexpected Synergies EmergeEmployees participating in the engagement initiative start identifying operational inefficiencies, such as excess waste, leading to additional cost savings.
The green product innovation program creates a culture of experimentation that spills over into other departments, resulting in improved collaboration and faster innovation cycles across the organisation, beyond sustainability-focused efforts.
Emergent Risks and Complex InteractionsSuppliers struggling to meet new sustainability requirements may delay the sustainable supply chain project, impacting both product launches and company operations.
Employees feel overwhelmed by the number of sustainability programs and resist further change, creating unexpected resistance that spreads to unrelated initiatives, such as digital transformation efforts.
New Opportunities Emerge from InteractionsAs cross-functional teams work together, new business models emerge. For example, sales and product teams discover that green products appeal to a new customer segment, leading to revenue growth opportunities not originally anticipated in the change portfolio plan.
Collaborations with suppliers in the supply chain project uncover the potential for joint ventures focused on sustainable technology.
Employees participating in the engagement initiative start identifying operational inefficiencies, such as excess waste, leading to additional cost savings.
The green product innovation program creates a culture of experimentation that spills over into other departments, resulting in improved collaboration and faster innovation cycles across the organisation, beyond sustainability-focused efforts.
Suppliers struggling to meet new sustainability requirements may delay the sustainable supply chain project, impacting both product launches and company operations.
Employees feel overwhelmed by the number of sustainability programs and resist further change, creating unexpected resistance that spreads to unrelated initiatives, such as digital transformation efforts.
As cross-functional teams work together, new business models emerge. For example, sales and product teams discover that green products appeal to a new customer segment, leading to revenue growth opportunities not originally anticipated in the change portfolio plan.
Collaborations with suppliers in the supply chain project uncover the potential for joint ventures focused on sustainable technology.
It may not be possible to forecast or anticipate all types of employee behaviours and reactions to new changes introduced. However, engaging your stakeholders and involving them in the change process may help you identify these in advance.
The Role of Change Data in Building Systems-Thinking Within Change Portfolio Management
Change portfolio management involves overseeing a collection of change initiatives and ensuring that they align with the organisation’s strategic objectives. The integration of change data into this process can significantly enhance systems thinking capabilities.
Creating a Data-Driven Culture
One of the first steps in leveraging change data is to establish a data-driven culture. Practitioners should promote the importance of data in decision-making processes across the organisation. By providing visibility of the changes that are upcoming, they can empower employees at all levels to utilize change data in their daily work. This cultural shift fosters an environment where data becomes a common language, allowing for clearer communication about changes and their potential impacts. However, do note that different type of employees may require different type of data.
Mapping Change Initiatives
Using change data, organisations can create visual maps of their change initiatives. These maps can illustrate how different initiatives are interconnected and highlight the dependencies between them. For example, a visual representation can show how key performance indicators link to a new software implementation, relying on training programs or how changes in one department may impact others. By visualizing these relationships, practitioners can better assess the potential ripple effects of changes and make more informed decisions.
Monitoring and Analysing Feedback Loops
By actively monitoring change data, organisations can identify and analyse feedback loops in real-time and enhance user adoption. This ongoing audit analysis allows practitioners to quickly respond to emerging trends or unintended consequences, including potential performance improvements. For instance, if data shows a decline in employee productivity following a process change, practitioners can investigate and implement corrective actions before the situation worsens. By understanding these feedback loops, organisations can not only react to changes but also proactively shape their outcomes.
Causal Analysis
Incorporating change data into causal analysis enables organisations to identify the root causes of issues. Practitioners can use data analytics to explore the relationships between different components of the organisation, leading to a clearer understanding of how changes impact various outcomes. This data-driven approach allows for more targeted interventions, ensuring that efforts are directed towards addressing the underlying issues rather than merely treating surface-level symptoms.
Holistic Change Portfolio Assessment
When practitioners evaluate their change portfolio, they should adopt a holistic approach that considers the interplay between various initiatives within the change management process. By analysing change data in aggregate, organisations can identify patterns and trends that may not be visible when examining initiatives in isolation. This holistic assessment allows practitioners to prioritise initiatives that align with broader organisational goals, ultimately leading to more effective change management.
Fostering Collaborative Environments
Change data can also be a catalyst for fostering collaborative environments. By sharing insights and findings from change initiatives, organisations can create a culture of collaboration where change agents help teams learn from one another’s experiences. This exchange of information can lead to emergent solutions that drive innovation and improve the process of change outcomes. Additionally, collaborative tools and platforms can be leveraged to facilitate communication and knowledge sharing across departments.
Building Connectedness Across the Organisation
The integration of change data across different types of changes into change portfolio management fosters interconnectedness within the organisation. By emphasising the importance of data and encouraging collaboration, practitioners can create a more cohesive organisational culture that embraces change.
Enhancing Communication
Clear communication is essential for effective change management. Change data provides a foundation for effective communication about initiatives and their impacts to key stakeholders. Practitioners can use data visualizations and reports to communicate progress, challenges, and successes, fostering a sense of shared understanding across the organisation.
Breaking Down Silos
Change data can also help break down silos within the organisation. By sharing data and insights across departments, practitioners can encourage collaboration and foster a sense of unity. This interconnectedness enhances problem-solving capabilities, as diverse teams bring different perspectives to the table, leading to more innovative solutions. Issues may be pre-empted if stakeholders can pick up on impacts that may be missed for example.
Aligning Goals and Objectives
When change initiatives are informed by change data, it becomes easier to align goals and objectives across the organisation. Practitioners can use data to ensure that all initiatives are working towards the same strategic objectives, reducing the likelihood of conflicting priorities. This alignment creates a more focused approach to change management, ultimately leading to improved business results.
Improving Business Results Through Systems Thinking
The application of systems thinking through change data in change portfolio management can lead to substantial improvements in business results. By fostering interconnectedness, enhancing communication, and breaking down silos, organisations can create a more agile and responsive environment.
Increased Agility
Organisations that embrace systems thinking and utilize change data are better equipped to respond to changes in the external environment. By understanding the interconnectedness of their initiatives, practitioners can pivot quickly in response to emerging trends or challenges. This agility is essential in today’s fast-paced business landscape.
Enhanced Employee Engagement
When employees see their work as part of a larger, interconnected system, they are more likely to feel engaged and motivated. By involving employees in the change process and using data to demonstrate the impact of their contributions, organisations can foster a sense of ownership and commitment to change initiatives.
Improved Decision-Making
Systems thinking promotes better decision-making by encouraging practitioners to consider the broader context of their actions. When decisions are informed by change data, organisations can identify potential consequences and make choices that align with their strategic goals. This improved decision-making ultimately leads to more successful change outcomes.
Sustainable Change Initiatives
Finally, the application of systems thinking and change data can lead to more sustainable change initiatives. By focusing on root causes, leveraging feedback loops, and fostering collaboration, organisations can implement changes that are not only effective in the short term but also sustainable over time. This sustainability is crucial for long-term business success.
Change data is a powerful lever that change management practitioners and business leaders can use to foster systems thinking within their organisations. By recognising the interconnectedness of change initiatives, understanding feedback loops, exploring causality, adopting a holistic perspective, and nurturing environments for emergence, organisations can improve their approach to change management solutions. Through these efforts, practitioners can build connectedness across the organisation, ultimately enhancing how change is managed and driving improved business results, as well as ensuring the success of that change. Embracing systems thinking in change portfolio management is not just a best practice; it’s a necessity for organisations seeking to thrive in an ever-evolving business landscape.
Finding the right organisational change management software can be overwhelming and daunting. We break down some of the key steps to guide you in the right direction.
To save you feeling innundated by various vendor information, or various relevant stakeholder requests, sit back and focus on what’s the most important.
A key starting point is to decide what will make the most difference to your organisation and where the biggest pains are.
This may go against the standard Procurement process that focused on listing as many features as possible. Instead, its about core strategic focus on the top most critical change management problems.
As you start to explore different change management software solutions. These are the key questions to answer as you go along.
How do I ensure I address the right business problems?
1. Determine which transparent business problems have the biggest impact on the change management process. Key areas to look at include time savings, business value created, benefit realisation, risk assessment, employee experience, and business performance. Which aspect of change does this impact?
2. Avoid having a long and exhaustive list of business problems to address and features to look for. No one tool will address all needs, so it’s about the must-haves versus the nice to haves.
3. Prioritise the importance of various business problems and how they impact change management strategies. Ideally form no more than the top 1-3. This will help you become focused. It also ensures your efforts are targeted.
How do I find out about solutions on the market?
1. Search on Google, using popular search terms such as organisational change management software, change heatmap, single view of change, change management deliverables, enterprise change management software.
Be clear in terms of whether you are after an enterprise or portfolio level tool, or a project delivery type of tool.
2. Review change management software compilation pages such as this, or this.
3. Review any vendor presence in change management associates such as ACMP (Association of Change Management Professionals) or CMI (Change Management Institute). For example, do they have expertise in partnering with the association in developing course materials?
4. Search or ask questions on Linkedin Groups such as those for ACMP, CMI or Organizational Change Practitioners.
How do I get the budget?
To gain the budget and stakeholder approval you are looking for to invest in a change management tool, you need to ensure you have a very clear business case.
1. Estimate the size of the problem. How much cost is the problem causing? If not cost, then time saving, benefit achieved, or business performance levels impacted.
Be as quantitative as possible so that it is easy for your stakeholders to see the importance of the problem and how it aligns with the company’ss key performance indicators. If you would like to calculate the financial benefit of managing a change portfolio across change plans and types of changes visit this article.
E.g. Performance drops can be 10-20% (which can translate to millions of $) from the impact of changes. Managing change across the portfolio is one of the few ways to manage this significant risk. Read more here.
2. Identify the top stakeholders most impacted by the business problem and involve them. For example, if you are dealing with change saturation from change management activities, find the senior business leader most impacted by this pain and involve him/her in the process to gain their support.
3. Involve relevant departments that may impact the budget decision such as PMO, business heads, Procurement, IT, etc.
Some examples include:
– Cost savings in change management efforts including analyst support/resources, and manual time required in data collection, cleansing, data entry, data analysis and report production.
– Cost of business disruptions resulting from lack of data to support business decisions. We’ve found that often one individual instance of using data to make the right business decision can create millions in value
– Building business change capability through the ability to see and prepare for change, and iterate change interventions based on data
– Support speed of decision making and insight generation from weeks to minutes
How do I ensure the features will meet my needs?
1. Link desired features to your prioritised business problems. In this way you are focused on the most important features that will make the most difference for your organisation. Don’t be tempted to have a super long and exhaustive list of requirements with all aspects of change since this may increase cost, narrow down your vendor choice considerably, or worse, end up with a tool where you may not use most of the features. For examples, if the need more about workflow automation software or change project management software in coming up with templates for the change management plan for a change program, or about solving business leader problems?
2. Balance current urgent business needs with emerging business challenges. By choosing an organisational change management tool you are choosing to leverage this in the future for scalability. Be considered in understanding what is needed today, versus what may be needed in 1 or 2 years time. Ensure your change tool will support your emerging needs. For example, as you start to build more data and insights, does your tool have AI features to support trend analysis and forecasting?
3. Determine what is right for your business in terms of their change management capabilities and maturity. Depending on the tool that you select, it may support your change maturity focus in managing the impact of change initiatives. Decide not only whether the tool is easy to use for your business stakeholders (who may or may not be familiar with change management terms and practices). Also, ensure that as you build business change maturity, that the tool can continue to provide value to further the maturity.
4. Build your requirement list, again focused on must-have first before nice to haves before more advanced features. Examples include: service performance levels, data and security, risk management, ease of data access, modes of data input/export, automation, AI/machine learning, ease of integration, etc.
Which provider is the best for me?
Other than technical features and product design, there are other considerations in determining whether the software is right for you and your organisation. Here are some examples:
– How long has company been in operations for?
– What’s the background of the founder and how knowledgeable about the subject matter is he/she based on experience?
– Is there a structured onboarding process including training programs?
– Are the tangible outputs and documentation of the tool overly simplistic? And is there a range of proven analytics visuals that draw out the visibility of key risks and support different types of decision making
– What are the support channels? (e.g. self-help articles, digital Q&A support, user community, etc.)
– Is there a sandbox to trial the tool before signing up?
– How easy is it to administer and maintain? (e.g. if the org. structure changes). Are there automation features or do I need to do manual data entry?
– Must I purchase consulting along with the tool? And is it methodology agnostic?
– What is the annual system down time and what is the notification process?
– Does the tool support the capture of range of change types, including IT change management, operations changes, BAU normal changes, or standard change that happens seasonally during the year
– Do I need integration? Does it integrate with Microsoft Azure, Atlassian Jira Service Management, etc.?
– Is there continuous improvement improvement in the tool roadmap?
– Is the tool more designed for project teams, or from the lenses of business stakeholders?
– Looking at the blog section, does the provider show advanced change management understanding and experience? Or is it superficial?
– What are the AI/Automation features? How are data insights obtained? Are there potential issues if my team has low capability in analytical skills?
When is the right time?
It depends on your business priorities. Most businesses will always have multiple priorities. You need to be clear to what extent the business priority you are solving is critical to the success of your role.
For example, if the business priority is change saturation and limited capacity, then this priority will likely no go away. Even if there are other important business priorities, your role in the longer term may be measured by to what degree you have solved the organisational pains related to change.
We’ve seen lots of examples where the business directly intervenes to solve their pains, if this was not solved by the change team.
Using a software is like eating a buffet. Yes, it might take a long time to be able to sample all the various dishes and feel full and satisfied. However, you don’t need to eat everything in the buffet to start to enjoy the food. Pick your low hanging fruit, the ones that will directly address your business pain quickly. The rest, including building capability, can wait, and will take time.
Should I build in-house or buy?
Again it depends on where you are and the business problems you are trying to solve. If you have a mature change practice, and what the needs are
Be clear about the time you have to solve the business problem. What is the cost of not solving the business problem swiftly? How does this af
However, note that to build a tool in-house there are several considerations:
– Time and resources it takes to design, and continually improve the product. Like any system products it needs constant attention and resources for improvement and gradual maturity. The first iteration will usually not satisfy all your requirements
– Technical resources to design the user interface, technical development, infrastructure alignment, and testing for the product
– Ongoing total cost of ownership including technical development and support, product development, architecture support, infrastructure/system maintenance cost
– Business stakeholder resources for input and testing
– Risk of building a tool that is overly detailed and cumbersome to maintain
– Disadvantage of not being able to leverage industry best practices from constant user feedback that external tools have
What are the key benefits of best practice change management process in an organization?
Effective change management enhances organizational change management agility, boosts employee engagement, maximises change efforts and minimizes resistance to change. This can apply to digital transformations or other types of significant changes. It fosters a culture of adaptability to new business processes, ensuring that teams can navigate transitions smoothly. Ultimately, it leads to improved productivity, better communication, and higher overall satisfaction among employees and stakeholders alike, driving long-term success.
In the corporate world, most approaches in defining the business value of change involve hard benefits such as revenue, cost, and time. For example, increased revenue per customer, reduced people costs, and improvement in processing time. Yes, there are non-financial benefits such as capability improvement and strategic alignment. However, in practice, most tend to focus more on hard benefits that are more tangible and easier to track.
The problem is that benefits are usually defined in a top-down, linear way and have not taken into account the environment that determines the benefits. For example, a Strategy department defines the need to cut people costs by 10% and therefore the analysis will subsequently focus on headcount reduction or pay and benefits reduction. Finance will therefore work with HR and the business to start defining which headcounts to cut and any opportunities to reduce pay and benefits. A list is then gathered to report on potential cost savings in dollar terms.
What is wrong with this scenario of defining benefits for organisational change?
On paper, everything looks fine, but without actually involving those managers in business and understanding the environment in which the costs will be saved it is hard to determine the actual benefits. How much influence do these roles have on the organization from lateral networking and influencing perspective? Can any of these roles be critical in implementing the change process? What are the potential impacts in service delivery resulting from these cuts? The learning here is that top-down analysis of benefits can often only be treated as high level and we need to work within the organization to find out the real benefits.
In a previous role, an IT department wanted to reduce the $25 per call for employees to change their passwords. When I started finding out more about the experience and the process for an employee to change passwords the discovery I made was quite shocking from an employee morale perspective. The $25 was negligible compared to the real cost. For example, my team member Barbra just returned from maternity leave and had forgotten her login password. She rang the Helpdesk 4 times to try and retrieve her password but was unsuccessful for some reason. Barbara became increasingly irate. We’ve heard her screaming at the phone, taking breaks to calm down, and talking to others to express her frustration. For days she was not able to log on. For Barbara’s case, the company has lost the equivalent of 3 days in productivity to the tune of $2500. We’ve also found other similar cases.
So how might we better analyse and assess the benefits of change initiatives?
Change management professionals can do this by observing the environment for those impacted by the change initiative, or the employee or customer experience. Utilise human-centred approaches in observing the employee or the customer and how the initiatives may impact their lives. These include observation of key stakeholders as a part of the overall change program, seeing the whole picture by putting yourself into their shoes, identifying the impacts on various people and processes, and if needed interviewing them after observation to find out more. What else will be happening in their worlds other than the change initiative in concern? Will there be risks of overlaps or time conflicts for different initiatives?
Change managers can tally various sources of benefits observed. Who are the people potentially impacted by the change initiative? What processes and systems are impacted by the new technology or new software? Therefore, what are the sources of potential benefits in terms of time, cost, or revenue? Have a chat with your business leaders to confirm on these.
Test change initiative and benefits before large-scale rollout
As a part of the change management practices, test at a smaller scale initial change implementation approaches on the selected target audience and observe the effects of change and resulting benefits. Take an proactive approach to experiment and tweak these approaches before larger-scale implementation.
What are the key benefits of effective change management in an organization?
Effective change management enhances organizational agility, improves employee engagement, and boosts productivity. It minimizes resistance to change by fostering clear communication and support, leading to smoother transitions and minimise unrealized benefits. Ultimately, these benefits contribute to sustained growth and a competitive edge in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape.
