When navigating the complexities of organizational change, leaders often rely on analogies to communicate the journey and keep their teams motivated. One common analogy used in traditional change management is the “light at the end of the tunnel,” which portrays the change process as a long, dark journey with an illuminating endpoint. We explores why the “light at the end of the tunnel” analogy is inadequate, proposes a more accurate depiction, and provides practical tips for developing a clear vision and crafting a compelling narrative to guide your organization through change.
‘The light at the end of the tunnel’ is often used an analogy when describing the change journey. The tunnel describes the change journey, often dark with potential obstacles along the way. People may not know exactly what the end looks like and at times it may feel frustrating and challenging. Eventually, approaching the end of the journey, people start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Excitement builds and people get more excited and relieved. The end.
The other key reason why people use this analogy is to stress how important it is to engage employees so that they are clear with what the end of the tunnel looks like. Being clear with what the end state looks like is critical for change agents to sustain momentum and energy to want to keep going along the change journey. The ability to ‘see’ the light at the end of the tunnel in your impacted stakeholders is a key indicator of eventual change success. However, this analogy falls short in capturing the dynamic and multifaceted nature of modern organizational transformations.
In reality, the path to successful change management models, guided by change management theory and supported by change management statistics, is more like a tunnel with intermittent windows of light, reflecting the multiple initiatives and milestones that punctuate the journey during the process of change. By adopting this more nuanced analogy, leaders can better communicate the realities of effective change management, maintain momentum, and foster sustained engagement across the organization.
Misleading Simplicity
The “light at the end of the tunnel” analogy suggests a linear, singular path with a single destination. It implies that the journey is uniformly dark and challenging until the very end, where a sudden and complete transformation occurs. This perspective can be misleading for several reasons:
Oversimplification: Organizational change management is rarely a single, straightforward journey. It involves multiple phases, each with its own challenges and victories, including discrete change projects. The analogy fails to account for the complexity and non-linear nature of most change processes, highlighting the need for a better change model.
Unrealistic Expectations: By implying that the journey is mostly dark and only brightens at the end, this analogy can demoralize teams. It suggests that rewards and progress are only visible at the conclusion, which can lead to fatigue and disengagement.
Neglect of Ongoing Progress: The analogy does not recognize the incremental achievements and intermittent successes that occur throughout the change process. These smaller victories are crucial for maintaining motivation and momentum.
Failing to Reflect Reality
In reality, organizational change involves multiple change management initiatives running concurrently, each aimed at improving the current state, challenges, and successes, including evolving business models necessary for business success. These initiatives create a landscape that is far from uniformly dark; instead, it is punctuated with periods of light – moments of clarity, success, and learning.
When there are multiple initiatives the key then becomes to pain the overall picture of what the end of the tunnel looks like. This is not just what the end state of one initiative looks like. It is what the culmination of all the various changes look like. Sometimes it leads to potential change fatigue with information overload and other times the change management process requires more change efforts. This may lead to employee resistance and lack of trust. It is about articulating super clearly what it means to have reached particular milestones within the various strategies undertaken (of which the various changes are aimed to support). This design process may incorporate design thinking concepts to come up with new ways in executing the change management approach.
A More Accurate Analogy: A Tunnel with Intermittent Windows of Light
Embracing the Multifaceted Nature of Change
A more fitting analogy for the change journey is a tunnel with intermittent windows of light. This analogy acknowledges the complexity and multifaceted nature of change. Here’s why it’s more appropriate:
Multiple Initiatives: Organizations often undertake several change initiatives simultaneously. Each initiative represents a different window of light, providing opportunities for progress and insight along the way.
Intermittent Successes: This analogy highlights the importance of recognizing and celebrating interim successes. These windows of light can rejuvenate the team’s spirit and provide evidence that the change is working.
Continuous Learning: Intermittent light symbolizes moments of learning and adaptation. As the organization progresses, these windows provide valuable feedback, allowing for adjustments and improvements.
Sustained Motivation: By acknowledging periodic achievements, this analogy helps sustain motivation. Teams can look forward to these windows of light, making the journey less daunting and more engaging.
Developing a Clear Picture of the End State
Importance of a Clear Vision
A clear and compelling vision is essential for guiding the organization through change and increases the probability of change success. It provides a sense of direction and purpose, helping teams understand the ultimate goal and their role in achieving the desired future state. Here are practical steps to develop and communicate a clear picture of the end state using a structured approach:
Define the Vision: Articulate a clear, concise, and inspiring vision that encapsulates the desired end state. This vision should align with the organization’s values and strategic objectives.
Involve Stakeholders: Engage key stakeholders in the vision development process. Their input and buy-in are critical for ensuring that the vision is relevant and achievable.
Visualize the Future: Create visual representations of the end state, such as diagrams, infographics, or mock-ups. These tools can help make the vision more tangible and relatable.
Break Down the Vision: Decompose the vision into specific, measurable objectives and milestones. This makes the vision more manageable and provides clear targets for the team to aim for.
Communicate Consistently: Regularly communicate the vision and progress towards it. Use multiple channels and formats to ensure that the message reaches all parts of the organization.
Crafting the Story for Your Audience
Tailoring the Narrative
Crafting a compelling story that resonates with different audiences within the organization is crucial for maintaining engagement and momentum. Here’s how to tailor the narrative effectively:
Understand Your Audience: Different groups within the organization will have different concerns, priorities, and levels of influence. Tailor the narrative to address the specific needs and interests of each audience segment.
Highlight Relevance: Explain how the change will impact each audience group. Highlight the benefits and address potential concerns to demonstrate relevance and importance.
Use Relatable Examples: Use examples and stories that resonate with each audience group. Relatable narratives can make the vision more accessible and credible.
Showcase Interim Wins: Regularly share stories of interim successes and milestones. These stories can serve as proof points that the change is progressing and having a positive impact.
Leverage Champions: Identify and empower change champions within each audience group. These individuals can help amplify the narrative and foster a sense of ownership and commitment.
The story can be, and should be, articulated at different levels of the organisation. Senior leaders have a role to play to illustrate what business will look like and how the organisation will function differently. Departmental managers also have a role to play to spell out how the work of the department will change accordingly. Team leaders also need to play a part in deciphering what the changes will look like and how the work of the team will evolve in the future. The managerial skills required in doing this and to help employee join dots is critical and cannot be neglected.
Keeping the Momentum
Maintaining momentum throughout the change process requires continuous effort and strategic communication, including effective communication strategies. Here are some tips to keep the energy and enthusiasm alive:
Celebrate Milestones: Acknowledge and celebrate interim successes and milestones. This not only boosts morale but also reinforces the perception of progress.
Provide Regular Updates: Keep the organization informed about the progress, challenges, and next steps. Transparency builds trust and keeps the team aligned.
Encourage Feedback: Create channels for feedback and actively seek input from the team. This fosters a sense of involvement and helps identify areas for improvement.
Adapt and Iterate: Be prepared to adapt the approach based on feedback and changing circumstances. Flexibility is key to navigating the complexities of change, and it is crucial to anticipate and address resistance to change throughout the process.
Recognize Effort: Regularly recognize and reward the efforts and contributions of individuals and teams. Appreciation and recognition can significantly enhance motivation and engagement, helping employees step out of their comfort zone.
The “light at the end of the tunnel” analogy, while common, fails to capture the true nature of organizational change. A more accurate depiction is a tunnel with intermittent windows of light, reflecting the multiple initiatives, interim successes, and continuous learning that characterize the change journey. By adopting this more nuanced analogy, leaders can better communicate the realities of change, maintain momentum, and foster sustained engagement across the organization.
To navigate the complexities of change effectively, it is crucial to develop a clear vision of the end state and craft a compelling narrative tailored to different audiences. Regularly celebrating milestones, providing updates, encouraging feedback, and recognizing effort are all essential strategies for maintaining motivation and ensuring the successful implementation of change initiatives. By embracing these practices, organizations can not only survive the journey through the tunnel but thrive and emerge stronger on the other side.
The need for organizations to remain flexible and responsive to market demands has never been more critical, and scaled agile (SAFe) provide the framework to achieve this. Integrating change management work with SAFe is essential for seamless product delivery but yet is not clearly articulated in literature. However, for agile product delivery to be successful, it must be supported by robust change management work steps. Those that not ensures that all stakeholders are aligned and engaged throughout the process and also that the consecutive changes delivered are adopted. Let’s explore how change managers can effectively integrate their approaches with scaled agile methodologies to enhance product delivery.
Understanding the Intersection of Change Management and Agile
Change management and agile methodologies both aim to facilitate successful project outcomes, but they approach this goal from different angles. Change management focuses on the people side of change, ensuring that stakeholders are prepared, equipped, and supported throughout the transition through to benefit realisation. Agile methodologies, on the other hand, emphasize iterative development, continuous feedback, and rapid adaptation to change.
Whilst SAFe acknowledges the importance of managing the people side of change and leading the change, it does not spell out how exactly this work should be integrated with the methodology in a detailed manner. References to change tends to be at a high level and focuses on communication and readiness activities.
What are key call outs of the SAFe methodology:
1) Lean-Agile Principles: SAFe is grounded in Lean-Agile principles such as building incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles, basing milestones on objective evaluation, and making value flow without interruptions. These principles help ensure continuous improvement and adaptability
2) Organizational Agility: To remain competitive, enterprises must be agile. SAFe enhances organizational agility by fostering Lean-thinking people and Agile teams, promoting strategic agility, and implementing Lean business operations
3) Lean Portfolio Management: Aligns strategy and execution by applying Lean and systems thinking. It includes strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and Lean governance to ensure that the portfolio is aligned and funded to meet business goals
4) Continuous Learning Culture: Encourages a set of values and practices that promote ongoing learning and improvement. This culture is crucial for adapting to changes and fostering innovation within the organization
5) Agile Teams: Agile teams in SAFe operate using methods like SAFe Scrum or SAFe Team Kanban. These teams are responsible for understanding customer needs, planning their work, and delivering value continuously through iterative processes
6) Built-in Quality: Emphasizes the importance of quality at all stages of development. Practices include shift-left testing, peer reviews, and automation to ensure high standards and reduce defects early in the process
7) Value Stream Management (VSM): Focuses on optimizing the flow of value across the entire portfolio. VSM helps organizations improve their value delivery processes by managing and monitoring value streams effectively (Scaled Agile Framework).
8) Lean-Agile Leadership: Leaders play a critical role in fostering a Lean-Agile mindset. They must model the values and principles of SAFe, provide guidance, and create an environment that supports Agile teams and continuous improvement
9) Decentralized Decision-Making: Promotes faster value delivery by empowering teams to make decisions locally. This reduces delays, enhances product development flow, and fosters innovation
10) Customer-Centric Approach: Agile teams are encouraged to maintain close collaboration with customers to understand their needs better and ensure that solutions deliver real value. Techniques like direct customer interaction and feedback loops are essential
Below is a diagram from Scaled Agile Frameworks on key elements of a scaled agile product delivery framework.
Agile-Style Deliverable Artefacts
To support agile product delivery, change managers need to create agile-style deliverable artefacts early in the product delivery cycle. These artefacts serve as essential tools for aligning the team, stakeholders, and the overall change initiative with agile principles. They are significantly ‘lighter’ in volume and more succinct in focusing on key analysis points that determine approaches and actions required to plan and implement the change.
Change artefact 1: Change Canvas
An Agile Change Canvas is a strategic tool designed to plan, manage, and communicate change initiatives effectively within an organization. It begins with basic identification details such as the Project Name, Business Owner, and Author. This section ensures clear accountability and ownership from the outset.
The Change Vision & Objectives outlines the overarching project objectives and intended outcomes of the project. This architecture vision acts as a guiding star, ensuring all actions align with the desired future state of the organization. Following this, Core Challenges are identified to highlight potential obstacles that could impede progress. Recognizing these challenges early allows for proactive mitigation strategies.
Stakeholder Impacts analyses how different stakeholders will be affected by the change. This includes assessing both the positive and negative impacts on employees, customers, and shareholders, ensuring that their concerns are addressed and their needs met.
The Key Milestones section, presented in a table format, outlines significant checkpoints in the project timeline, often represented in Gantt charts. Each milestone is associated with a particular function, ensuring that progress is measurable and trackable. Similarly, the Resources section details the necessary financial, human, and technological resources required to implement the change, ensuring that the project scope statement is adequately supported.
Why Change section provides the rationale behind the need for change, which could include market demands, competitive pressures, or internal inefficiencies. This section justifies the project’s existence and urgency. Complementarily, What Will Change (WWC) describes the specific changes to be implemented, including processes, technologies, behaviours, and structures, offering a clear picture of the project’s scope.
Key Metrics are identified to measure the success of the change initiative. These metrics are both quantitative and qualitative, providing a comprehensive view of the project’s impact. Change Interventions listed in a table format, detail specific actions or initiatives designed to facilitate the change, ensuring a structured approach to implementation.
To foster a culture of innovation and adaptation, Change Experiments are proposed. These pilot programs test aspects of the change in a controlled environment before full-scale implementation. Finally, Change Risks identifies potential risks associated with the change and outlines strategies for mitigating these risks, ensuring that the project can navigate potential pitfalls effectively.
By incorporating these elements, the Agile Change Canvas provides a comprehensive framework for managing change initiatives, ensuring that all critical aspects are considered, planned for, and communicated effectively to stakeholders.
Using a Kanban board for change management activities provides a visual and dynamic method for tracking, prioritizing, and managing the flow of work while implementing changes. A Kanban board typically consists of columns that represent different stages of work, such as “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done.” For change management, additional columns might include “Proposed Changes,” “Under Review,” “Implementation Planning,” and “Monitoring.”
Whilst most change practitioners are used to kanban boards In working with various change management activities, there is opportunity to use kanban to plan and prioritise a series of agile-style changes and the associated change activities with each change. These ‘change cards’ within the kanban board presents a clear way to visualise a series of changes across the ‘delivery train’ where the project team continuously delivers pieces of change.
Prioritizing Change Management Activities
Visualizing Workflow:
Proposed Changes: This column lists all suggested changes, each represented by a card detailing the change’s purpose, impacted areas, and expected benefits.
Under Review: Changes move here once they are being evaluated for feasibility, risks, and alignment with project goals.
Implementation Planning: Approved changes are further detailed, including resource allocation, timelines, and specific tasks needed for implementation.
In Progress: Changes that are actively being worked on are tracked here, showing current status and any blockers encountered.
Monitoring: Recently implemented changes are monitored to ensure they are delivering the expected outcomes and to identify any issues early.
Done: Fully implemented and stabilized changes are moved here, marking their successful completion.
Setting Priorities:
Value and Impact: In conjunction with the project team prioritize changes based on their potential value and impact. High-value changes that significantly improve project outcomes or stakeholder satisfaction should be addressed first. From a change perspective, the input here is about the readiness of the stakeholder to receive the change, and what timing and work is required to get there.
Urgency and Dependencies: Changes that unblock other work or are time-sensitive should be prioritized. Dependencies between changes must be mapped to ensure logical sequencing. For example, work required to lift capability/leadership or readiness may be critical dependencies, without which the change cannot be delivered successfully.
Feasibility and Risk: Assess the feasibility and risks associated with each change. High-risk assessment of changes might require more careful planning and monitoring but should not necessarily be deprioritized if their impact is critical. The change input here is the people impact for the impacted stakeholders with other changes not just within this project/program, but with the overall portfolio or even outside the portfolio (including business-driven changes).
Proposed Changes: This column lists all suggested changes, each represented by a card detailing the change’s purpose, impacted areas, and expected benefits.
Under Review: Changes move here once they are being evaluated for feasibility, risks, and alignment with project goals.
Implementation Planning: Approved changes are further detailed, including resource allocation, timelines, and specific tasks needed for implementation.
In Progress: Changes that are actively being worked on are tracked here, showing current status and any blockers encountered.
Monitoring: Recently implemented changes are monitored to ensure they are delivering the expected outcomes and to identify any issues early.
Done: Fully implemented and stabilized changes are moved here, marking their successful completion.
Value and Impact: In conjunction with the project team prioritize changes based on their potential value and impact. High-value changes that significantly improve project outcomes or stakeholder satisfaction should be addressed first. From a change perspective, the input here is about the readiness of the stakeholder to receive the change, and what timing and work is required to get there.
Urgency and Dependencies: Changes that unblock other work or are time-sensitive should be prioritized. Dependencies between changes must be mapped to ensure logical sequencing. For example, work required to lift capability/leadership or readiness may be critical dependencies, without which the change cannot be delivered successfully.
Feasibility and Risk: Assess the feasibility and risks associated with each change. High-risk changes might require more careful planning and monitoring but should not necessarily be deprioritized if their impact is critical. The change input here is the people impact for the impacted stakeholders with other changes not just within this project/program, but with the overall portfolio or even outside the portfolio (including business-driven changes).
Ordering Change Planning and Implementation
Collaborative Planning:
Engage stakeholders and team members in planning sessions to discuss and agree on the priority of changes. This collaborative approach ensures that all perspectives are considered and that there is buy-in from those affected by the changes. This includes change champions.
Regular Review and Adaptation:
The Kanban board should be regularly reviewed and updated, within the change team and within the project team. During these reviews, re-prioritize changes based on new information, shifting project needs, and feedback from implemented changes. This iterative approach aligns with Agile principles of flexibility and continuous improvement.
Limit Work in Progress (WIP):
To avoid overloading the change team and ensure focus, limit the number of changes in progress at any given time. This constraint encourages the team to complete current tasks before taking on new ones, promoting a steady and manageable workflow.
Use Metrics and Feedback:
Utilize metrics such as cycle time (how long a change takes to move from start to finish, from awareness to engagement to eventual adoption) and work with the project team on the throughput (how many changes are completed in a specific timeframe) to assess the efficiency of the change management process. For example, based on the size and complexity of each discrete piece of change delivered, how long did this take and what was the deviance from actual time period planned? Feedback from these metrics should inform decisions about prioritization and process adjustments.
Engage stakeholders and team members in planning sessions to discuss and agree on the priority of changes. This collaborative approach ensures that all perspectives are considered and that there is buy-in from those affected by the changes. This includes change champions.
The Kanban board should be regularly reviewed and updated, within the change team and within the project team. During these reviews, re-prioritize changes based on new information, shifting project needs, and feedback from implemented changes. This iterative approach aligns with Agile principles of flexibility and continuous improvement.
To avoid overloading the change team and ensure focus, limit the number of changes in progress at any given time. This constraint encourages the team to complete current tasks before taking on new ones, promoting a steady and manageable workflow.
Utilize metrics such as cycle time (how long a change takes to move from start to finish, from awareness to engagement to eventual adoption) and work with the project team on the throughput (how many changes are completed in a specific timeframe) to assess the efficiency of the change management process. For example, based on the size and complexity of each discrete piece of change delivered, how long did this take and what was the deviance from actual time period planned? Feedback from these metrics should inform decisions about prioritization and process adjustments.
Benefits of Using Kanban for Change Management
Implementing a Kanban board for change management in Agile projects offers several benefits:
Transparency: Everyone involved can see the status of change activities, leading to better communication and coordination.
Flexibility: The board can be easily adjusted to reflect changing priorities and project dynamics.
Focus: Limiting WIP helps the team maintain focus and reduces the risk of burnout and task switching.
Continuous Improvement: Regular reviews and adaptations promote a culture of continuous improvement, ensuring that change management processes evolve and improve over time.
Change artefact example 3: Change Impact Assessment
A Change Impact Assessment (CIA) is an essential component in managing organizational change, particularly in agile projects where the focus is on iterative and incremental improvements. The assessment helps to understand the scope and magnitude of the change, identify affected stakeholders, and plan interventions to manage impacts effectively. An agile-friendly CIA is more summarised, and gets to the heart of what the impact is, who is impacted, how, to what extent, and when.
Below are the core elements of a change impact assessment, with a comparison to traditional methods:
1. Identifying the Impacts
Agile Approach: In scaled agile projects, the impact identification is ongoing and iterative. Each sprint or iteration is reviewed to assess the impacts of delivered changes. This dynamic approach ensures that emerging impacts are quickly recognized and addressed.
Traditional Approach: Impact identification is typically conducted at the beginning of the project, with periodic reviews. This method can be less responsive to new impacts discovered during the project lifecycle.
2. Stakeholder Identification and Analysis
Agile Approach: Continuous stakeholder engagement is crucial. Stakeholders are regularly consulted, and their feedback is integrated into the process. Agile methods ensure that stakeholders’ changing needs and concerns are promptly addressed.
Traditional Approach: Stakeholder analysis is often conducted early in the project, with limited ongoing engagement. This can result in less adaptability to stakeholders’ evolving requirements.
3. Extent and Nature of Impacts
Agile Approach: The extent of impacts is assessed incrementally, considering the cumulative effect of changes over multiple iterations. This allows for a nuanced understanding of how impacts evolve over time.
Traditional Approach: Typically focuses on a comprehensive initial assessment, with less emphasis on the evolution of impacts throughout the project.
4. Timing of Impacts
Agile Approach: Timing is aligned with the iterative delivery schedule. The impacts are mapped to specific iterations or sprints, allowing for precise planning and mitigation.
Traditional Approach: Timing is generally assessed at the project level, which can make it harder to pinpoint when specific impacts will occur during the project lifecycle.
Typical Sections of an Agile Change Impact Assessment
Impact Overview:
Explanation: Summarizes the nature and scope of the change, providing a high-level view of the anticipated impacts.
Agile Twist: Updated regularly with each iteration to reflect new findings and emerging impacts.
Stakeholder Impact Analysis:
Explanation: Identifies who will be affected by the change and how. It details the extent of the impact on different stakeholder groups.
Agile Twist: Involves continuous stakeholder feedback and updates to capture evolving impacts.
Impact Extent and Nature:
Explanation: Describes the extent (e.g., minor, moderate, significant) and nature (e.g., process, technology, cultural) of the impacts.
Agile Twist: Assessed incrementally, considering both immediate and long-term impacts across iterations.
Impact Timing:
Explanation: Specifies when the impacts are expected to occur, mapped to the project timeline.
Agile Twist: Aligned with sprint or iteration schedules, allowing for detailed timing predictions.
Mitigation Strategies:
Explanation: Outlines plans to manage and mitigate identified impacts.
Agile Twist: Adaptive strategies that are refined continuously based on iteration reviews and stakeholder feedback.
Monitoring and Review:
Explanation: Describes how the impacts will be monitored and reviewed throughout the project.
Agile Twist: Continuous monitoring with iteration-end reviews to ensure timely identification and management of impacts.
Explanation: Summarizes the nature and scope of the change, providing a high-level view of the anticipated impacts.
Agile Twist: Updated regularly with each iteration to reflect new findings and emerging impacts.
Explanation: Identifies who will be affected by the change and how. It details the extent of the impact on different stakeholder groups.
Agile Twist: Involves continuous stakeholder feedback and updates to capture evolving impacts.
Explanation: Describes the extent (e.g., minor, moderate, significant) and nature (e.g., process, technology, cultural) of the impacts.
Agile Twist: Assessed incrementally, considering both immediate and long-term impacts across iterations.
Explanation: Specifies when the impacts are expected to occur, mapped to the project timeline.
Agile Twist: Aligned with sprint or iteration schedules, allowing for detailed timing predictions.
Explanation: Outlines plans to manage and mitigate identified impacts.
Agile Twist: Adaptive strategies that are refined continuously based on iteration reviews and stakeholder feedback.
Explanation: Describes how the impacts will be monitored and reviewed throughout the project.
Agile Twist: Continuous monitoring with iteration-end reviews to ensure timely identification and management of impacts.
Stakeholder Engagement in a Scaled Agile Environment
Planning and designing stakeholder engagement activities in a scaled agile environment requires a dynamic, iterative approach that contrasts significantly with traditional, non-agile methods. In SAFe, the focus is on continuous collaboration, transparency, and adaptability, ensuring that stakeholders are actively involved throughout the project lifecycle.
Iterative and Continuous Engagement
Scaled Agile Approach: Stakeholder engagement is an ongoing process. Agile frameworks emphasize regular touchpoints, such as sprint reviews, planning meetings, and daily stand-ups, where stakeholders can provide feedback and stay informed about progress. These frequent interactions ensure that stakeholder input is continuously integrated, enabling swift adjustments and alignment with evolving needs. This iterative approach fosters a collaborative environment where stakeholders feel valued and engaged throughout the project. Engagement rhythms and processes should also be established not just at a project, but program, portfolio and enterprise levels as required.
Non-Agile Approach: Traditional methodologies often involve stakeholder engagement at fixed points in the project timeline, such as during initial requirements gathering, major milestone reviews, and final project delivery. This approach can lead to periods of limited communication and delayed feedback, which may result in misaligned expectations and missed opportunities for timely course corrections.
Flexibility and Adaptation
Scaled Agile Approach: Agile projects embrace change, allowing stakeholder engagement activities to be flexible and adaptive. As project requirements evolve, the engagement strategy can be adjusted to address new priorities or challenges. This flexibility ensures that stakeholder needs are consistently met, and any concerns are promptly addressed. Agile frameworks encourage a culture of openness and continuous improvement, where stakeholder feedback directly influences the direction of the project. Change managers need to ensure that stakeholder understand this fully, and have the skills to work within this context, not just with the project team but in leading their teams through change, when ‘the change’ may be constantly shifting.
Non-Agile Approach: In contrast, traditional approaches tend to follow a rigid engagement plan that is set at the project’s outset. While this provides a clear structure, it can be less responsive to changing stakeholder needs or external conditions. Adjusting the engagement strategy mid-project can be challenging and may require significant effort, leading to delays and potential dissatisfaction among stakeholders.
Collaborative Tools and Techniques
Scaled Agile Approach: Agile environments leverage a variety of collaborative tools and techniques to enhance stakeholder engagement. Digital platforms such as Jira, Confluence, and Miro facilitate real-time collaboration, transparency, and documentation. Agile ceremonies, such as retrospectives and demos, provide structured opportunities for stakeholders to participate and contribute. These tools and techniques help maintain a high level of engagement and ensure that stakeholders have a clear view of project progress and challenges.
Non-Agile Approach: Traditional methods might rely more heavily on formal documentation and periodic reports for stakeholder communication. While these methods ensure thorough documentation, they can sometimes create barriers to real-time collaboration and immediate feedback. Meetings and reviews are often scheduled infrequently, which can lead to less dynamic interaction compared to agile practices.
Planning Stakeholder Engagement Activities
Regular Touchpoints: Schedule frequent meetings and reviews to ensure continuous stakeholder involvement. Examples include sprint reviews, iteration planning meetings, and daily stand-ups. Business-led rhythm that enable the dissemination and engagement of updates to teams is also critical.
Flexible Engagement Plans: Develop engagement strategies that can be easily adapted based on stakeholder feedback and changing project requirements.
Use of Collaborative Tools: Implement digital tools that facilitate real-time collaboration and transparency. Tools like Jira and Confluence can help keep stakeholders informed and involved. Non-digital engagement tools may also be leveraged to fully engage with stakeholders, beyond one-way push communication. Assessment needs to be made of the openness and ability to engage regarding the change through the chosen channels.
Active Feedback Loops: Establish mechanisms for collecting and integrating stakeholder feedback continuously. This can be done through retrospectives, surveys, and informal check-ins.
Clear Communication Channels: Maintain open and clear communication channels to ensure that stakeholders can easily provide input and receive updates on project progress.
As mentioned previously, the change approach, including engagement approaches, need to take into account the broader organisational context of program, portfolio and enterprise levels. This may mean mapping out the various channels and how they can be used for different changes, stakeholders and organisational levels.
Supporting Agile Delivery Cadence
To align change management activities with agile delivery cadence, it’s essential to integrate them into the core agile events, such as PI (Program Increment) planning and demos. Here’s how:
PI Planning
PI planning, or program increment planning, is a critical event in the agile framework, where teams come together in the PI planning process to plan and commit to a set of objectives for the next increment. During PI planning sessions or PI planning events (including team breakouts), ensure that change management considerations are part of the discussion. This involves:
– Including Change Management Objectives within PI objectives and program vision: Ensure that change management objectives and organizational readiness are included in the PI planning agenda as a critical part of project management. This helps align the change activities with the overall delivery goals.
– Identifying Change Risks and Dependencies: Identify any dependencies related to the change initiative that may impact the delivery schedule and the overall agile release train. This ensures that potential risks are addressed early and do not disrupt the delivery process. Common considerations include the various people change impacts across the program and how they intersect or overlap
– Engaging Stakeholders: Involve key stakeholders in the PI planning sessions. This ensures that not just product managers but business stakeholders understand the change objectives and are committed to supporting the change initiative during the implementation process. PI planning is also a great opportunity to assess and see in action the level of engagement, support and potential leadership skills of key stakeholders to reach the common goals and business benefits.
Demos
Demos are an opportunity to showcase the progress of the agile teams and gather feedback from stakeholders as a part of the iteration plans and sprint planning. Use demos to communicate the benefits and progress of change initiatives within the entire agile release train. Engaging stakeholders in these demos can help them see the value and stay committed to the implementation plan. Here’s how:
– Highlighting Change Benefits: During demos, highlight the benefits of the change initiative and how it supports the overall product delivery goals. This helps stakeholders understand the value of the change and its impact on the project.
– Gathering Feedback: Use demos as an opportunity to gather feedback and user stories from stakeholders. This helps identify any concerns or areas for improvement and ensures that the change initiative remains aligned with stakeholder needs.
– Showcasing Progress: Showcase the progress of the change initiative during demos. This provides stakeholders with a clear understanding of how the change is evolving and the positive impact it is having on the project.
By embedding change management activities into these agile ceremonies, change managers can ensure that change initiatives are aligned with the delivery schedule and maintain stakeholder buy-in.
Implementing Change Activities as Small Experiments
One of the key principles of agile is to work in small increments and learn quickly. Change management activities can adopt this approach by implementing small experiments, such as:
Messaging
Test different communication messages to see which resonates best with stakeholders. Gather feedback and refine the messaging based on reactions. This iterative approach ensures that the communication strategy is effective and supports the change initiative. Consider the following:
– A/B Testing: Use A/B testing to evaluate different messages. This involves sending two variations of a message to different stakeholder groups and comparing the responses to determine which one is more effective.
– Feedback Collection: Collect feedback from stakeholders on the messaging. This can be done through surveys, focus groups, or informal conversations.
– Message Refinement: Refine the messaging based on the feedback received. This ensures that the communication remains relevant and impactful.
Stakeholder Involvement
Experiment with various levels of stakeholder involvement to determine the most effective way to engage them. Use these insights to inform future engagement and risk management strategies and your overall implementation strategy. Here’s how:
– Pilot Programs: Implement pilot programs with small groups of stakeholders to test different involvement strategies. This provides valuable insights into what works best and helps refine the engagement approach.
– Engagement Metrics: Track engagement metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of different involvement strategies. This includes participation rates, feedback quality, and overall stakeholder satisfaction.
– Iterative Adjustments: Make iterative adjustments to the involvement strategies based on the insights gained. This ensures that stakeholder engagement remains effective and aligned with the change initiative.
By treating change activities as experiments, change managers can adapt quickly to what works best, ensuring a smoother integration with the agile delivery process.
Best Practices for Integrating Change Management with Agile
Successfully integrating change management with agile methodologies requires a strategic approach. Here are some best practices to consider:
Foster Collaboration
Encourage collaboration between change managers and agile teams, as well as key business stakeholders within the business context. This helps ensure that different disciplines and functions are aligned and working towards the same goals. Consider the following strategies:
– Joint Planning Sessions: Conduct joint planning sessions to align change management activities with agile delivery approaches and schedules. This ensures that both disciplines are working towards the same objectives.
– Regular Communication: Establish regular communication channels between change managers and agile teams. This helps keep everyone informed and ensures that any issues or concerns are addressed promptly. Specifically focus on various agile roles such as UX (user experience), business analysis, testing, and portfolio management. There are key intersections of change work and each of these disciplines, beyond general project planning and coordination.
The below is an example of a portfolio level adoption dashboard from The Change Compass.
Change Data-Driven Insights is absolutely a Must-have for SAFe
In SAFe, change management driven by data insights is critical to ensure that changes are not only effective but also efficient and sustainable. Data-driven change management leverages quantitative and qualitative data to guide decisions, optimize processes, and align strategic goals across the organization. By incorporating metrics and analytics, organizations can gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact and progress of change initiatives, allowing for timely adjustments and informed decision-making.
At the portfolio level within a SAFe setting, data-driven insights are essential for prioritizing initiatives and allocating resources effectively. More than this, change data including stakeholder capability, readiness and impact levels can be critical to determine when releases should happen, the priority of releases, and the sequencing of releases.
Ill-prepared or insufficiently skilled stakeholders may require longer time to adapt to the change. Also, looking beyond the project itself, by understanding the overall change landscape for the impacted stakeholders, change releases may need to be chunked and packaged accordingly to maximise adoption success.
Key attention should also be paid to the impact on business performance of impacted stakeholders, not just from a change volume perspective, but also from a strategy perspective in terms of how best to reduce risk of performance disruptions. Is it through exemplary middle leadership? Or frontline engagement? Or the power of change champions embedded across the business?
At the enterprise level, data-driven change management enables organizations to scale agile practices consistently and coherently across the entire team across multiple portfolios. This involves the use of enterprise-level dashboards and analytics tools that provide a holistic view of the organization’s agile transformation. Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as employee impact data, adoption rates, readiness metrics and productivity metrics help leaders assess the effectiveness of change initiatives and identify areas that require additional support or intervention. For instance, tracking the adoption rate of agile practices across different departments can highlight areas where additional training or coaching is needed to ensure consistent implementation.
Integrating change management with scaled agile methodologies is essential for seamless product delivery in today’s dynamic business environment. By creating agile-style deliverable artefacts early, continuously adapting engagement activities, supporting agile delivery cadence, and implementing change activities as small experiments, measure change progress and outcomes, change managers can effectively support agile product delivery. This integration not only enhances the success of change initiatives but also ensures that product delivery is seamless and aligned with organizational goals and the strategic plan.
By fostering collaboration, embracing agile principles, and using data-driven insights, change managers can create a cohesive strategy that maximizes the benefits of both change management and agile methodologies. This holistic approach ensures that change initiatives are successful, stakeholders are engaged, and product delivery is efficient and effective.
Chat to us to find out more about how to leverage the power of a change measurement platform to sustain your single source of truth to support your scaled agile organisation.
Disruptions are all around us. First, the various disruptions with Covid on all aspects of people’s lives around the globe. Now we have the riots across the US as well as other countries about racial inequality. With these, we have the backdrop of constant significant changes and changes in new technologies that constantly challenge how we run our lives. What next you may ask?
Disruptions to how change management initiatives are managed seem to never cease. You think you’ve been through the worst with Covid impacting the budget expenditure on projects and the implementation timeline thrown up in the air due to lack of business capacity. The racial riots are disrupting normal business operations and it is back to business continuity plans for some organizations. How might we continue to manage our various change initiatives amongst these constant disruptions?
Strategic approaches
In being able to effectively respond to constant business disruptions on initiatives, a set of routines and business processes need to take place prior to the individual disruptions. Developing a strategic plan is essential to achieve the desired results and navigate these challenges.
Use the three horizons of growth as a framework to focus efforts on initiatives
McKinsey’s three horizons of growth describe 3 horizons of which initiatives should be clustered. Each horizon forms a critical set of initiatives from which the organisation may continue to develop and grow. If all focus was placed on horizon 1 that are focused on the here and now shorter-term initiatives, then the organisation is not placed to deal with emerging challenges addressed under horizons 2 and 3. Vice versa if all the effort is placed on horizon 3 and not 1.
With business disruptions, the effort and expenditure placed on initiatives can be evaluated in light of which horizon they are in. For example, if the Covid disruption is so significant on the business that it’s a matter of survival, then all efforts should focus on horizon 1 initiatives that contribute to organisational survival in terms of revenue and cost management. If the disruption is significant but not debilitating then it may be wise to spend half of the effort on horizon 1 with the rest on horizons 2 and 3.
Adopt a portfolio approach to manage changes
When initiatives are treated in isolation it is very difficult to flex and adjust to changes compared to a portfolio approach to manage change initiatives. Individual initiatives have limited resource capacity and project activities will have limited impact compared to multiple initiatives.
Having a portfolio approach to manage changes means having established the following:
Data-based approach to manage change impacts with a view of change impacts across initiatives for business leaders.
Ability to visualize and plan the change impacts from a business-unit-centric and stakeholder group centric perspective
Ability to manage resourcing across initiatives so that as required resources may be flexed up or down across the overall portfolio based on prioritisation
Ability to guide and prepare each business for multiple changes across initiatives
Key stakeholder messages may be synchronised and packaged across initiatives versus an initiative by initiative approach
Improved ability to map out clearly the various skills and capabilities being implemented across initiatives to avoid duplication and improve synergies
What can change practitioners contribute in planning for disruptions?
Derive different change scenarios
Scenario planning as a technique is rarely used in a project planning context. However, it is especially critical and relevant within an agile environment. Agile project practices mean that changes keep iterating and therefore it may be hard to anticipate what the end solution or incremental change will look like. It may also be hard to anticipate how the business models and business will respond to the changes being proposed if we don’t know what the changes will look like.
To allow adequate time to plan for changes it is very helpful to derive at least 2 scenarios. In an agile environment, change practitioners need to adopt a hypothesis-based approach to deriving change approaches. Let’s take an example of a standard system implementation project. In rolling out a new system these could be 2 likely scenarios based on the hypothesis being posed.
Hypothesis: The system being implemented is easy and intuitive for users and therefore the change approach will be sufficient with awareness raising and a 1 hour training session
Scenario 1: The hypothesis is true and all users have found it easy and intuitive to use and therefore the change approach proposed is sufficient to prepare the users for this change.
Scenario 2: The hypothesis is only partially true and there are some user groups who struggled to understand all features of the system and need additional help and guidance. Additional training sessions with coaches are proposed
A different way of contrasting different scenarios will be to derive different project expenditures and funding requirements and resulting change delivery work. For example, under the system implementation project, a ‘Toyota’ approach of delivery could involve minimum training and stakeholder awareness generation. For a ‘Rolls Royce’ approach of delivery which will cost significantly more could include tailored coaching sessions for each stakeholder group, 1:1 coaching for senior leaders, a long awareness campaign, and an extensive measurement system. This helps stakeholders understand the cost of delivery and will help them to select an appropriate delivery model.
The usefulness of planning ahead to anticipate for different scenarios mean that steps may be taken to be ready for either of the scenarios and so the project team will not be caught off guard in case the hypothesis proposed is proved false.
To be able to visualize different scenarios it is important to show the different impacts of the scenarios. This includes the impact of time, sequencing, and impact levels on stakeholder groups. With a different rollout approach will stakeholder groups have better bandwidth and ability to adopt the change or will the bandwidth be more limited?
Here is an example of a scenario planning visual where the user can simply drag the impact bars to different times and be able to save this as a scenario. After saving the scenario the next activity will be to analyse the scenario to make sense of the potential impacts of this scenario on the business and impacted stakeholders. Are there project dependencies that need to be taken into consideration? What is the overall change impact across initiatives as a result of the changes in this scenario? How does this impact the customer versus internal stakeholder groups?
For scenarios to be used in a practical way it is important to be able to list any ‘proof points’ that outline how we can tell that the scenario is becoming true or not. These proof points can include anything ranging from stakeholder reactions, the timing of the implementation, the complexity of the features or solution, cost, and other tangible measurements such as system response time, time taken to perform the process, etc.
Agree on decision making principle with stakeholder
Prior to any disruptions, it is important to agree with stakeholders key decision-making principles. Having clear, agreed decision-making principles means that key decisions can be made without subjecting to personal opinions or preferences. During any times of disruption Decision-making principles can be organised as ‘trade-off’ principles with a prioritised order of importance. Below are some examples:
Cost
Time
People resource bandwidth
Benefit realisation
Stakeholder readiness and acceptance
External media implications
Factor in critical path in project planning
The critical path method is a way in which a project’s key interdependencies are linked and mapped out in a linear way so as to understand the key logical points along the project. From this any potential disruptions, slippages or delays in project deliverables and how they impact the remaining deliverables can be clearly understood and planned for.
A clear understanding of the critical path within a project means that with any disruptions to activities the impacts of this on the rest of the deliverables can easily be articulated. To deal with the disruptions to the project a longer implementation may need to be negotiated with the impacted businesses, or depending on the nature of the disruption, a different project approach with different deliverables may need to be derived.
Here we discussed multiple ways in which the change practitioner can help the organisation get ready for various disruptions to change initiatives. During periods of disruptive change, it is even more critical for change practitioners to demonstrate their value to lead and maneuver around and plan for uncertainty. Agile organisations are well placed to deal with disruptions, however, an effective set of routines, practices, preparations, and capabilities are all critical to building overall organisational readiness.
Gamification is the application of game mechanics and elements to non-game activities, greatly enhancing the player experience. Whilst gamification has been around for a long time, it is only recently that it has been formalised as a structured method to achieve specific outcomes as a part of behaviour change.
We see the application of gamification all around us. Yes, most of the apps we use on our phones have game design elements. However, more broadly, we can see this all around us. Through gamification design, we can facilitate significant behaviour changes that contribute to social change.
How can we trigger behavioral change using gamification?
Gamification can trigger behavioral change by incorporating game-like elements, such as rewards, challenges, and leaderboards, into everyday activities. This approach engages users emotionally and encourages participation, making tasks more enjoyable. By fostering competition and collaboration, gamification effectively motivates individuals to adopt new behaviors for social change.
Two of my favourite examples are:
1.Improving aim and decreasing spillage in urinals.
Amsterdam airport wanted to keep the urinals clean and reduce spillage. They pinpointed the aimed spot within the urinal design where the least spillage happens. What happened was that men would aim for the fly as a fun activity (or even aiming subconsciously), and thereby reducing spillage.
2. Encouraging physical activity by taking steps vs. the escalator
In Sweden, they did an experiment to see if they could encourage people to take steps over the escalator by making it fun to use steps. This was at Odenplan (where I used to frequent regularly on my way to bars in my younger days), a major subway stop in central Stockholm. They turned the steps into a piano where stepping on a step would the be same as hitting a piano keyboard. The result was that 66% of people chose the steps over the escalator. Here is a video that shows the behaviour of people as they use the stairs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7frzYFcbqjc
You will notice that these elements are not necessarily about playing a ‘game’ per se. Instead, they’ve borrowed elements of game design to engage people in social interaction and make it more fun. However, ultimately there is a very clear goal and clear behaviours to be achieved.
6-D model of gamification
The 6-D model of gamification is a very practical step-by-step framework to help you design an effective change intervention using gamification. The value of this framework is that it ensures that there are clear objectives and focus before jumping into utilising one of the many gamification tactics.
These are the 6 steps to follow:
Define Business Objectives – Define the goal you are aiming for. Is it increasing stakeholder engagement scores? Is it increasing the viewership of articles? Or is it getting users to follow the new process?
Delineate target behaviour – Define the target behaviours you are aiming to achieve. Note that behaviours need to be discrete and concrete. Then, decide how you are going to measure them. For example, let’s say you want to get users to follow the new additional process steps. What actions do you need users to perform? How do we know if these processes have been performed? Can the outcome of performing these steps be traced or observed? Are these documented? Are they easy to report on?
Describe your players – How well do you know your target audience/users? In this step, you need to clearly articulate and define exactly what they are like. For example, what are their demographics? How do they tend to behave? Do they have a history of behaving in certain ways in certain situations? If you need them to add more steps in a new process will they tend to ignore it?
Devise activity loops – In this step, we are identifying the key motivations involved to sustain the desired behaviour. Are there particular reinforcements required to sustain this behaviour? Do we need to design feedback loops? For example, if you need to ensure that the user performs 3 additional process steps, what triggers or reinforcements are required? What notifications need to be in place to remind the user and motivate him/her to perform these steps? And how do we reward those behaviours?
Don’t forget the fun – This step may seem quite generic but nevertheless an important part of the design process. People prefer to perform tasks that are more fun. However, it is not always easy to determine what is considered fun. It is about incorporating the element of interest and fun where possible to increase engagement. For example, can the messaging or graphic design incorporate an element of fun? Or can the notification or reward elements be designed to incorporate fun?
Deploy appropriate tools – This is the action step. It is about choosing the right gamification tactic to deploy your change. There is a very long list of various gamification tactics to be leveraged. Here, we will review 10 different tactics and demonstrate examples from The Change Compass.
Now that we understand the theory and steps required. Let’s put these into practice.
10 example of gamification elements and how The Change Compass has applied this
1.Onboarding tutorials
The classic approach for change practitioners in implementing changes has tended to rely on training. However, depending on the change being introduced there are more engaging ways to socialise the change.
For example, with a new system there are tools to create context-specific walk-throughs and detailed explanations that are more engaging. These are not necessarily part of the tool design itself. There are digital tools such as Stonly, Help Hero, as well as a myriad of others that may be leveraged to easily design context-specific onboarding.
Here are some examples how we use context-specific onboarding walk-throughs and information.
2. Theme
At The Change Compass we love using the airport analogy because it explains the various components within the system that needs to hum for holistic portfolio change management. Each plane is an initiative and how the airport is run is portfolio management. The available runway is the business change capacity. Stakeholders understand this because it’s a tangible analogy that they have experienced first-hand.
We’ve embedded the airport theme in different parts of the application to create a sense of fun and visually more interesting. For example, here are some examples of how we have done this.
3. Random rewards
This tactic is about creating excitement and unexpected reward to surprise users in a positive way. Ideally, it would bring a smile to users since they were not expecting this pop-up or another form of reward.
For example, we have created various automation features to make it significantly faster for users to enter data. And when the task is completed we surprise users with a pop-up that celebrates this task completion.
4. Status/points/leaderboard
The leaderboard concept is quite a common tactic to generate engagement and in this case competition. The idea is that those that have the highest points feel a sense of achievement and recognition. Please note that it depends on the motivation of users and may not work in all contexts.
We have created a user community to promote sharing of practices. In our platform there is a leaderboard that shows who has made the most comments.
5. Customisation
Customisation is a powerful tool that gives users the ability to tailor and customise their experience. The more users spend time and effort to ‘create their space’ the more wedded and engaged they become. Most people are familiar with the concept of using avatars as an expression of themselves. This is another way of expressing who they are digitally. This technique is also well adopted in social media.
In our application we allow users to upload their own avatars. In keeping with the overall airport analogy, we have ready-made avatars of different airline characters for them to choose from. Again, injection a bit of fun into the experience.
6. Challenges/quests
Challenges or quests keep users engaged and interested. It could arouse their curiosity and through this increase their likelihood of undertaking a particular task. It could be a question or a notification to let them know of a new feature. It could also be quizzes or Q&A to challenge users and thereby increasing their knowledge.
7. Sharing knowledge
Building features to allow users to share knowledge and support one another can be a motivating feature for some users. Helping others and building credibility can be intrinsic motivation for some. After all, helping others makes one feel good.
Our Change Tribe community has been a great educational platform for users to exchange tips and experiences. Different channels are setup to address different types of sharing. For example, ‘Feedback and features’, ‘Sharing practices’, ‘What’s new’, ‘Community tips’.
There are various platforms available for you to build community for users. It can be using your corporate Yammer platform, or others such as Slack or Tribe.
8. Voting/voice
Giving users the ability to have a voice and share their feedback can be powerful and engaging. It also incorporates inclusion. However, depending on the platform you are using you may need to manage the types of feedback that are openly shared. Giving users the ability to vote can also be quite powerful.
For example, at The Change Compass our features backlog is primarily determined by users and their feedback. This ensures that users feel that they determine how the application is designed and therefore feel more invested.
9. Meaning/purpose
Having a clear and strong of meaning and purpose may seem like a no-brainer for change practitioners. Yet this is a very important one for game design. The most engaging games that instill a strong sense of purpose for the user, where the user feels emersed into executing on the purpose.
In the same way, designing meaning and purpose into all facets of the change intervention is critical. Ideally, with every step of the change journey, the user can feel ingrained into carrying out steps towards the purpose of the change.
For example, in The Change Compass we have an Action Planning module where the application steps the user through the analysis of the data, key observations, patterns, and what actions to take to potentially package or re-sequence the change rollout. This helps to build empathy and directly address the overall purpose for the user in using the platform.
10. Social discovery
Social discovery is about enabling the support of users to find one another so that they can connect. This helps to support those with shared interests or connections. People are social creatures and we like to find others with whom we have shared interests. Think about designing your change intervention in a way that supports social discovery and networking.
For example, The Change Compass is about sharing initiatives across the organisation and the impacts they have on different parts of the company. Initiative drivers can discover other initiatives and how they may potentially impact the same stakeholders. This leads to better alignment and shared understanding and therefore makes it easier to collaborate for a better business outcome.
Now it’s your turn! What are some of the gamification tactics that you will deploy to improve stakeholder engagement and ensure your change initiative is designed with a view to creating a deeply involving experience for users?
To read more articles about agile practices within change management please click here. Or, to read more about different change approaches click here.
Right now I am writing this article from a Four Seasons resort in Hawaii after having 3 flights cancelled in a row. It has been quite a stressful experience as you can imagine and it’s the fourth day of delay. I’m not able to get back home! However, this started to get me thinking about the change experience for the employee or the customer. As change drivers or leaders we tend to focus on how to design the change at a program level and it’s rare for us to really get down to the lowest level of people experience and how this is perceived at a humanistic level throughout the change process.
In the past I’ve used the airport analogy to describe the change journey and how we work to design each of the elements of the whole ecosystem, including pre-departure, transit, in-flight experience, runway preparation and post-landing experience. To read more about each of these elements refer to this article on Landing multiple changes in a complex environment.
Now let’s take a look at my recent bad flight experience and you will see that this easily translates to a typical change experience for those impacted. My first flight was cancelled, and after several hours all passengers were feeling frustrated, wondering what was really going on, and when or if the flight will take off. The announcement did not provide any substantive information and so as a result each passenger had to queue up to ask for further information. This is similar to a restructuring announcement or other major changes whereby there is a generic corporate email sent to all impacted, however the information is so generic that employees will need to resort to their managers (or rumours) to get further information that will meet their individual needs.
For the managers, they often don’t receive the right information or it is insufficiently tailored so that they are not able to translate the organisational level impact to how their specific department or team will be impacted. This could be due to lack of information or skill set in translating the impact for their teams. To this end, we need to ensure we engage with those managers to ensure that their questions are answered and that they’re able to field employe questions, versus having no information.
Part of a good change experience is in anticipating any reactions, feelings and designing an effective process that tackles these head on. To do this, use a human-centred design approach of observation, interviewing, analysing precious incidents and basically adopt a human-centred mindset to pick out key experience insights that need to be addressed. To read more about the human-centred design process please click here.
So what can we learn from the bad pre-departure experience when applied to change?
1. Provide managers and leaders with sufficient information so that they are able to engage with and consult with their impacted employees to ensure that their needs are met, including gathering new ideas from them.
2. Conduct a detailed analysis from an end-user perspective to pre-determine potential humanistic needs and reactions and address these head-on. For example, What types of information are needed to reach the ultimate goal? What are potential employee questions? How do we provide them with effective engagement prior to them asking for it?
3. Proactive engagement to manage potentially negative feelings. Being on the receiving end of a flight cancellation or a successful change initiative is often frustrating and stressful. How do we anticipate these experiences to redesign it into a more positive one? For example, are there certain employee groups we can garner to be change champions to provide additional people support and foster resilience? What artefacts can we provide to shape these experiences? Visually-catching cheat sheets, posters, branded sweets, morning-tea, and effective social media communication, etc.
4. Involve all layers of management so that they are well-equipped to support the change management process and are clear with their role in the process. Are we simply asking them to be on-hand to answer questions? Or do we expect certain layers of management to be change coaches to guide first-line managers on how to lead change and foster a culture of continuous improvement through hard work? What are we asking our Human Resources colleagues to be doing? Or our Risk partners or Finance partners? Be explicit about what specific behaviours and outcomes we are asking for.
5. Empathy. When people are frustrated, feeling vulnerable or stressed, the most important thing to do to address their feelings is to acknowledge and address these feelings by showing empathy. After all we are dealing with people’s emotions. Emotions are not logical and therefore data and facts usually do not create empathy. Empathy is between two individuals. One person showing another person that their feelings are valid, acknowledged and supported. Empathy is best demonstrated through verbal or nonverbal behaviours rather than through emails and online information. This is about a leader or another colleague showing genuine acknowledgement that a fellow colleague feels a certain way, without providing any judgment or even advice. During one of the days when the flight was cancelled, a staff walked around and chatted to everyone in the queue to just listen to them and acknowledge their frustrations – this did more good than anything else the airline did.
6. Create an element of surprise in designing the change process. Most corporate change processes are similar in that they follow a set way of engaging with employees according to the corporate norm of what has worked in the past. However, there are some organizations that keep following norms and do not create a good change experience and keep repeating the same mistakes over a long time. I’m sure we have all experienced this J. For example, it could be a new way for a senior leader walking the floor to connect with impacted employees and stakeholders during the change process, or corporate artefacts that were not anticipated and could be perceived in a positive light.
7. Appealing to the senses. A lot of people remember sensory information more than data or facts. How do we leverage this to create the overall experience? Retail stores often dispense aromatherapy scents to create and environment or calm or excitement depending on the desired experience. Visual information is also important to create the right imagery so that employees can visualise the light at the end of the tunnel and be inspired to go through the tunnel. One can design visual images that help employee remember themes, or analogies that are easily understood and visualised (and therefore easily memorised).
My experience with The Four Seasons hotel from when I entered the hotel through to using its various amenities is that there is significant care and detailed anticipation of user needs. From personal interactions with staff that show care and rapport, through to facilities that are carefully designed to incorporate guest needs. For me the surprise element was the room iPad greeting me with my name and giving me a run down of the weather, things to do and other location and hotel references. The challenge for us as change leaders is to learn from this and think through how we design great change experience that are out of the ordinary and far from the typical ho-hum corporate approaches in initiative roll out.
