by The Change Compass | Agile, Change Initiatives
Most of us work in organizations where change is the constant, and where at any one time there is a myriad of changes. What happens when there is a lot of changes being worked on? How do effective organizations manage change within this common environment? And what plays out when an organization adopts agile within this environment? Here we will illustrate how one organization effectively manages lots of changes within an agile environment.
Meet company A which is a typical financial services organization. They, like most other financial services organizations, are undergoing multiple changes. In change management theory land most are concerned with managing one change at a time. The reality for a lot of organizations is that there are lots of changes, some times up to hundreds of changes at a given point in time within an organization. This is not taking the lens of formal ’projects’ that would have formalized governance and resources in place to plan and deliver the initiative. From a user-centric lense, change is any initiative that involves changing a current way of working. These includes product changes, marketing campaigns, process changes, and role changes.
Like other organizations, company A has several business units, each of which has a range of initiatives that mainly impact their own business unit. However, some of these also impact other business units. At the same time, there is a company-wide body or governance group that determines which intiatives are to be funded centrally and are of higher priority, depending on the initiative benefit case, strategic importance and overall business value.
Towards the end of the year every year, there seems to be a phenomenon emerging in this company. Within an agile environment there are many agile teams are working in self-driven teams iterating on various changes. Many of the initaitives are also focused on delivering changes that impact frontline staff that work directly with customers. Most of these initiatives are aiming to implement the change prior to the end of the calendar year as the peak customer volume for this financial services firm tends to be between December and February. The idea is that if the changes were rolled out prior to December, then the change would take place in time to capture the peak volumes and therefore provide a quick realisation of benefits.
However, the scenario is that in true agile form, there is bound to be delays in each iteration. As each agile team starts to work through and iterate on the change, often there are technical delays or that the team realizes that the scope of the project requires a longer period of time to deliver. As a result, it is common to delay the eventual initiative go-live. When there are several initiatives aiming to go-live prior to the December period, this becomes a peak change impact period for the business. This means that there are simply too many initiatives trying to launch at the same time, causing operational performance challenges and business risks.
So how has Company A managed this situation?
Data
Armed with the quantitative data of the impacts of every initiative, programs, projects and initiatives, the picture was clear in terms of what this meant to the business. The frontline staff, as well as team leaders of the frontline, will require significant time away from their normal duties to understand, digest and embed the various changes. This presents real
challenges in terms of ensuring the right resourcing given the number of hours required to undergo changes. The business also has historical data of what happened last time this level of change had impacted the business and what this meant to business performance. The data also included the overall operational environment and any challenges including customer volumes, performance trends, etc.
Governance
A series of governance session was organized to zoom in on this specific scenario consisting of project delivery managers, change management, business leaders and other support professionals (e.g.initiatives risk). The session focused on discussing the various business risks and how to mitigate these risks, including prioritizing agreed critical initiatives,
understanding sequencing implications, and de-prioritizing non-critical initiatives. With each meeting, there was also continuing delays for some initiatives (again, in true agile form). As these potential or actual delays were socialized and shared, stakeholders kept updating their plan of attack to ensure the was an effective way of managing the situation.
The role of the change practitioner
The change management professional’s role in this context is to lead and facilitate the discussion of the governance and stakeholders so that there is clarity of what the data is telling us, what options we have to deal with it, and agreed actions forward. Program managers play a role in sharing ongoing progress in initiatives. Business stakeholders also play a critical role in understanding, accepting and agreeing to any actions, as well as sharing any shifting business performance priorities. However, the change professional plays a key role as the core of the problem as about managing and coordinating the amount and pace of change at a given point in time.
The solution
There was a series of solutions proposed to manage this overall peak change period:
1) Less critical initaitives were either pushed out or stopped. This lead to various re-planning exercises
2) Higher priority initaitives were clarified and agreed
3) A set of communication and engagement actions were proposed to better engage the impacted teams to help them joint-the-dots around the myriad of changes and what these meant
4) Careful and continual monitoring and reporting of business performance was emphasized to track the outcome of the changes
The illustrated case for Company A is a very common scenario for a lot of organizations within an agile environment. Initiatives cannot operate in silos if we adopt a user-lens in managing change and the impacts of change. This case illustrates how critical it is to have strong data that tells a clear story of what is going to happen to the business and what it means. Data enables effective and strategic conversations. Data also provides significant power and value in putting change management at the driving seat of business management.
by The Change Compass | Change approach, Change Initiatives
by The Change Compass | Change approach, Change Initiatives
Recently, with the relentless pace of work, the changing weather conditions, and inadequate sleep, I had caught a cold. In recovering from the cold I started wondering more about the whole life cycle of sickness and wellness. Could it be that we can leverage from medicine how we improve the health of the organization as we design the change management process? In many ways, organizational health and well-being can be an analogy to how healthy a human being is. If the health of the organization is not great due to various imbalances in the system, it can fall ill and become less effective, thereby not meeting its goals, which is a topic often discussed in various organizational health blogs.
So how may we leverage the clinical approach that medicine adopts to disease treatment and maintenance of health to how we approach change management for positive change? In Medicine, the approach is based on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. Let’s use these three phases to further understand what this approach means when applied in a change management context.
Diagnosis
One of the most important parts of being a medical practitioner is the ability to establish rapport with a patient. We have all been to doctors who spend barely 5 minutes with us and quickly subscribe pills before moving on to the next patient. Whilst the ramifications of limited rapport may not be great with a minor ailment, with complex diseases lack of rapport may result in the wrong diagnosis as important detail may have been missed or not prompted.
To effectively diagnose a patient the medical practitioner begins by taking the medical history before commencing on a physical examination. In a similar way, to really understand what is going on in the organization and why it needs to change we need to understand where it has been. Can an organization’s history can tell us why it is in the position that it is in currently? What are external factors? What has worked or has not worked in the past in undergoing change? What best practices have been used? Have there been incidents where change outcome was disastrous? What were the lessons learnt? What leadership style or ways of engagement has worked?
Similar to undertaking a physical examination, it is also important to analyze what conditions the organization is in currently prior to implementing a change. How effective are different levels of leaders is driving and engaging their teams on change initiatives? Is there any ‘signal loss’ in cascading information up and down or across the organization? What have been some of the common stories told about change? What systems are in place to support change initiatives? For example, change champions, communication channels or learning processes.
Diagnostic tools
Physicians leverage diagnostic tools in diagnosing a patient’s illness. This is based on what is presented by the patient and the physician’s overall assessment based on visible or inferred observations. For example, the DSM-5 is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that is used to diagnose psychological and psychiatric disorders. The physician does not blindly follow the diagnostic tools to formulate an assessment. In the same way in diagnosing the organization we should also seek to understand first and then make the diagnosis based on evidence (inferred or observable). In this way, we should not blindly follow a particular change framework in ‘diagnosing’ the organization as this depends on the organization as well as the chosen change framework.
In change management we do not have just one diagnostic tool, we have several frameworks in which to help our diagnosis. There is no one framework that is applicable in all situations. Different models may be useful in certain situation. The trick is to know which ones to leverage in the right type of situations. There are various models such as the Mckinsey STAR model, systems theory, SWOT analysis, nudge theory, or force field analysis to identify key issues across the organisations. Here, we focus on some of the more ‘change-specific models’.
John Kotter’s theory (8-step model) is great when applied to a significant strategy execution, restructuring or organization-wide change. In these situations, the strategy vision clarity has to be clear, a clear sense of urgency created and understood, and strong leadership coalition to drive through any employee resistance to the change. With this type of significant change leaders need to continuously drive and reinforce the change, and integrate this within the ways of working within the organization.
However, when the organizational change is more of a project such as a technology or process change, then the Prosci ADKAR change management model (Awareness Desire Knowledge Ability Reinforcement) model may be more relevant. This is a process focused model that aims to transition an individual from the current situation to the new state. Key enablers or activities may be executed on to help drive this transition. These include providing the right communications, addressing any employee inputs, training sessions, coaching and recognition for the right behaviors adopted.
When the change involves significant restructuring where there could be redundancies including role changes and people transitions then the Kubler-Ross model may be leveraged. The model outlines an individual’s emotional journey through loss and stages of grief during the change process. The journey starts with shock, denial, then frustration, depression, experimentation and finally decision and integration. As often with significant people transitions and job redundancies emotions are high and these need to be carefully addressed and managed. However, if the change is more focused on a simple process change where there is not a lot of heightened emotional reactions, this model may not be as useful.
The change practitioner is not always engaged or consulted at the beginning of a change initiative. Sometimes it is only when things are not going well and according to plan that the change consultant is engaged to turn things around. Irrespective of whether the change initiative is in the commencement or in the middle of the journey, effective organizational diagnosis is important to understand exactly what change intervention is required to address the situation. You may need to conduct focus groups as a part of employee engagement to get this data, and depending on the measurement model you take a Likert system analysis may be used.
Just as a good medical practitioner will utilize a combination of evidence/data and judgment according to diagnostic frameworks to determine the best course of treatment, the change practitioner should also follow suit. What types of data should be used to not only diagnose but also to subscribe treatment? The following is a summary of key types of data to look for and collect.
What is the change
– Why is the organisational change necessary?
– What does the change benefit? Its customers or its employees?
– What does the end state look like?
What is the impact
– Who is impacted by the change projects?
– What is the extent of the impact?
– What are the impacts on the role/person/organization? How does it affect organizational culture, organisational structures or organizational performance?
– What time period is the impact? In what ways?
– What are the change transition activities proposed?
Readiness for the change
– How ready are the impacted people for the change? What is the organisational diagnosis?
– How is this measured and reported for change management metrics?
– What is the minimum readiness criteria?
A good physician looks at the patient as a whole and not just the particular symptoms he or she is presenting. Based on the the symptoms presented, it could be that there are several disorders and not just one. In a similar way, a change leader needs to understand what the total picture of change in doing an organisational diagnosis is and not just isolate change to one project. Understanding what the totality of changes mean to the impacted stakeholder will go a long way in deriving what change approach or support is required.
To effectively diagnose a change situation the practitioner needs to use a data and evidence-based approach to understand where the organization has been, where it is and where it is going. Again using data, the practitioner needs to effectively frame the problem and diagnose the situation using the appropriate change model/framework(s). The right diagnose is critical to ensure the right change intervention is subscribed. For the same reason that wrongly diagnosing a patient could lead to further illness the same can be said for the wrong diagnosis of the change situation for an organization.
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by The Change Compass | Change approach, Change Initiatives
Thanks to the growing frequency and magnitude of organizational changes the change management profession have been undergoing growth. However, some organizations are still struggling with understanding the value of change management. Subsequently, some change practitioners are still challenged to prove ‘their worth’.
Those working in the projects organization will be familiar with the scenario of being involved towards later stage of project delivery when things are starting to go wrong, or when it may be too late to put in effective change interventions. For those working within business units, common experiences may be difficulty influencing stakeholders on the importance of change management. Senior stakeholders focused on top line and bottom line challenges may not be convinced of the value that change tactics may bring. With the focus of senior leaders to meet financial goals and other ‘tangible’ business measures, change management practices may often be seen as a nice to have rather than a must-have.
What is a change practitioner to do in these situations?
ROI approach
One approach to proving the value is to use the return of investment calculation. In this approach, the dollars spent on change management is used, compared to the expected project benefits. Within this, it proportions the part of the benefits that are dependent on adoption and usage. For a great example refer here.
Whilst this is a good way to examine the return on investment, the problem is that the focus is on a project context. It does not take into consideration the value of change management from an overall business capability improvement perspective. It also does not call out the tangible and measurable parts of change management in adding business value.
Many organizations only realize the value of change management with experience of failed change attempts, and from this start to realize the risk of not having effective change management.
Here are 2 other ways to tangibly prove the value of change management
1) Planning and sequencing benefits
With quantitative data of change impacts on the business, this allows the change practitioner to work with the organization to better plan for change roll out. With one view of change impacts across different parts of the business, it is clearer to see when, what and how change is happening.
This data enables the identification of potential risks of having too much change in the plan. With historical data it is possible to see what happened to business performance last time it experienced a particular level of change. With this analysis, better sequencing and prioritization based on change impact may be made. It is important to call out that this process requires taking into account a range of business factors and not just change data. Critical factors to take into consideration include resourcing, customer or work volumes, and business performance indicators such as customer satisfaction scores, service response times, sales volume, etc.
It is easy to collect data on the negative impacts of having too much change on the business from these business indicators compared with other times where there is less change volume. For example, the business could have suffered negative work performance as a result of change magnitude that is not optimal. Anecdotally managers may understand the impact of having too much change on the business. However, the collective totality of all the business indicators can paint a convincing picture of what happens when effective change planning is absent.
2) Impacts of change on business performance
In previous examples, we’ve illustrated the impacts of too much change. For example, regulatory changes could mandate additional processes and customer communication content that could slow down service provision. However, sometimes the impact of change can also be positive (assuming there isn’t an overwhelming amount of change). For example, implementing technology automation and improved user interface on systems can improve user performance and customer satisfaction.
Correlations may be made between quantitative change impact data and business performance indicators. With a forward view of change impact data, it is then possible to predict the impact on business indicators. This is possibly the ultimate in proving the worth of change management. Senior business stakeholders will absolutely pay attention when the clear link between change and business performance is put on the table.
The same can also be said for change impacts on customers. With the right data, the change practitioner can provide a definitive analysis of what are the changes impacting a segment of customers at any given time, whether there could be too many changes, and whether the changes may be perceived as having positive or negative impacts. An increasing number of organizations are jumping on the bandwagon of customer centricity and customer experience. This is another way to prove the value of change management.
We at The Change Compass are working on incorporating machine learning and artificial intelligence so that change impact data may be used to predict business performance. This means that you are able to inform the business the likely scenario of business performance trends given the forecasted picture of changes. We anticipate the launch of this portion of the tool in early 2019. Stay tuned.
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by The Change Compass | Agile, Change Initiatives
There is now a lot of content out there on how to manage agile changes, including agile methodology and agile ways of working. This includes early and continuous engagement, creating a multidisciplinary team and designing smaller iterative changes. There are kanban and scrum approaches. What actually happens in organizations in terms of how people experience this? Most organizations experience this is a series of multiple initiatives going on, all iterating at the same time. The effect is various ripples of changes coming from different directions, with each initiative driving separate ripples.
Impact of agile changes
Let’s dive deeper into what this experience feels like for the organization. For the employee, changes are becoming more rapid than before with agile changes. Most organizations have at least several initiatives going on at any one time. Therefore, the employee will likely experience different changes at the same time. This could feel very overwhelming and hectic as the employee tries to keep up with a myriad of initiatives that are all working on the goals of the particular initiative.
For team managers this could also be equally overwhelming as various sources of initiative information is handed down and they are expected to be delivering and engaging their teams on the changes. Getting the details right is often a challenge and it is easy to just ‘pass down’ the given write-up about the initiative without talking through what it means specifically for the individual.
On top of this in a typical agile environment, there are always release changes and changes in the timeline. So, one of the challenges is that what is communicated through the various channels to engage employees will often be inaccurate as the dates change. This could create frustration and lack of trust as what is communicated keeps shifting.
For business unit managers the trick is to balance business-as-usual activities for employees and the demands of change initiatives. There can be occasions when there are simply too many changes at the same time impacting the same group of employees, whilst other times there seems to be little change – feast or famine. In this situation, there can be significant business performance impacts if there is too much change. Customer service levels may drop, customer satisfaction levels may be impacted, or work efficiency and work allocation may be impacted.
In a nutshell, the different ripples from different directions could all intersect and meet in one particular part of the business and create potential turmoil and business disruption. Which initiative is trying to do what? Which one benefits us more than the other? Which one requires more effort to get ready? These are typical questions faced by the business.
So how do we resolve this?
Planning and prioritization
Effective planning across initiatives is critical to managing the various ripples. There needs to be effective agreement across the organization which initiative has the priority using a set of agreed criteria. Typical factors include benefit size, strategic importance or any non-negotiables such as regulatory requirements. Both businesses and projects need to be part of this process. Data to support this process need to include all initiatives impacting a particular part of the business, whether it is deemed a ‘program’, ‘project’, or ‘BAU initiative’. The groups should look for opportunities to potentially ‘package’ certain changes that are more alike so that it is easier for employee absorption and adoption.
A key part of the input into this discussion is change impact. With clarity of the quantum and nature of change impact at any given time, along with other initiative information, decisions may be made on prioritization and sequencing. To read more about change portfolio management click here.
Communication and engagement
To effectively communicate with employees within an agile environment where there is constant shifting of timeline some use monthly release blocks versus communicating actual dates. Another way of addressing this challenge is to continuously remind employees the ‘why’ of the shifting timeline. This is focused on building employee expectation for the agile environment that there will often be constant shifting of dates and releases.
With multiple changes, it is also important to effectively link initiatives to their intent and goals. An overarching grouping or linking of initiatives to organizational strategies could be one way of doing this. In this way, it is easier to draw linkages for employees to seemingly disparate initiatives.
Business forums and routines
As a part of running an effective business operation, it is important to establish the right forums and routines to ensure that there is ongoing visibility of change impact. The routine should focus on examining the data on what the changes are at any given point in time, what happened previously in implementing changes, what will happen in the next quarter or month, and what actions are required to get the business ready.
There should also be regular examination of the level of ‘change heat’ to effectively manage business performance. Where there is a lack of heat there could be opportunities to fast-forward certain changes to balance the overall change loading.
The discussion on business readiness and capacity for change should be a balanced one, taking into account any operational challenges. These could include sales target stretches, resourcing levels, customer contact volumes, and other operational activities. In this way, the understanding of the employee capacity for change is taking into account a range of activities and focus areas at a given point in time.
The importance of change data
A critical part of creating an agile environment is a reliance on data. Agile teams are reliant on data in how solutions are developed, tested, deployed and evaluated. Without data it is not possible to test the hypothesis. In a similar way, the organization also needs to look at how it is collecting and analyzing change data to make effective business decisions. Managing the various ripples within the organization requires data-based decision making and not gut feel and hunches.
Read more about agile and change management in our article ‘The ultimate guide to Agile for change managers’ or ‘What we need to know about agile we learnt from change management’.
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