Ultimate guide to change portfolio management

Ultimate guide to change portfolio management

by | Guides, Portfolio management

The change management profession has grown by leaps and bounds. This is proportional to the speed and magnitude of change that organizations are currently going through. To manage this complexity, a lot of large organizations have created ‘enterprise change management’ or ‘portfolio change management roles’ to tackle this.

In the same way that there are portfolio managers to manage a suite of projects, organizations are realizing that portfolio change managers may be needed to effectively drive change success. Like the portfolio manager, the portfolio change manager also manages a particular group of initiatives. This grouping is usually done based on the size of change initiatives and or business groups. There are also examples of groupings by ‘value stream’ or program clusters. For example, a portfolio change manager may be in charge of all technology projects and supporting the technology group, whilst another portfolio change manager support sales and marketing initiatives or back office groups.

To download our infographic on how to manage a change portfolio click here.

As a new field, there is not a lot of ‘how-do’ guides for the new portfolio change manager. A quick scan of the internet found very little substance in term of all facets of the work of the portfolio change manager. This guide is written to fill this gap and to help those starting out in this role or decisions makers considering creating such roles to build change effectiveness.

To effectively manage the change initiatives within the portfolio, the change portfolio manager needs to proactively work on the below 7 key areas:

 

Marketing group working on presentation. Scrum meeting, teamwork, task list. Business concept. Vector illustration can be used for presentation slides, landing pages, and posters

1) Service offering

Defining the service you are offering to the organization is one of the most critical activities. To do this, you need to conduct an assessment of where the organization is at and its various needs for change management services. Key questions to ask include:

  • How mature is the organization in managing change? You may want to refer to the Change Management Institute’s model of Change Maturity here to understand the different stages of organizational change maturity
  • How much change is the organization going through? This will help determine the capacity of services required
  • How much investment is the organization willing to make to support change management? There may be a budget already set or you may need to make a recommendation based on any available internal or external benchmarks
  • What are the most critical needs? Conduct stakeholder interviews or workshops with senior managers, middle managers and frontline groups to understand current change challenges holistically.

After understanding the needs of the organizations and where the organization would like to head to in its change management objectives, one can then define services required.

Common services offered by a portfolio change manager or portfolio change management function includes:

  1. Change project delivery services (e.g. change impact assessment, change planning, stakeholder management, etc.)
  2. Change diagnostics (e.g. initiative change health assessment)
  3. Change capability improvement offerings (e.g. training, workshop facilitation, leadership assessments)
  4. Coaching and advisory (e.g. for managers and leaders in driving change)

2) Service Delivery

After defining the service provision, the next activity to focus on is how these services will be delivered. This depends on organizational needs, resources available and the skills of available practitioners in the group.   Examples of service delivery options include:

  • Low involvement – Consultation

    1. Change activities are managed and driven by the business or project teams with targeted support from the Change group
    2. The change group is engaged as required over the life cycle of the project to provide guidance and consultation
    3. In terms of change capability, this involves advising and consulting with the business as required

  • Moderate involvement – Partnering

    1. Change activities are mostly delivered by the Change group with ongoing involvement from the business and the project team
    2. A resource is assigned to support the initiative over the whole life cycle. However, this may not require 100% full-time support and involvement may ramp up or down depending on project needs
    3. In terms of change capability, this involves working on significant pieces of deliverables such as change capability intervention design and delivery

  • High involvement – Full Delivery

    1. Under the full delivery model the Change group is directly accountable for managing all change deliverables, working alongside the project and business teams
    2. One or more full-time Change resource may be assigned to the whole project lifecycle, including specialists such as communications, learning or even organization design leads
    3. In terms of change capability, this involves significant work on a range of change capability interventions such as a range of learning programs, building air traffic control systems and individual leadership effectiveness assessment and coaching

3) Manage resourcing & Forecasting demand

Depending on the services offered and business requirements, the Change team composition may look different. For example, for some organizations where the need is more on coaching and advisory services, fewer but more senior Change practitioners may be needed. On the other hand, for another organization where the focus is more on project delivery, the focus may be placed on a number of Change Managers and Change Analysts to support initiative delivery.

Key decision should be placed on achieving a balance of permanent headcounts versus contractors. Permanent in-house practitioners will have a deeper understanding of organizational needs and how the organization works. Contractor staffing is beneficial so as to allow the flexing or resources up or down across initiatives. Organizations that only rely on Change contractors usually fail to significantly build business change capability and maturity over time. This is because over time Change Management is seen by the business to be an activity done by contractor practitioners, thus not diluting their accountability. The group may also leverage external providers as needed for specialist skills or to offset any requirement peaks.

Forecasting demand is an important activity to get right so as not to set stakeholder expectations that cannot be fulfilled. Demand forecasting for Change services involves the following:

  1. Extrapolating any change capability organizational requirements into anticipated FTE resource levels. This may be done in consultation with the project management office (PMO), Human Resources and Senior Managers
  2. In resourcing for project delivery, the team needs to work closely with the PMO and project portfolio managers to anticipate demand. The Change group should also align with the PMO on any prioritization processes so as to be ‘joint-at-the-hip’ in focusing on critical initiatives that have been agreed to be the most strategic and valuable first and foremost.
  3. In scoping for each initiative the Change group needs to ensure that it is included and involved in the inception of the initiative. Often Change professionals are engaged when the project is well into implementation and when it may be too late to ‘fix’ any change issues. To adequately scope an initiative key questions to be asked include:
    1. How many parts of the business is impacted? How many employees?
    2. What is the magnitude of the impact?
  • What is the complexity of the change? Is it innovative or disruptive? Do we anticipate significant transitional efforts involved?
  1. What are the behavioural impacts?
  2. Are customers impacted?
  3. How are key stakeholder groups impacted? Could there be potential for stakeholder sensitivities?

To support purely agile projects, the Change group needs to define change deliverables throughout each phase of the initiative delivery cycle. From then, determine the resource requirement. Foundational change management work will still be applicable within an agile environment, including conducting change impact assessment, planning for change, measuring readiness for change and building business transition capability.

 

 

 

4) Portfolio management

At the lower end of the maturity curve, the Portfolio Change Manager may spend most of the time scoping for change resources, managing delivery, managing change professionals and liaising with key stakeholders. These are absolutely necessary activities. However, to really move up the strategic ladder the Portfolio Change Manager also needs to be able to influence the planning of the initiative portfolio versus only focusing on the delivery end of the curve.

In most organizations the PMO is tasked with managing the initiative investment and planning process. Most would refer to strategic objectives and goals and through this define the overall slate of initiatives for the coming year. Key data used include financial targets, initiative benefits, initiative resourcing and investment cost, and timing. The Portfolio Change Manager is often not involved in this process at all, or best, invited for comments around ‘change saturation’ or ‘change collision’ that are not substantiated by hard data.

To be at the decision table in planning effectively for change, the Portfolio Change Manager needs to be equipped with data to aid insight and decision making. How? By building an integrated view of change impacts. Currently, a lot of organizations still use a series of disjointed spreadsheets to try and articulate the change impacts across initiatives. The problem with this is is that:

  1. The data is based on a person’s judgment in terms of whether an initiative has high, medium or low impacts, and not linked to structured impact assessments
  2. The three categories of high, medium and low are mostly inadequate when the organization is going through a significant number of initiatives. Each category could include such a big range of impacts that it may not be precise enough for the business to use this data. Can the business use this data to forecast frontline impact and resourcing levels? Definitely no.
  3. The spreadsheet is also extremely manual, consuming significant time. And it also becomes out of date very quickly and so may not be trusted by senior leaders or the PMO. Large companies often have more than 100 initiatives. At this scale, a manual spreadsheet is inadequate to meet business needs.

To address this problem, The Change Compass is a digital tool designed to make it easier for the Change Portfolio Manager or the PMO to piece together all the change impacts across change initiatives. Each initiative owner inputs change impact data and the system prompts the user to update the data. The interface is intuitive and draws out the impacts step by step. The Portfolio Change Manager and other managers are able to instantly generate various reports. In a nutshell it helps the organization to manage the ‘air traffic control’ of landing initiatives. Moreover, it enables:

  • Single view of change impacts on the business, and allows diagnostic view at different organizational levels, e.g. team, sub-division, divisional and enterprise levels
  • Forecast business operations readiness and resourcing impacts from changes, e.g. frontline resourcing required, engagement channels required, stakeholder groups impacted, etc.
  • Measure/Model impact of changes on business performance indicators.  Understand correlation between change impact and customer satisfaction, service availability or other measures
  • View integrated heat map of all change impacts on customer experience, customer segment by customer segment
  • Build business change capability through change data and effective routines
  • Upgrade change work to become more strategic, leveraging data to have strategic conversations and support data-based business decision making
  • Support agile ways of working through managing iterative and continuous change across the board

To check out our article on how to better manage a change portfolio click here.

5) Change Governance

The Portfolio Change Manager should work with the PMO and senior managers to ensure the appropriate governance and routines are designed and set up. To do this, analyse the business requirements in connecting different stakeholder groups to ensure alignment, buy-in, visibility and ownership of the initiative slate. Portfolio change governance bodies should include attendance by PMO, senior business leaders and the Portfolio Change Manager should focus on reporting and tracking on business impacts, business readiness, delivery milestones and delivery risk identification and mitigation.

Typical routines that the Portfolio Change Manager should assist in establishing include:

  1. Business unit level change planning and cadence (focused on initiative delivery)
  2. Business unit level change capability and program intervention planning and tracking (focused on change maturity)
  3. Initiative portfolio level planning, risk management and tracking
  4. Change team meeting
  5. As needed, enterprise level change planning and cadence

6) Change metrics and reporting

Whilst change impact data is critical to support the work of change governance bodies, there are other initiative-level metrics that the Portfolio Change Manager needs to be focused on in tracking and reporting. These include:

  1. Change readiness surveys
  2. Learning and development tracking and results
  3. Communication metrics such as hit rate or readership rate
  4. Stakeholder confidence ratings

7) Methodology & tools

Currently, there is a significant trend of moving towards agile project methodology in most large organizations. This means that there are less focus and reliance on documentation, long planning cycles but more on effective conversations, stakeholder alignment, and constant iteration and learning. On top of this, a lot of organization are also moving toward scaled agile methodology (agile at organizational level vs. within an initiative). The Portfolio Change Manager needs to define key change deliverables and work approaches that suit his/her organization (acknowledging that agile may not suit every organization or every initiative).

Having effective change tools means that the business can self-help and the change practitioner can better coach and develop the business. For the Portfolio Change Manager useful tools may include:

  • Change scoping assessment tool for initiatives
  • Change resource estimation tool
  • Change Impact Assessment template/tool
  • Change plan template. For agile environments this would be the Change Canvas
  • Capability and skills assessment
  • Change readiness assessment
  • Change framework for the business to help uplift change capability. This should focus on key change outcomes and competencies for any change leader, written in a language they can understand

The Portfolio Change Manager is tasked with a complex set of tasks in driving a set of change initiatives for the organization. He/she needs to have the people skills to influence a range of stakeholders to transition to the new state. In addition, the person needs to possess business acumen and analytical skills to support the PMO and senior managers to make the right decisions to drive change across initiatives. Whilst not exhaustive, this guide calls out key critical areas undertaken by the Portfolio Change Manager. To be successful going forward, the Portfolio Change Manager needs to constantly deliver value and provide insight through leveraging digital tools and hard data to be at the decision-making table.

Check out our Ultimate guide to agile for change managers.

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How to create strategic and quantitative change reporting

How to create strategic and quantitative change reporting

by | Change Initiatives, Change Measurement

A typical scenario for a lot of program meetings goes something like this. The program spends the bulk of the time discussing program cost, delivery progress, technical risks and resourcing challenges. And when it comes to Change Management reporting, we are often left with a few anecdotes from stakeholder interviews, and often the only real quantitative reporting comes in the forms of training completion, readiness surveys, and email communications hit rates.

One wonders why Change Management is often glossed over as fluffy and soft vs. strategic and quantitative. Even for those who intuitively believe that managing change ought to be important, most lack quantitative data that demonstrate clearly how change progress directly impacts business outcomes.

How does a business manager, program or a change practitioner demonstrate the true strategic value of tracking change initiatives in order to highlight any risks and achievements? In particular with a group of initiatives.

Here are a few ways in which change impacts may be captured and reported in a quantitative way to support strategic decision making, starting with a birds-eye-view and sequentially drill down deeper to understand the scenario to aid strategic decisions:

1. Customer Experience Impact

One of the most profound ways in which change progress may be reported at a strategic level is by the extent to which initiative change impacts are shaping customer experiences. How are customer experiences shaped as a result of the suite of changes taking place?

Do initiatives result in a positive or negative impact on customer experience? E.g. does it improve or worsen a service delivery speed, functionality, quality, etc. Legislative initiatives for example may result in negative experiences depending on the nature of the change.
Is there too much change going on at the same time?
Does the customer give a damn about the change?

2. Change Impact dashboard

A good high-level view of various change impact data for an executive dashboard may include:

Initiative quantity and type (technology, product, policy, etc.) throughout the calendar year
Impact level and type (go-live, training, customer, etc.)
At-a-glance pie charts and bar graphs are ideal for summarizing multiple axes of data within a 1-pager

3. Change impact heat map

A good heatmap can be one of the most visually memorable reports on change impact with options to drill down into colour-coded divisional and sub-divisional impacts across the timeline indicating both the number of initiatives as well as the levels of impact.

4. Detailed initiative schedule

A detailed initiative schedule is helpful as we start to drill down to analyze which initiatives are contributing to business and delivery risks. Data may include initiative names, impact level, impact type, and impact dates across the calendar year. One starts to get a detailed understanding of which initiatives are high impact, contributing to change fatigue or could be better communicated and in synchronisation with other initiatives to reduce complexity for the audience.

5. Initiative report

After we have a clear understanding of the initiatives that we need to work on aligning to improve the overall execution and delivery effectiveness we then move to clarify the details of each initiative. At this level, the reporting contains a description of the initiative, contact persons, delivery timeline and business impact data. The report, therefore, should contain sufficient details to allow very actionable steps to connect, discuss, and plan for change alignment between initiative, portfolio and business owners.

To read more about change analytics follow these links:

Top 7 challenges faced by change managers in generating insight from change data

How to build change analytics capability

The ultimate guide to measuring change

How to better manage a change portfolio?

How to better manage a change portfolio?

by | Change Initiatives, Portfolio management

  1. Set up a simple, business-led change governance

Instead of a myriad of project-based governance bodies, establish a divisional business body focused on managing change impacts on people and customers.  This may be embedded into an existing monthly divisional leadership meeting.  In this governance meeting, the focus is on:

  • Reviewing the data and trends of change impacts (linking with other initiative data such as benefits and scheduling)
  • Identifying any risks regarding the pace and the ‘amount’ of change
  • Identifying opportunities to link change activities with key strategic themes so that it is easier for people to digest and absorb the change
  • Identify opportunities to integrate roll-out activities such as training and workshops as appropriate
  • Decision-making on the prioritization of change releases
  • Monitor the feedback from impacted groups on the effectiveness of change delivery

This is not to say that project-based governance is not required.  Business involvement is critical in project governance.  However, a key focus should be placed on understanding the overall picture first and what the business is going to go through.   From this clarity, it will then be easier to see how each initiative fits into the overall picture and if there are rollout considerations.

With clear change impact data, discussions will also be more swift, focused on more strategic conversations vs. gut feel and individual preferences.  In this way, change is also being positioned as much more rigorous, data-driven, and scientific, versus fluffy, undefined, or worse, unimportant.

  1. Embed change impact management into the operating rhythm

One way to improve change capability in an organization is to focus operations on change and implementation, versus viewing change management as a separate piece of work done by Change Managers.  This involves:

  • Build the framework for initiative drivers to define and articulate change impacts, and own the update of initiative data in a central repository. When all initiative owners regularly update the data on change impacts, all stakeholders benefit.  Initiative drivers are able to see what else is impacting the business and how to avoid any implementation bottlenecks.  On the other hand, the business is able to better see the total picture.
  • Build agreement within the organization to create one integrated picture of change impacts, irrespective of whether a change initiative is deemed as a project, program, or a business-as-usual activity. To do this, we need to adopt the perspective of the user impacted.   Changes for them could include everything ranging from policy changes, technology changes, process changes, restructuring, marketing campaigns, and product changes.
  • Build the management of change impacts into the roles and responsibilities of Operations. This includes a) considering change impacts in the process of resource planning, b) the ‘air traffic control’ of landing initiatives and their impacts, c) ensuring the impacted groups are ready and engaged) that the business has demonstrated the ownership and capability to adopt the change, e) managers accountable of driving the behavior embedment and monitoring of performance are clear.
  • The change impact data should be open for anyone to access and understand. This would then put the onus on everyone to own and drive change.  The frontline should also be able to look at the plan and understand the nature of the impacts on them.  This will add significant value within an environment of concurrent multiple changes.
  • Organizations should start with one division to test this model. Eventually, roll this out to other divisions.  Once the whole organization has adopted this, an enterprise-level governance body may then be formed to promote cross-functional conversations in managing the ‘air traffic control’ and landing of initiatives.  The quality of this conversation will also then be a key precursor to maximizing the benefit realization of initiatives

Check out our infographic on how to better manage a change portfolio.

  1. Quantify change impacts

One of the core problems faced by companies is how to quantify change impacts and make them more tangible, easier to visualize, measure and manage.

Change impacts may be quantified in the following way:

  • The level of change. This denotes the intensity of the change impact.  A Likert scale may be used to define and illustrate the different levels.  For example, Level 1 could be minimal impacts, requiring the user only to attend a few meetings and read a few emails.  However, at the highest level, the impact could be defined as significant, requiring role changes, in-depth training, and a new way of operating.
  • The type of change. Different categories of change may be listed, including technology changes, policy changes, marketing changes, product changes, etc.
  • Timing of change. This refers to the timing at which a change impact will occur.  The impact may be different for different groups of stakeholders.
  • The scale of the impact. This denotes the number of employees impacted as an estimate.
  • Parts of the business impact. This refers to which parts of the business are impacted by this particular change impact.
  • Change activity. This includes various change activities associated with the change impact, including training, workshops, formal communications, etc.

From the information provided, the analysis may then be undertaken, looking at the loading of change, whether there is any potential change clash from a timing perspective, whether there is behavior consistency across initiatives rolled out, and whether the initiatives overall are driving the organization’s strategy forward.

Moreover, with sufficient historical data, the company may then be able to correlate the impact of the ‘amount’ of change on business performance.  From this, the change impact data may then be used to even ‘predict’ future business performance.  Such is the power of quantifying change impact.

  1. Clarify customer impacts to manage customer experience

A significant number of companies are now jumping on the bandwagon of focusing on customer experience.  This is because other value levers such as cost and efficiency are almost maxed out and there are few additional efficiencies that can be achieved there.

To truly manage customer experience one needs to start by understanding the total picture of what the company is planning to change for a particular group of customers.  This includes:

  • Customer change impact data, such as change type, timing, scale, and level of change (similar to those for employees)
  • Customer type – this could be customer segments or other categorizations of customer groups
  • A positive or negative change from the customer’s perspective
  • Does the customer care about this change? How important is this change for the customer? It is critical to assess this from the customer’s lens, vs. the company’s lens?

After collecting these data, a customer’s experience may then be mapped out from the perspective of change impacts on their experience.  Is there a number of legislative initiatives that will create a negative customer experience?  Is there too much change planned?  What would be the optimal ‘change loading’ for customers?  The customer impact data enables valuable discussions and decisions

Check out our ultimate guide to change portfolio management.

  1. Leverage technology solutions

For smaller organizations managing change initiatives, spreadsheets may suffice.  However, for large organizations managing a large portfolio of changes, spreadsheets may not be sufficient.

Technology solutions now enable both drivers and receivers of the change to access impact information any time and anywhere.  This promotes collaboration and effective conversations.  Companies will not need to rely on an army of analysts to constantly collect and verify the data, since the data is coming straight from ‘the source’.  Reporting efforts are also optmized by having standard, automated reporting, generated at any time required.

Technology solutions are also great for agile-focused organizations where there is always a series of constant and iterative changes, and where change impact information could change rapidly from week to week.  Access to accurate and timely data is even more critical.

Stakeholders across the company are also able to see, in real-time, the change impacts being planned.  From this, meaningful conversations may be had in terms of the level and nature of change impacts from different stakeholder perspectives.  For example, does the business share the same agreement of change impact as the program?  This creates transparency and shared accountability in the ownership of change outcomes.

  1. Use data-based feedback to improve change capability

In implementing a data-based model of managing change impacts organizations will experience an uplift in change capability.  How?

After a division reviews the feedback from stakeholders after initiatives get rolled out, referencing indicated ‘amount’ of change planned, this reference ‘amount’ then becomes a yardstick for answering ‘how much is too much change’.

Moreover, with regular routines and reviews over time, the yardstick of change loading can then aid future decision making on 1) the optimal change impact loading for the business, 2) readiness activities required to better manage across changes, 3) prioritization required, and 4) potential for synchronization across initiatives (e.g. communication or training efforts).

In this way, the business division learns to determine how best to utilize change impact data to prepare for changes, avoid change fatigue, and to maximize adoption.  The outcome of this is testing with ‘tactics’ of managing the changing load, and improved business performance.  With open data sharing, there is also an opportunity for cross-divisional learning to pick up tips from each other on how to manage multiple changes and still deliver operational performance.

Click here to download our infographic on How to Better Manage a Change Portfolio.

What is missing in driving change management in an agile setting?

What is missing in driving change management in an agile setting?

by | Agile, Change Initiatives

Agile is all the rage at the moment in driving change and transformation. Many call out the importance of stakeholder management, communicating regularly, ensuring strong sponsorship, and clarity of business requirements. Others emphasize the need to have continual people interactions versus documentation and processes. For the uninitiated all of these seem to make sense, but yet not that different compared to using other methodologies in other projects. Agile methodologies have emerged as the catalysts for change and transformation. Anchored by principles such as stakeholder engagement, transparent communication, and robust sponsorship, Agile’s true essence lies in its unique approach – the rapid release of incremental changes, fostering a culture of continual learning and adaptability.

One of the key tenets of agile involves releasing a series of smaller changes rapidly, learning and adjusting from each release, rather than spending a longer time to work on a much bigger release that may or may not be successful.

However, releasing a series of changes can be unsettling, disruptive, and hard to keep up for employees. This is especially the case for larger programs when the timeline could go for more than 1 year. Combining several programs, you can imagine the unsettling rather of these changes on employees and the business.

How do we resolve this? The key is to provide a strong picture of the end state and how things will look like and set the expectation that there will be a series of changes, providing examples of these as well as explaining why this is an effective way to drive change. Yes, We may not know exactly the details of the end state, but the business should be clear in the overall outcomes and key works to get there.

To do this effectively we need to be able to connect the dots and tell the story of the journey of change and how the different changes connect to lead us to the end state. Sounds simple? Yet lots of companies are not able to reach this outcome due to a big pipeline of changes.

Illustrating the Power of Digital Connectivity

Agile in Software Development: Consider a software development project embracing Agile principles. Instead of the traditional monolithic release after months of development, Agile allows teams to deliver functional components regularly. Users gain hands-on experience early, providing invaluable feedback for immediate adjustments.

Navigating Business Transformation: In a complex business transformation, Agile’s iterative approach proves invaluable. Imagine a company implementing a new customer relationship management (CRM) system. Agile permits incremental updates based on user feedback, ensuring the CRM aligns seamlessly with evolving business needs.

Strategic Resource Allocation: A company grappling with a pipeline of diverse changes faces challenges in maintaining clarity. Digital tools, like ‘The Change Compass,’ offer a panoramic view, enabling leaders to visualize the interconnectedness of initiatives. This facilitates strategic decision-making and precise resource allocation.

Employee-Centric Transformations: Consider an organization rolling out changes to internal workflows. Agile, supported by digital tools, empowers leaders to communicate phased changes effectively. This ensures employees not only understand the bigger picture but also feel more engaged in the transformation process.

The solution? Use digital means to connect the dots and not rely on personal interpretation. Use a digital tool to examine what is coming down the pipeline, and therefore create meaning and better prioritize initiatives to move the business forward. By seamlessly weaving Agile methodologies into their fabric and harnessing the power of tools such as ‘The Change Compass,’ organizations adeptly steer through the ever-evolving landscape of perpetual change. Serving as a strategic guide, ‘The Change Compass’ leverages analytics and machine learning to streamline change orchestration, prioritize initiatives, and guide organizations with precision and confidence toward their transformation targets. This approach cultivates a work environment characterized by transparency, adaptability, and active engagement. As a result, the journey toward the end state transforms into a seamlessly connected narrative of continual progress and sustainable growth.