In the rapidly evolving landscape of financial services, organisations face significant challenges due to regulatory and technological changes. A large financial services corporation has recognised the need for an integrated approach to change management reporting, embedding it within general business reporting to enhance organisational agility and effectiveness. This case study outlines the firm’s journey, challenges faced, solutions implemented, and the resulting value derived from this strategic initiative.
Background
The corporation operates under a defederated model of change management, where change practitioners are distributed across various business units. This structure has led to inconsistent change management practices and reporting, complicating the ability to provide comprehensive insights into organisational change efforts. As regulatory demands and technological advancements have intensified, the need for cohesive change management reporting became paramount.
Challenges
The primary challenges encountered by the centralized change management team included:
Diverse Reporting Preferences: Different stakeholders and divisions within the organization exhibited varying preferences for reporting formats and metrics. This lack of consensus hindered the development of a standardized reporting framework.
Maturity Disparities: Business units displayed varying levels of maturity in their change management practices, with some units showing strong interest while others remained indifferent.
Feedback Variability: Initial attempts to socialize various reporting types received mixed feedback, complicating efforts to establish a unified approach.
Solution Implementation
To address these challenges, the change management team adopted a multi-faceted strategy:
Executive Engagement: The team actively engaged with senior executives to align on the direction for change management reporting. A senior executive cohort was formed to define essential reporting needs and establish a common vision.
Collaboration with Business Intelligence (BI) Team: The change management team partnered with the BI team to integrate change management metrics into existing general business reports. This collaboration ensured that change management insights were included in routine business tracking.
Data Integration: Utilising data from Change Compass facilitated the ongoing production of comprehensive reports that combined operational metrics with change management insights.
Value Realized
The integration of change management reporting into general business reporting yielded several significant benefits:
Increased Leadership Focus: By embedding change metrics within standard business reports, leaders began to prioritize change management as part of their strategic oversight. This shift is expected to enhance readiness and adoption of future changes across the organization.
Proactive Change Support: Business leaders increasingly requested support for change initiatives, indicating a transition from a push model (where support is offered) to a pull model (where support is actively sought).
Enhanced Reporting Consistency: The establishment of a standardized set of reports improved clarity and consistency in how change initiatives were tracked and communicated across business units.
Change management Maturity: Enhancing change management maturity within the business is general done through capability development and coaching. However, this case showcases that embedding change management within general business management is a strategic way to raise awareness, visibility, and through this enhance the business’ efforts to improve the management of change.
This case study illustrates how a large financial services corporation successfully embedded change management reporting into its general business reporting framework. By engaging senior leadership, collaborating with data teams, and standardising metrics, the organisation not only improved its reporting capabilities but also fostered a culture that values proactive engagement with change initiatives. As a result, the firm is better positioned to navigate future changes while ensuring that it meets regulatory demands and capitalizes on technological advancements.
In the realm of organizational change management, the concept of a Single View of Change (SVOC) has become a focal point for experienced change practitioners. This approach aims to provide a comprehensive perspective on the myriad changes occurring within an organization, thereby facilitating informed decision-making among stakeholders. However, while the SVOC is often lauded for its potential to deliver a holistic picture of change impacts, its practical implementation raises several critical questions.
The Allure of a Single View of Change
The SVOC is designed to offer change practitioners a unified lens through which to view all organizational changes—be they strategic, operational, or cultural. By consolidating information about various changes, practitioners hope to present stakeholders with a clear and coherent narrative that captures the overall impact on the organization. This is particularly valuable in environments characterized by rapid change, where stakeholders may struggle to keep track of multiple initiatives.
Concept Illustration: The Change Landscape
Imagine an organization as a bustling city. Each building represents a different initiative or project, while the streets symbolize the pathways through which information flows. In this analogy, the SVOC acts as an aerial view of the city—providing insights into how each building interacts with others and how traffic (information) moves between them. This perspective allows stakeholders to see not just individual projects but also their collective impact on the organization.
The Realities of Implementation
Despite its theoretical appeal, achieving a Single View of All Changes may be unrealistic for many organizations. In practice, organizations often grapple with hundreds of concurrent changes, some of which may be deemed too minor or insignificant to warrant inclusion in a comprehensive overview. The administrative burden associated with capturing and maintaining this data can be substantial, leading some practitioners to question whether the effort is justified. One of the few ways to achieve this is through digital means.
Example: Too Many Changes
Consider a technology firm undergoing multiple changes simultaneously: launching a new product line, implementing an agile methodology, and restructuring its sales team. Each initiative generates its own set of data points—feedback from customers, team performance metrics, and employee satisfaction surveys. If the firm attempts to capture every detail from each initiative for its SVOC, it may end up drowning in data without gaining actionable insights.
So, what information to capture, and the methodology of capturing the information is critical. Again, digital solutions can help to automate the process, which means it can be faster and easier to capture and utilise the information.
The Cost-Benefit Analysis
Organizations must weigh the benefits of creating an SVOC against the costs involved. Practitioners should ask themselves:
What is the purpose of the SVOC?
Who are the primary stakeholders?
What decisions will be informed by this view?
If the answers indicate minimal value for certain changes or stakeholders, it may be more pragmatic to focus on high-impact initiatives rather than attempting to capture every nuance. However, if the organisation’s changes are mainly business-as-usual changes, then leaving this out will mean that the picture is no longer accurate.
To read more about calculating the financial benefits of managing a change portfolio check out this article.
Diverse Stakeholder Needs
Different stakeholders have varying requirements when it comes to understanding change:
Senior Executives: Typically prefer high-level summaries that align with strategic objectives. They seek key insights into risks and mitigations without being bogged down by granular details.
Operational Leaders: Often desire a more detailed view that includes specific impacts on daily operations and resource allocation. They may require insights down to the minute level to effectively manage their teams.
Example: Tailored Reporting
A financial services company might have different reporting needs based on stakeholder roles:
Department Heads receive weekly reports detailing project timelines, resource allocations, and immediate operational impacts.
By tailoring reports in this manner, organizations can ensure that each stakeholder receives relevant information without overwhelming them with unnecessary details.
Visual Communication Strategies
The selection of visuals plays a crucial role in conveying the right message to stakeholders. Effective visual communication should:
Allow for Flexible Drill-Downs
Stakeholders should be able to explore data at varying levels of granularity—aggregating macro-level views or drilling down into specifics as required. For example:
A senior executive might want an overview of change impacts across departments.
An operations manager may wish to drill down into specific team metrics related to a new process implementation.
Facilitate Easy Switching
Different stakeholders may prefer different types of visuals. Providing options for visual switching can enhance engagement and ensure that each stakeholder receives information in their preferred format.
Example: Interactive Dashboards
Using interactive dashboards can allow stakeholders to switch between different visual representations effortlessly. They enable stakeholders to engage with data meaningfully while catering to their individual preferences:
Heat Maps can show areas of high change impact at a glance.
Gantt Charts can provide timelines for specific initiatives.
Pie Charts can illustrate resource allocation across departments (if there are significant quantitative differences across each piece of the pie, or else the pie chart can be incredibly difficult to read for the audience. Check out this article to read more about this).
The Role of Technology
In today’s complex change environments, leveraging technology becomes increasingly critical. The sheer volume of data generated by ongoing changes can overwhelm traditional analysis methods. Here, artificial intelligence (AI) and live forecasting can serve as invaluable tools:
Automation
Utilizing AI can streamline data collection and analysis processes, reducing the need for extensive manual oversight. For instance:
Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms can analyze employee feedback from surveys or social media platforms to gauge sentiment regarding ongoing changes.
Automated reporting tools can generate real-time updates on project statuses without requiring manual input from team members.
Forecasting Capabilities
Live forecasting tools can provide real-time insights into potential impacts and outcomes, enabling practitioners to make proactive adjustments. For example:
A manufacturing company might use predictive analytics to forecast how changes in supply chain management will affect production schedules.
A healthcare organization could employ simulation models to assess how new policies will impact patient care delivery.
Example: AI Implementation in Change Management
Consider a global retail chain implementing AI-driven analytics during its digital transformation efforts:
Data Collection: AI tools generates various change data including change impacts, communication plan, stakeholder assessment, etc.
Analysis: Machine learning analyses the data and calls out key data observations, trends, outliers, and patterns.
Reporting: Stakeholders receive tailored reports and dashboards showing an integrated view of what upcoming changes there are, and highlighting key risks and actions required.
This approach not only saves time but also enhances decision-making by providing actionable insights based on real-time data. However, note that currently AI will not be able to do everything. The change practitioner still needs to be able to analyse generated data and amend as needed, prioritise and select key data observations for reporting, and provider editorial oversight on what key messages should go out to the various types of stakeholders.
Understanding Stakeholder Challenges
Change practitioners must develop an acute ability to read their stakeholders’ business challenges and tailor their communications accordingly. This involves:
Tailoring Data Presentations
Adjusting the types of data shared based on stakeholder roles and responsibilities is crucial. For example:
A project manager might need detailed timelines and resource allocations for specific initiatives.
A finance officer may require cost-benefit analyses and benefit realisation forecast linked to adoption rates related to ongoing changes.
Customising Visuals
Selecting visuals that resonate with specific stakeholder concerns while remaining aligned with overarching organizational goals is essential for effective communication. Using storytelling techniques in presentations can help convey complex information more effectively:
Contextualize Data: Start with a narrative that outlines why changes are necessary.
Visualize Impact: Use graphs or infographics to illustrate projected outcomes.
Call-to-Action: Conclude with specific actions required from stakeholders based on insights presented.
By framing data within a narrative context, practitioners can foster greater engagement and understanding among stakeholders.
Trial and error
A lot of your stakeholder may not know what they want. They are not change management experts so they may not be able to tell you exactly what the outputs look like. Often they may tell you at a high level the type of data they are after, but not the specifics.
You need to be able to carefully balance giving them something that will hit the mark, as a ‘test’ (since you may not hit the mark the first time). A bit of trial and error is required in this process as you continually test with your stakeholders what resonates and what gets their attention and drives action.
This can cause a lot of frustration and anxiety for change practitioners. After all, you are doing your very best to deliver something that is requested. But again, your audience does not know exactly what they want. There is an element of you guiding them, but also the other element of directly giving them what they are looking for.
Do note that if you don’t hit the mark too many times you may lose their interest, and therefore the opportunity to present change management data. This means that you may only have a small window of opportunity. Digital tools can help you with selecting the right visuals for the right stakeholders.
Facilitating Governance Forums
Creating spaces where stakeholders can discuss insights derived from change data allows for collaborative decision-making:
Regular Business Meetings: Schedule governance forums where stakeholders review progress on key initiatives.
Interactive Discussions: Encourage open dialogue about challenges faced during implementation.
Action-Oriented Outcomes: Ensure meetings conclude with clear action items based on insights shared.
Addressing Change Fatigue
One significant challenge in managing change is addressing change fatigue, which occurs when employees feel overwhelmed by constant organizational shifts. Symptoms include:
Apathy
Burnout
Increased resistance
To combat this phenomenon, organizations must implement strategies that foster resilience among employees:
Engagement Initiatives
Actively involving employees in the change process allows them to voice concerns and contribute solutions:
Feedback Mechanisms: Implement regular surveys or focus groups where employees can share their thoughts on ongoing changes.
Recognition Programs: Celebrate small wins related to change initiatives to maintain morale.
Transparent Communication
Maintaining open lines of communication regarding what changes are occurring and why they matter helps mitigate feelings of uncertainty among employees:
Regular Updates: Provide frequent updates through newsletters or town hall meetings.
Clear Messaging: Ensure messaging is consistent across all channels to avoid confusion.
Learning and Support
Providing resources that equip employees with the skills needed to navigate changes effectively is vital for reducing resistance:
Skill Development Workshops: Offer training sessions focused on new processes or technologies being implemented.
Mentorship Programs: Pair employees with mentors who have successfully navigated similar changes in the past.
The concept of a Single View of Change holds considerable promise for enhancing stakeholder understanding in dynamic organizational environments. However, its successful implementation hinges on recognizing the diverse needs of stakeholders and tailoring communications accordingly. By leveraging technology and fostering an environment conducive to engagement and support, change practitioners can create a more effective framework for managing organizational change. In summary, while striving for an SVOC may seem aspirational, it is essential for change practitioners to remain pragmatic about its execution—balancing ambition with realism to meet stakeholder needs effectively.
As organizations continue evolving in response to market demands and internal dynamics, understanding how best to communicate change becomes paramount. The Single View of Change offers a powerful toolset; however, it requires thoughtful consideration regarding stakeholder needs, technological integration, and ongoing adaptability in communication strategies. By embracing these principles, organizations not only enhance their capacity for effective change management but also cultivate resilience among their workforce—ultimately positioning themselves for sustained success in an ever-changing landscape.
Measuring change adoption is one of the most important parts of the work of change practitioners. It is the ultimate ‘proof’ of whether the change interventions have been successful or not in achieving the initiative objectives. It is also an important way in which the progress of change management can clearly be shown to the project team as well as to various stakeholder groups. The ability to show clearly the progress of change outcome is critical to focus your stakeholders’ actions on the right areas. It is one of the key ways to ‘prove your worth’ as a change practitioner.
Measurement takes time, focus and effort. It may not be something that is a quick exercise. There needs to be precise data measurement design, a reliable way of collecting data, and data visualisation that is easily understood by stakeholders.
With the right measurements of change adoption, you can influence the direction of the initiative, create impetus amongst senior stakeholders, and steer the organisation toward a common goal to realise the change objectives. Such is the power of measuring change adoption.
The myth of the change management curve
One of the most popular graphs in change management and often referred as the ‘change curve’ is the Kubler-Ross model. The model was specifically designed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross to refer to terminally ill patients as a part of the book ‘On Death and Dying’. For whatever reason, it has somehow gained popularity and application in change management. Therefore, be very careful when using applying this model in a change context.
There is little research evidence to back this up even in psychological research. When applied in change management there is no known research that supports this at all. So be careful when you come across models such as this one that is simple and seem intuitively ‘correct’. On the other hand, there is ample research by McKinsey that for effectively managed initiatives and transformations, stakeholders do not go through this ‘valley of death’ journey at all.
If the ‘change curve’ is not the correct chart to follow with regard to change adoption, then what is the right one to refer to? Good question.
The ‘S’ curve of change adoption is one that can be referenced. It is well backed in terms of research from technology and new product adoption. It begins with a typically slow start followed by a significant climb in adoption followed by a flattened level at the end. Most users typically do not uptake the change until later on.
Here is an example of key technologies and the speed of adoption in U.S. households since the 1900s.
Source: HBR.org
With the different types of change contexts, the shape of the S curve will be expected to differ as a result. For example, you are working on a fairly minor process change where there is not a big leap in going from the current process to the new process. In this case, the curve would be expected to be a lot more gentle since the complexity of the change is significantly less than adopting a complex, new technology.
On the other hand, if you are working on many iterative agile changes, each iteration that impacts users may be a small S curve in themselves. Ideally, each iteration work together towards a greater piece of overarching change.
Going beyond what is typically measured
Most change practitioners are focused on measuring the easier and more obvious measures such as stakeholder perceptions, change readiness, and training completion. Whilst these are of value, they in themselves are only measuring certain aspects of the change. They can be viewed as forward-looking indications of the progress that supports moving toward eventual change adoption, versus the eventual change adoption.
To really address head-on the topic of measuring adoption, it is critical to go beyond these initial measures toward those elements that indicate the actual change in the organisation. Depending on the type of change this could be system usage, behaviour change, following a new process or achieving cost savings targets.
Project Benefit realization
It goes without saying that to really measure change adoption the change practitioner must work closely with the project manager to understand in detail the benefits targeted, and how the prescribed benefits will be measured. The project manager could utilise a range of ways to articulate the benefits of the project. Common benefit categories include:
Business success factors such as financial targets on revenue or cost
Product integration measures such as usage rate
Market objectives such as revenue target, user base, etc.
These categories above are objectives that are easier to measure and tangible to quantify. However, there could also be less tangible targets such as:
Competitive positioning
Employee relations
Employee experience
Product or solution leadership
Employee capability
Customer experience
There could be various economic methods of determining the targeted benefit objectives. These include payback time or the length of time from project initiation until the cumulative cash flow becomes positive, or net present value, or internal rate of return.
The critical aspect for change practitioners is to understand what the benefit objectives are, how benefit tracking will be measured and to interpret what steps are required to get there. These steps include any change management steps required to get from the current state to the future state.
Here is an example of a mapping of change management steps required in different benefit targets:
Project benefits targeted
Likely change management steps required
Change management measures
Increased customer satisfaction and improved productivity through implementing a new system.
Users able to operate the new system. Users able to improve customer conversations leveraging new system features. Users proactively use the new system features to drive improved customer conversations. Managers coaching and provide feedback to usersBenefit tracking and communications. Customer communication about improved system and processes Decreased customer call waiting time .
% of users passed training test. System feature usage rate. Customer issue resolution time. User feedback on manager coaching. Monthly benefit tracking shared and discussed in team meetings. Customer satisfaction rate. Customer call volume handling capacity.
Measuring behavioural change
For most change initiatives, there is an element of behaviour change, especially for more complex changes. Whether the change involves a system implementation, changing a process or launching a new product, behaviour change is involved. In a system implementation context, the behaviour may be different ways of operating the system in performing their roles. For a process change, there may be different operating steps which need to take place that defers from the previous steps. The focus on behaviour change aims to zoom in on core behaviours that need to change to lead to the initiative outcome being achieved.
How do we identify these behaviours in a meaningful way so that they can be identified, described, modelled, and measured?
The following are tips for identifying the right behaviours to measure:
Behaviours should be observable. They are not thoughts or attitudes, so behaviours need to be observable by others
Aim to target the right level of behaviour. Behaviours should not be so minute that they are too tedious to measure, e.g. click a button in a system. They also should not be so broad that it is hard to measure them overall, e.g. proactively understand customer concerns vs. what is more tangible such as asked questions about customer needs in XXX areas during customer interactions.
Behaviours are usually exhibited after some kind of ‘trigger’, for example, when the customer agent hear certain words such as ‘not happy’ or ‘would like to report’ from the customer that they may need to treat this as a customer complaint by following the new customer complaint process. Identifying these triggers will help you measure those behaviours.
Achieve a balance by not measuring too many behaviours since this will create additional work for the project team. However, ensure a sufficient number of behaviours are measured to assess benefit realisation
Measuring micro-behaviours
Behaviour change can seem over-encompassing and elusive. However, it may not need to be this. Rather than focusing on a wide set of behaviours that may take a significant period of time to sift, focusing on ‘micro-behaviours’ can be more practical and measurable. Micro-behaviours are simply small observable behaviours that are small step-stone behaviours vs a cluster of behaviours.
For example, a typical behaviour change for customer service reps may be to improve customer experience or to establish customer rapport. However, breaking these broad behaviours down into small specific behaviours may be much easier to target and achieve results.
For example, micro-behaviours to improve customer rapport may include:
User the customer’s name, “Is it OK if I call you Michelle?”
Build initial rapport, “How has your day been?”
Reflect on the customer’s feeling, “I’m hearing that it must have been frustrating”
Agree on next steps, “would it help if I escalate this issue for you?”
Each of these micro-behaviours may be measured using call-listening ratings and may either be a yes/no or a rating based assessment.
After having designed the right measurement to measure your change adoption, the next step would be to design the right reporting process. Key considerations in planning and executing on the reporting process includes:
Ease of reporting, you should aim to automate where possible to reduce the overhead burden and manual work involved. Whenever feasible leverage automation tools to move fast and not be bogged down by tedious work
Build expectations on contribution to measurement. Rally your stakeholder support so that it is clear the data contribution required to measure and track change adoption
Design eye-catching and easy to understand dashboard of change adoption metrics.
Design reinforcing mechanisms. If your measurement requires people’s input, ensure you design the right reinforcing mechanisms to ensure you get the data you are seeking for. Human nature is so that whenever possible, people would err on the side of not contributing to a survey unless there are explicit consequences of not filling out the survey.
Recipients of change adoption measurement. Think about the distribution list of those who should receive the measurement tracking. This includes not just those who are in charge of realising the benefits (i.e. business leaders), but also those who contribute to the adoption process, e.g. middle or first-line managers.
Example of change adoption dashboard from Change Automator
Measuring Adoption Across Initiatives
You may be driving multiple initiatives as a part of a large program or a portfolio of initiatives. The key challenge here is to establish common adoption measures that are apple-to-apple metrics comparisons across initiatives. Yes, each initiatives will most likely have different sets of what constitutes adoption. However, there are still common ways to report on adoption across initiatives such as overall percentage of adoption of identified adoption elements, or percentage of the number of milestones reached. You can also utilise manager reports of behaviours adopted, as well as system records of utilisation of certain features for example.
Understanding change adoption is not only helpful to understand what works for one initiative, it can also be a linchpin to help you scale change adoption across change initiatives across your whole portfolio. Talk to us to find out more about how The Change Compass can help you understand what change interventions leads to higher change adoption rates, through data. Using a data-led approach in deciphering what drives change adoption can truly drive successful change outcomes.
Feeling a bit lost and would like to have a chat about how to measure adoption by utilising digital solutions? Contact us here.
As a change management practitioner, your mission is to guide organisations through change, building their ability to manage transitions effectively and sustainably. A major part of this work often involves helping organisations develop their “change maturity” — the capacity to continuously and successfully deliver change. Many experienced change practitioners focus on moving organisations along this maturity curve, seeing it as a vital part of creating a culture that embraces and sustains transformation.
However, in this pursuit, there’s a potential risk: becoming too fixated on achieving “change maturity” can cloud your judgment about what the organisation really needs. You may find yourself caught up in the desire to build structured change processes, educate stakeholders on every change theory, or create complex frameworks to assess and elevate change capability. While these elements are important, an over-reliance on them can impede progress. In some cases, your organisation might be more capable of managing change than you think, but your approach could be holding them back.
There are several common areas where change practitioners may become too focused on change maturity — and how this focus can actually hinder their ability to support successful, meaningful change. We’ll delve into how overemphasising change terminology, processes, structures, and risk-averse approaches can become obstacles to progress. By understanding and addressing these potential pitfalls, you can better align your support with the unique needs and readiness of your organisation, enabling a smoother, more effective path to support successful change.
Are You Too Quick to Label Your Organisation as Change Immature?
One of the first traps experienced change practitioners might fall into is quickly labeling their organisation as “change immature.” It’s tempting to assess an organisation’s change capability through the lens of formal change frameworks and models, but by doing so, you may be discounting their informal ability to adapt to change.
In other words, is your ‘label’ placed on the organisation a potential self-fulfilling prophecy? For example, if you see the organisation as mildly change mature, your approach and lens may all be geared around this label and expectation.
Organisations that have not formally defined their change management processes or have not made concerted efforts to assess their change maturity might seem “immature” on the surface. But that doesn’t mean they lack the inherent capacity to change. In many cases, businesses have evolved and navigated transitions without formal change models in place, relying on their leadership, adaptability, and problem-solving capabilities.
Example: Mislabeling the Organisation’s Maturity
Consider a large, successful organisation with a history of navigating mergers, market shifts, and product innovation. While this company may have never formalised a change management function or assessed its change maturity, its survival and success prove that it has navigated complex changes in the past. You, as the change practitioner, might arrive and see that the business lacks a formal change methodology like Prosci or Kotter, so you label them as immature. As a result, you might start recommending a highly cautious, structured approach to “bring them up to speed.”
However, this label can lead to unnecessary delays. Rather than imposing new structures or over-engineering the process, it could be more effective to build on the organisation’s existing ways of working. The business may already have the right instincts, and simply needs to refine its approach to handle more formalised, larger-scale change efforts.
This cautious approach of assuming immaturity often leads to missed opportunities for progress. It slows down the pace of change and leaves businesses feeling that they are incapable of handling large-scale change without significant external help.
Change Terminology and Concepts: Over-Education vs. Practical Implementation
Another common pitfall is becoming too focused on educating stakeholders about change management concepts and frameworks, rather than focusing on practical implementation. It’s easy for experienced change practitioners to get caught up in explaining the intricacies of change theories, but the reality is that many stakeholders may not need or want this level of detail.
Stakeholders, especially those in senior leadership positions, are often more interested in results than in the underlying change management theories. Spending too much time educating them on ADKAR, Kotter’s 8-step process, or Lewin’s model can divert attention from the critical issue: how to implement the change in their specific organisational context.
Using and coaching your stakeholders on implementing change without change methodology is a skill, but one that can be critical.
Example: Change Concepts vs. Actionable Strategies
Imagine working on a digital transformation project where the leadership team is eager to see results. Instead of diving straight into how the change will be implemented, you spend the first few weeks educating the leaders on the theory behind change management, explaining why each stage of the ADKAR model is important and why a structured approach is necessary. While these concepts are valuable, the leadership team is left feeling overwhelmed by jargon and disconnected from the practicalities of the change they need to deliver.
A more effective approach in this situation might be to focus on practical, actionable strategies that are action-based learning. Instead of over-explaining change concepts, walk stakeholders through the steps they need to take, provide them with tools to manage resistance, and give them clear, real-time metrics on progress. In many cases, stakeholders don’t need an in-depth lesson on change theory—they need guidance on how to lead change within their teams, how to prepare and engage effectively, and how to overcome resistance.
Even if you don’t focus on education, and instead label them as change immature. This in itself can be dangerous and unhelpful. As a result you don’t implement the right approaches to support the change required to achieve their business goals.
While it’s essential to help stakeholders understand the principles behind change, overemphasis on theoretical knowledge can take the focus away from delivering the change itself.
Processes and Structures: Building New or Leveraging Existing?
One of the hallmarks of a maturing change organisation is the establishment of formal structures and processes to support change. Communities of practice, change champion networks, formalised governance bodies, and change management offices all play vital roles in building long-term change capability. However, there’s a risk of becoming too focused on building these structures rather than finding ways to work within the current framework of the organisation.
When faced with the task of improving change capability, many practitioners instinctively begin to build new structures from scratch. However, this can add complexity and create parallel processes that the business may not be equipped to handle. Sometimes, rather than introducing new structures, the better approach is to refine and optimise existing business processes and forums to embed change more naturally.
Example: Building New Structures vs. Leveraging Existing Ones
Consider an organisation that already has strong cross-functional governance in place for operational projects. Instead of introducing a new change champion network, you could work with the existing project governance structures to ensure change management principles are integrated into these meetings. By adapting existing forums to include change discussions, you avoid creating extra layers of complexity and leverage routines that are already familiar to the business.
The challenge is to balance the need for formal change structures with the desire to minimise disruption to current workflows. Often, the most effective approach is to enhance existing structures rather than building entirely new ones. This also helps to prevent the perception that change management is an “additional burden” rather than an integrated part of business operations.
‘Babying’ Your Stakeholders: Are You Doing the Change for Them?
As a change practitioner, it’s natural to want to help stakeholders navigate the complexities of change. But there’s a fine line between supporting your stakeholders and doing the change for them. When you step in to handle every aspect of the change process, you risk undermining your stakeholders’ ability to build their own change capability.
The goal of change management is to empower the business to manage change independently. If you are too involved in managing the change, you can inadvertently create dependency, where stakeholders rely on you to handle resistance, communications, or decision-making. This not only stifles their growth but also prevents the organisation from building a sustainable, internal capacity for change.
Example: Over-Involvement vs. Coaching for Capability Building
Suppose you’re leading a change initiative in a large organisation, and you find yourself handling most of the communications, solving problems that arise, and managing resistance from teams. While you may feel that you’re helping, the reality is that your stakeholders are becoming overly dependent on you to manage the change.
A more effective approach is to take a coaching stance. Rather than doing the change for them, help your stakeholders learn how to anticipate resistance, communicate effectively, and manage change within their teams. Offer guidance and support, but resist the temptation to take over. When you empower stakeholders to lead the change themselves, you help them build the confidence and skills they need to manage future changes more independently.
The key is to recognise when your involvement is crossing the line from support into doing the change for them. The more you can coach and mentor your stakeholders, the more resilient and capable the organisation will become.
Setting the Bar Too Low for Your Organisation
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated something profound about people and organisations: they are capable of changing far more quickly than we might have thought. Practically overnight, organisations adapted to remote working, adopted new technologies, and restructured their operations. This rapid adaptation showed that many organisations have far more resilience and capacity for change than we often give them credit for.
But in the post-pandemic world, are you still setting the bar too low for your organisation? Are you approaching change cautiously because you assume the business is not capable of rapid adaptation? If so, you may be underestimating their ability to handle larger-scale change or more ambitious transformation initiatives.
Example: Underestimating Organisational Capacity
Imagine working with an organisation that wants to implement a large-scale digital transformation. You might assume that because the business has not undertaken such a significant change before, they will need to move cautiously, taking small steps toward change maturity. However, given the right leadership support, clear communication, and resources, the organisation might be able to implement the transformation far more quickly and effectively than anticipated.
The key is to challenge your assumptions about the organisation’s capacity for change. Instead of setting the bar too low and taking overly cautious steps, consider where you can stretch the organisation’s potential. Businesses often have far more adaptability and resilience than we might assume, and by aiming higher, you can help them achieve more ambitious outcomes. Again, COVID was a clear demonstration of what can be possible.
Caution vs. Progress: Finding the Right Balance
One of the biggest challenges for change practitioners is finding the right balance between caution and progress. In many cases, particularly with organisations that are newer to structured change management, a cautious approach may feel like the safest route. But taking overly cautious steps can prevent the organisation from achieving the level of change it needs to succeed.
The other side of the equation is pushing too hard, too fast. While organisations may have a greater capacity for change than we give them credit for, they also need time to adapt and build their change capability. The trick is to strike the right balance between ambitious progress and thoughtful pacing, especially iterative paced learning.
Example: Caution vs. Ambition in Portfolio-Level Change
Consider an organisation that is managing a portfolio of change initiatives. One approach is to take small, incremental steps to build change capability, slowly rolling out new processes and frameworks. While this approach may feel safe, it can prevent the business from keeping up with the volume and pace of change it needs to manage.
A more ambitious approach might involve embedding change management principles directly into business planning, governance, and decision-making. By integrating change management into existing processes, the organisation can manage a high volume of change more effectively without creating new silos or delays. This approach pushes the organisation to operate at a higher level, while still allowing time for adaptation and learning.
Adjusting Your Lens on Change Maturity
While change maturity is an important goal for any organisation, becoming too fixated on achieving it can inadvertently cloud your judgment and therefore negatively impact outcomes. Overemphasising change models, frameworks, and cautious steps can slow down the pace of change and underestimate the organisation’s capacity to evolve. As a change management practitioner, your role is not just to assess change maturity but to empower the organisation to grow and adapt.
By adjusting your lens and focusing on the organisation’s immediate needs and strengths, you can support more effective, sustainable change. This means balancing formal change processes with practical implementation, empowering stakeholders to lead the change themselves, and setting higher expectations for what the organisation can achieve.
The goal is not just to build change maturity, but to help the organisation experience navigating change in a way gives them confidence and meets their business goals.
Managing a set of change initiatives through a portfolio management approach is relatively new for some organizations. This approach is drawn from the portfolio project management approach by dividing a set of initiatives into different groups and by viewing various initiatives in unison. By doing this things then become more manageable from the perspective of planning how to organise the planning and sequencing of these changes.
Portfolio project managers are focused on investment funding, program management, governance, project execution, and resource management. For portfolio change managers, there are similar focus areas such as change program management, change initiative execution, resource management, and quality assurance. However, there are also several marked differences, including a focus on business change governance, business change capability, change leadership, and change tools and methodology.
In practice, there is often a wide range of practices in the service delivery and model of portfolio change management. Some focus purely on supporting project delivery, and in the process fail to uplift business change capability. Others tend to focus on general change capability through training and development and very little on change governance and supporting strategy implementation.
So, what are some of the best practices in change portfolio management? How does the change portfolio management function position itself to be strategic, value-adding, and seen as a driver of business results? Here are 10 best practices.
1. Use hard data.
A lot of change professionals often shy away from data. We prefer to focus on behavior, leadership, mindsets, norms, and culture. Whilst the ‘soft’ things may matter we need to be comfortable in working with data. Peter Drucker’s famous saying goes ‘What gets measured gets done’.
Disciplines with a strong focus on data usually have a strong seat at the business table. For example, Finance, Operations, and Sales. Even Marketing is not just about creative ideas and concepts, but there is a strong focus on cost, revenue forecast, and customer responses. Armed with data that drives business decisions you get a strong seat at the decision-making table.
What types of data should portfolio change managers focus on? The standard change measures include training attendance, stakeholder ratings, and arbitrary business readiness ratings. To really demonstrate value, portfolio change managers need to turn change management into a science and be able to quantify change. Change Impacts is one great example. By quantifying change impacts into discrete units one can start to measure and understand what changes are and how they move over time and across different parts of the business.
2. Link change practices with business outcomes
Continuing from the previous point – armed with quantitative change impact data, the portfolio change manager is able to analyze the data to find any correlations between change impact data and business performance data. This can become a very powerful picture to take to the senior management team – drawing out the impact of changes on business performance.
Based on data from The Change Compass. An organization has been able to draw significant correlations between change impacts and customer satisfaction levels. This has since raised meaningful discussions regarding the approach of implementing changes and how to mitigate any potential negative impacts on the customer experience. It does not necessarily mean minimize on change impacts on the customer. Instead, it challenges the group to think through how to better engage and prepare for the customer to transition through changes. This is a great example of demonstrating the importance of linking change impacts with business outcomes.
3. Focus on building change capability more than just execution
A lot of organizations treat change management as only discrete pieces of work that need to be carried out as a part of a project. With this approach, these organizations have hired mainly contractors with some permanent change managers purely focused on project execution. Whilst this work is absolutely required to successfully land initiatives, these resources come and go and in the end, the organization is often no better off in managing change.
Instead, there needs to be a continual focus on developing business change capability. This may be carried out in different ways. With each project implementation, the change manager may focus on uplifting change management capabilities in the business within its leaders. Effective engagement and learning channels can be established to better aid the deployment of change initiatives. These include self-paced training systems, know-how regarding establishing and measuring various learning interventions, and different types of employee engagement channels, both face-to-face and digital.
As change portfolio managers, a concerted focus on embedding business change capability can ensure that the business becomes more mature at undergoing change. A strategic plan can be developed that includes different ways of targeting capability uplift and change maturity. This requires business sponsorship and focus. It is also a critical part of effective operational management.
4. Design and manage change governance
Establishing effective change governance does not mean complicated multi-level governance with lots of documentation, policies, and procedures and lots of headcounts to manage the processes. Change governance means having the right processes to ensure there is sufficient oversight and visibility on what changes are going to happen and the effectiveness of change delivery.
Different organizations will establish different governance processes to suit the particular cultural and business environment. However, at the most basic level, there should be a regular cadence where managers can see and visualize the changes that are going to happen, and discuss any risks and issues with the picture they are seeing. At the same cadence, there should also be a review of the previous changes and how they’ve been rolled out, with a view to identifying opportunities for improvement.
There should also be different levels of change governance for larger organizations. For a business unit, there should be a change governance focusing on changes within the business unit. There should also be an enterprise-level change governance focused on changes across the organization. At the enterprise level, the discussion will be on strategic initiatives that run across the company. There should also be discussions on any risks and issues with business readiness and the progress of the change.
A standard meeting agenda for change governance would include the following:
Review the previous month’s changes including callouts of highlights, challenges, employee engagement, results, and overall progress
Examining metrics around the amount of change and to what extent the level of changes can be digested by the business appropriately
Identifying potential contentions of concurrent changes within the plan. If concurrent changes are being released into the business, discussions should zoom in on the quantum and nature of change contention, rationale as to why the business may not be able to handle the volume of changes, and implications if the releases were to proceed
Examining the data to ensure that all changes are captured and there is nothing missing. Change data should contain key projects being implemented, BAU changes, and other corporate programs from groups such as IT or HR
Examining the overall upcoming change slate and identify upcoming risks and opportunities. Opportunities may include potential gaps where there is very little change, and where there may be opportunities for initiatives to land
5. Leverage digital tools
Project portfolio managers manage the slate of projects using a structured process of funding, prioritization, analysis, and review based on data. In a similar vein, so should change portfolio managers. The power that change managers have is not around cost or schedule data, it is on change impact and change readiness as discrete data points. The challenge is how to collect, analyze, present, and leverage the power of these data.
The Change Compass is a digital tool that quantifies and packages change impacts into data that can be easily analyzed and presented in a visual format to decision-makers. Initiative owners who own the source of the information update change impact data. Up-to-date change impact data can be accessed at any time with reporting generated automatically. The portfolio change manager can easily dissect, drill down, and cut data to find out the change health of the portfolio:
Is there too much change?
How is our staffing resource impacted by change activities (especially for resource-sensitive areas such as call centres)
What’s the change tolerance level for the business?
How are various stakeholder groups impacted by the changes?
How are initiatives under particular strategic themes impacting the business?
How are customers and their respective experiences impacted by our initiatives?
6. Examine customer impacts
At a portfolio level, it is not sufficient to just focus on internal employee and stakeholder impacts. The change portfolio manager also needs to place focus on how are customers impacted by the planned changes. This drives at the core of the focus of a lot of the organizations on the customer.
One large financial services organization that was focused on customer experiences started analyzing data on customer change impacts across initiatives. Through this, there was a significant realization that the same group of customers was impacted by 6 significant initiatives at the same time. Across each of these initiatives, there was no coordination and the silo approach meant that poor synchronization and coordination could lead to a very poor customer experience. Subsequently, new roles and remits were created to manage this customer experience through facilitating a coordinated approach to planning and implementing initiative rollout.
7. Iterative planning
Iterative planning is a core of agile ways of working. At the core of iterative planning is the belief that we don’t always know the solution that we are striving for at the beginning of the change initiative. It is when we start testing and getting feedback from users that we are able to refine our proposal and be able to come up with a solution that suits the organization.
To truly support agile ways of working, change management needs to be able to develop prototypes of the change approach, and be able to morph or tweak the approach as required based on feedback. For example, a change approach can be tested on a particular team, the change champion group, or a selected trial group. Communication and engagement approaches as well as learning approaches can be tested in these groups.
Want to learn more about managing change portfolios?
If you’re ready to start to manage a portfolio of change initiatives using data and insights, have a chat to us about how to leverage The Change Compass capabilities to help you pinpoint key risks and opportunities in managing across initiatives. To book a demo click here.
