Agile methodology is fast becoming the ‘norm’ when it comes to project methodology. There are strong benefits promised of faster development time, the ability to morph with changing requirements, less time required to implement the solution, and a better ability to meet project objectives through continuous improvement. There aren’t too many organisations that do not use some form of agile project methodology in how they manage initiatives.
What started out as a way of developing software has evolved into the accepted methodology for managing projects. A scan of literature available on the internet shows a significant outline of the various roles, including the product owner and the development team, and their importance to stakeholders, including end users, in the agile project methodology process. Most roles are clearly outlined and accounted for. There are clear roles established for the business owner, the project manager, the scrum master, developers, testing and quality, product manager, architect, human-centred designer, and even IT operations.
However, there is a glaring gap. What about the role of the change manager?
A review of literature available through project management organisations such as APM (Association of Project Management) and PMI (Project Management Institute) showed glaring omission of the role of the change manager or change management practitioners from agile methodology. The same is also true for Scaled Agile Frameworks where there is a brief mention of the importance of change management in the agile approach, but no mention of the role of the change manager/practitioner.
Is it that there are less projects requiring change managers?
The evidence is against this hypothesis. Jobs in change management are plentiful, with data on ‘Indeed’ online employment portals pulling up over 38,000 job postings. On top of this, there is an increasing number of jobs posted. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “management analytics” which includes change management, is projected to have a 14% growth rate between 2018 and 2028. In Australia, the ‘Seek’ employment platform projected change management job growth to be at 15% growth in the next 5 years.
Is it that agile methodology is more for technical projects and therefore the omission of change managers?
The agile approach and agile manifesto can be used for a range of different projects, but not all projects. There is certainly evidence of agile project methodology used by software developers in a wide range of industries from financial services, government, non-profit, pharmaceuticals, utilities, and retail industries. The agile methodology is commonly cited for being better for projects where the outcome is not clearly known and where the end change has a level of uniqueness. There are times, though, when waterfall methodology is more appropriate, depending on the situation.
However, it is not true that agile methodology is only used for more technical projects. Even for projects where the focus is not on technical development, agile approaches are used widely. Agile changes have been used for re-organisation exercises. Here is an example from the Business Agility Institute. Executive teams also use agile means to manage various strategic initiatives that are not technical. Agile approaches are even applied to managing church initiatives.
What is the likely reason for the clear omission of change management in the agile methodology?
Organisations in charge of documenting agile methodology are mainly focused on project management and software development. If we take the examples of PMI and APMG, both are project management associations, and both are focused on the project management perspectives of agile, particularly in complex environments. The portion on organizational change management is a specialism of project management. It could be that these organisations have not sufficiently developed agile change management methodology to integrate with agile project management.
Organisations in charge of documenting agile methodology are mainly focused on project management and software development, and not include the agile change management process. If we take the examples of PMI and APMG, both are project management associations, and both are focused on the project management perspectives of agile. The portion on organizational change management is a specialism of project management. It could be that these organisations have not sufficiently developed agile change management methodology to integrate with agile project management.
Even at Scaled Agile, which is about applying agile across the organisation, the omission of the role of change managers is still the case. Frameworks from Scaled Agile are quite detailed and rigorous. All aspects of the roles of various organisational members, including scrum teams, are clearly outlined. Even the role of IT departments in DevOps are clearly spelled out to support agile. But not the role of change managers. Again, this could be due to those at Scaled Agile not having a change management background, and therefore not being able to articulate the various role detail.
However, there are some very critical roles that change practitioners play not only at project level, but at program, epic, and organisational levels. Without the right change management support the following are key risks when organisations are working at SaFe (scaled agile) level:
Change sequencing to maximise adoption across the change portfolio
Packaging change to achieve optimal change adoption, e.g. in terms of integrating communications and learning interventions across projects
Establishing business unit based change champions that can support multiple projects and can help piece together different changes for impacted employees
There are some attempts at closing the gap to document agile change management approaches as a part of the change management process. However, most are conceptual, high level, and not sufficiently detailed to provide clear guidance and practical application for the change practitioner. On the other hand, the work of change management in agile projects should not only be clear for the change practitioner but also be clear for the project manager and other project members.
What’s the problem of omitting the role of change managers from agile methodologies?
1. The role of change management could easily be omitted. Particularly for less experienced project managers who are starting out in agile. The risk could be that change management is omitted from the project altogether since it is not called out as a clear role
2. Change practitioners and agile practitioners are not clear with the roles they play and therefore are not sufficiently involved in driving and supporting the project in the right way. Since there is not a clear set of guidelines and agile principles methodology for change practitioners, it is common to see varying approaches in how change managers support agile projects within the current business environment, with some still using a similar approach as to supporting traditional change management and waterfall projects which may not be appropriate.
3. Agile projects are not successful because change management work is not sufficiently incorporated into agile processes, particularly in the context of digital transformation. With change management roles not spelt out, the project executes the change without critical change management foundations, and therefore, by embracing agile thinking, it is at the risk of not achieving the adoption, adaptation, and benefit realisation targeted.
What should we do about this?
1. Encourage change management associations such as CMI and ACMP to invest in detailing agile change management methodology in a way that sets standards and guidelines for change management skills practitioners to follow.
2. Influence and work with APMG, PMI and Scaled Agile to include explicitly the role of change managers and agile change management methodology.
Change management is emerging to be a strong discipline that executives are starting to recognise as critical to successful change. The role of change practitioners should be stated explicitly and recognised clearly. Change managers should not have to tip-toe in maneuvering their place in supporting agile change projects, nor should they need to convince other project team members of their place throughout various agile routines and methodology phases. It is now time for the change community to drive this and achieve the recognition that it deserves.
Managing a set of change initiatives through a systematic approach in the project intake process and portfolio management process, often outlined in a table of contents, is relatively new for some organizations. This strategic approach is drawn from the portfolio project management method by dividing a set of initiatives into different teams and viewing various project ideas and initiatives in unison. By doing this, organizations can make more informed decisions, allowing things to become more manageable from the perspective of planning how to organize the strategic objectives and business goals of the planning and sequencing of these changes.
Project portfolio managers are focused on investment funding, program management, governance, project execution, project selection, and resource allocation, including selecting the best individual projects related to the best projects and those related projects endeavors. 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 provide valuable insights, 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 strategic portfolio management that align with strategic organizational goals and change portfolio management by coordinating with individual project managers in achieving a strategic portfolio of projects that support strategic goals and overall business strategy? 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 to inform investment decisions effectively. 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 as a part of risk management. 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
Change portfolio managers manage the slate of projects using a structured process of funding, prioritization, analysis, and review based on data, ensuring strategic alignment with business objectives and maximizing business value. In a similar vein, so should change portfolio managers, particularly when considering insights from project proposals and a project management office. 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, including the crucial role of the contributions of team members. The challenge is how to collect, analyze, present, and leverage the power of these data.
The Change Compass is a change portfolio management software that quantifies and packages change impacts into data that can be easily analyzed and presented in various visual formats to decision-makers in real time, as a part of effective portfolio management. Visuals are specifically designed to make people change decisions, and are not just simple headlamps or Gantt charts. Initiative owners who own the source of the information update change impact data. Up-to-date change impact project 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 management team 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.
Enterprise change management reporting is changing. In today’s dynamic business environment, it no longer consists of general updates on organisational change management efforts, change leaders, streams of project progress, or updates on various change capability training session volumes and satisfaction rates. Executives are demanding more value from enterprise change functions that incorporate change management practices and digital transformation, leveraging new tools. The pace of change since Covid has not slowed down. For many, it has increased in pace and volume. To gain better insight into how the change management function is supporting the success of organisations, reports and dashboards have often become a visible linchpin of what value enterprise change management delivers.
What is enterprise change management and why is it important?
Enterprise change management refers to the structured approach organizations use to manage the people side of change in organizational change management, including the types of organizational change in processes, systems, and personnel across an entire organization, while integrating risk management principles. It’s crucial for minimizing disruption, ensuring smooth transitions, and enhancing employee engagement. Effective change management fosters resilience, boosts productivity, and aligns teams with organizational goals for sustained success.
What is enterprise change management and why is it important?
Enterprise change management refers to the structured approach organizations use to manage changes in processes, technologies, and organizational structures, including various type of change efforts that relate to the levels of change management. It’s crucial for minimizing resistance and ensuring smooth transitions. Effective change management enhances employee engagement, drives project success, and fosters a culture of adaptability within the organization.
Having the right content and format for your enterprise reports can make or break your reputation in the realm of information technology. Do it right and you could start a ripple of high-impact and strategic conversations across senior stakeholders that drive focus on improving change. You can be in the spotlight in influencing change leadership and the achievement of change and transformation goals. Do it wrong and you may never have another opportunity to have the room to talk about change management to senior leaders. You may be associated with not providing much value and too ‘operational’.
At its core, enterprise change management reporting goes beyond merely tracking progress. It encompasses a holistic approach that considers various factors crucial to the success of organizational initiatives. While monitoring progress, readiness, and the amount of work done may be interesting components, true impact comes from focusing on impacts, adoption and predictors for benefit realization.
Executives and stakeholders are not just interested in receiving progress updates; they seek insights into the likelihood of initiative success and the potential risks that may impede desired outcomes. These risks extend beyond project timelines and budget constraints to encompass broader business implications such as performance impacts, capacity constraints, prioritization effectiveness, and the sustainability of behavioural change.
Impacts of change:
Quantifying and visualising impacts are not new to change practitioners. The key is how the data is presented over time. A lot of change practitioners would settle with a standard heatmap based on personal ratings. This does not deliver much value as the data cannot be easily substantiated by evidence (since it is more of a finger in the air estimation). Standard heatmaps also are too high level and does not really support key decision making.
Decision making requires specific data points such as:
Change saturation or change tolerance levels (these levels need to be substantiated based on business indicator reference to justify the levels, and not be someone’s personal opinion)
What division, team, role and which week the saturation points are forecasted
Corresponding data on what initiatives, and their respective impact activities that contribute to the saturation risk, and therefore proposed options
A key part of representing change impacts should not just be at an operational level, which is more concerned about capacity and bandwidth. Impact should also be tied to strategic levers, portfolio types, benefit types and readiness.
Predictive Indicators for Success:
To create impactful change management reports, organizations must incorporate predictive indicators that go beyond change volume and risk assessment. These indicators should provide insights into business performance, strategy achievement, and the realization of intended benefits.
These are some of the ways you can incorporate predictive indicators:
Forecast lines. With sufficient data you can forecast such as impact or capacity levels (which may be seasonal), or even readiness levels across the initiative lifecycle historically across initiatives.
The types of factors that can be included as predictive indicators can include readiness. It could be that readiness levels only get lifted just before go live or at go live. Adoption levels can also be forecasted if you have trend data across initiatives
Change tolerance levels across different parts of the business can also be seen as a predictive way of forecasting how much capacity there is for change beyond which saturation may be a key risk
Adoption and Behaviour Tracking:
Central to successful change management is the adoption and sustained implementation of new processes or technologies. Tracking adoption rates, user engagement, and behavioural changes are crucial indicators of initiative success. However, it’s essential to strike a balance between capturing relevant metrics and overwhelming stakeholders with unnecessary data.
Capturing behaviour change data can be key for larger initiatives or transformations. Behavioural change can be central in a range of changes such as customer centricity, efficiency, team collaboration or effectiveness. Measuring key behaviour changes that drive the initiative outcome the most is critical. For example, having effective conversations with customers to improve customer experience is a behaviour that can be rated, tracked and reported. Depending on the change, there may also be system features that can aid the tracking of these behaviours.
Effective change management goes hand in hand with strategic alignment, strategic goals, and necessary resources for strategic objectives. Reports should assess how initiatives contribute to overarching business objectives and whether they align with the rest of the organization’s strategic direction in the first place. Business leaders can utilize metrics related to revenue growth, cost savings, customer satisfaction, and employee productivity to provide valuable insights into the impact of change initiatives on business performance.
You can also link your change impacts to each strategic lever. In this way you can visually show the size of the impact per strategic lever. This will give your executives a way to examine whether the right level of impacts in the right areas of business are planned as a part of the course of each strategic lever.
The other angle is to visually show the pace of change against the strategic levers. Are certain key initiatives being driven at the right pace at the right time? Will the velocity of change exceed the ability of the business to absorb the changes? Or is the velocity not sufficiently meeting leadership expectations?
Benefit Realization:
Ultimately, the success of change initiatives is measured by their ability to deliver tangible benefits and assess the impact of the change. Change management reports should include key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics that track the progress of change initiatives and the realization of expected benefits, whether they are financial gains, process efficiencies, or competitive advantages. By monitoring benefit realization, organizations can course-correct as needed and ensure that investments in change deliver the intended outcomes.
A key responsibility for change is to focus on those foreward looking measures that predict eventual benefit realisation, including readiness, adoption, engagement and behaviour change. Be sure to link these specifically to high benefit initiatives to provide strategic oversight.
Balancing Complexity and Clarity:
While incorporating a diverse range of metrics is essential for comprehensive reporting, it’s equally important to maintain clarity and focus. Reports should be structured in a way that highlights key insights and trends without overwhelming stakeholders with excessive detail. Visualizations such as charts, graphs, and dashboards can help distill complex data into actionable insights, facilitating informed decision-making at all levels of the organization.
All aspects of chart and dashboard designs are critical. These range from colour scheme chosen, number of charts, commentary, titles, legends, sequencing of charts, and type of charts chosen all act to either contribute to simplicity and clarity or complexity and confusion. Your narrative as you talk through the charts also plays a key role in building the story-line, and simplifying the key messages and actions you would like to impart to the audience.
Charts and dashboards tell a story and in presenting them you should always incorporate any actions required from the audience. If this is not done then it will always remain a FYI. FYI content will be deemed lower in the value curve over time and your stakeholders will lose interest. Instead, you should work on crafting a continual story that ebbs and flows. The following are key questions you should be asking when crafting you ongoing charts and dashboards:
Is there an emerging risk or opportunity that warrants specific focus for this month?
How are we tracking the effectiveness of stakeholder actions through data? This feedback loop is critical and gives your stakeholders a reference point for their own effectiveness
Is your data-based story uni-dimensional? Are there other dimensions beyond what you have been presenting that stakeholder should be aware of?
Are you giving stakeholders what they are most interested in? Whether it be strategic success progress, or benefit realisation?
Are you presenting change data in a holistic way in terms of how the business is run? Vs. just focused on standard change management function-specific metrics such as training sessions, or number of workshops completed?
Enterprise change management reporting is a critical tool for navigating the complexities of organizational change. By focusing on predictive indicators, including adoption and behavior tracking, business performance alignment, and benefit realization, organizations can unlock the full potential of their change management initiatives. However, achieving impactful reporting requires a careful balance between complexity and clarity, ensuring that stakeholders receive actionable insights without being inundated with unnecessary information. Ultimately, by harnessing the power of enterprise change management reporting, organizations can drive successful outcomes and thrive in an ever-evolving business landscape.
To find out more about enterprise change management reporting leveraging digital automation and analytics chat to us here.
Change readiness is one of the most critical, yet often misunderstood, concepts in organizational change management. For many practitioners, it’s been reduced to a series of surveys or assessments — a simple gauge of how “ready” stakeholders feel. But this oversimplification often leads to missed risks, unforeseen barriers, and ultimately, failed initiatives.
What is a change readiness assessment and why is it important?
A change readiness assessment evaluates an organization’s preparedness for implementing changes, including aspects of organizational culture. It identifies potential obstacles, gauges employee attitudes, and measures overall alignment with new initiatives. This assessment is crucial as it helps leaders strategize effectively, ensuring smoother transitions and higher acceptance rates among employees during the change process.
True readiness requires more than checking a box on perceptions; it’s about strategically evaluating whether the organisation, at every level, is equipped to embrace, execute, and sustain the change. Let’s explore what it takes to reimagine change readiness as a multi-dimensional, evidence-based approach that ties people, processes, and technology into a cohesive readiness framework.
The Myth of the Readiness Survey
Surveys are not inherently bad tools, but they have their limits. Let’s start by looking at why they’ve become synonymous with readiness assessments and the pitfalls they often present.
Why Surveys Dominate
Surveys are appealing because they are quick, scalable, and easy to analyse. A single survey can provide insights into stakeholder sentiment across a large audience, giving change managers a sense of where resistance might lie.
The problem is that surveys capture perceptions, not reality. Stakeholders might report high awareness of a change but lack the detailed understanding required to implement it effectively. Most survey ask if a stakeholder is aware of certain aspects about the project. However, it doesn’t go into the depth in which the level of awareness is what is expected at that phase of the project (to do this a ‘test’ may be required). Similarly, they might feel optimistic about a change initiative but underestimate the challenges involved.
Example of Survey Pitfalls
Consider a large retail chain rolling out a new inventory management system. A readiness survey revealed that 85% of employees were aware of the change, and 75% felt confident they could adapt. However, post-implementation data told a different story:
Less than 50% of employees were actually using the new system correctly.
Misaligned processes between stores caused delays in inventory updates.
Leadership was disengaged, leading to inconsistent enforcement of new practices.
This misalignment occurred because the survey captured what employees thought, not what they could actually do. This just shows knowing may not equate to doing. Being aware, and understanding something does not necessarily translate into behaviour change.
Change readiness is not a one-dimensional measure of sentiment or awareness; it is the alignment of key elements—people, processes, technology, and leadership—toward the successful delivery of a change initiative.
Depending on the initiative the dimensions may also be different since different initiatives may require more or less of the various elements to be successful. For example, if there is a strong behavioural compliance element to the change, then tracking the change readiness process from understanding the why, strong leadership reinforcement, and operational reporting process setup may all critical elements of readiness.
Key Dimensions of Readiness
Leadership ReadinessAre leaders aligned on the vision and goals of the change? Are there different levels of readiness of different leadership levels?
Do they have the skills to lead their teams through uncertainty? What parts of the leadership skills are lacking? Coaching? Communication?
Are they modelling the behaviours required for change adoption?
Employee Capacity and CapabilityDo employees have the skills to adopt new processes or tools?
Can the organisation absorb the change given competing priorities and the context of change efforts? What does the change landscape look like? What about the operational capacity constraints?
Process ReadinessAre operational processes aligned with the new ways of working? Are new processes required being worked on so that the change may be sustained as business-as-usual after Go-Live? Are accountabilities clear for the new or changed processes?
Are dependencies between departments or systems resolved?
Technological ReadinessAre systems and tools tested and reliable?
Are integrations with existing technology functioning as expected?
Sponsorship and GovernanceAre sponsors actively engaged, providing oversight, and removing roadblocks? Or does the sponsor delegate all tasks and not really visible?
Is there a governance structure to monitor progress and address risks? For example, if risks need to be addressed would that decision be made or would the project just continue along?
Cultural/Behavioural ReadinessIs the organisational culture supportive of innovation and adaptability? In a lot of cases the organisation may not be ready, but the assessment needs to be on to what the extent the departments impacted have the capacity to change and adapt. This of course also depends on the quantum of the change.
Are there underlying resistance patterns that need addressing? If so, are they valid feedback regarding how previous changes were planned and executed, or is the negative behaviour inherent in the culture?
Are leaders aligned on the vision and goals of the change? Are there different levels of readiness of different leadership levels?
Do they have the skills to lead their teams through uncertainty? What parts of the leadership skills are lacking? Coaching? Communication?
Are they modelling the behaviours required for change adoption?
Do employees have the skills to adopt new processes or tools?
Can the organisation absorb the change given competing priorities? What does the change landscape look like? What about the operational capacity constraints?
Are operational processes aligned with the new ways of working? Are new processes required being worked on so that the change may be sustained as business-as-usual after Go-Live? Are accountabilities clear for the new or changed processes?
Are dependencies between departments or systems resolved?
Are systems and tools tested and reliable?
Are integrations with existing technology functioning as expected?
Are sponsors actively engaged, providing oversight, and removing roadblocks? Or does the sponsor delegate all tasks and not really visible?
Is there a governance structure to monitor progress and address risks? For example, if risks need to be addressed would that decision be made or would the project just continue along?
Is the organisational culture supportive of innovation and adaptability? In a lot of cases the organisation may not be ready, but the assessment needs to be on to what the extent the departments impacted have the capacity to change and adapt. This of course also depends on the quantum of the change.
Are there underlying resistance patterns that need addressing? If so, are they valid feedback regarding how previous changes were planned and executed, or is the negative behaviour inherent in the culture?
Example of a Strategic Approach
A financial services firm implementing a new risk management framework took a holistic approach to readiness. Instead of relying solely on stakeholder feedback, they:
Conducted leadership alignment workshops to ensure consistency in messaging.
Assessed employee capacity through workload analysis, adjusting timelines to reduce burnout risk. Given the significant focus on risk with multiple initiative items all targeting risk, managing capacity and prioritisation is important.
Simulated new risk-reporting processes to identify and address bottlenecks.
Used tools to analyse training completion rates and correlate them with system usage data.
This approach ensured readiness across all dimensions, reducing post-implementation issues.
Who Determines Readiness? Not Just Stakeholders
Stakeholders play an important role in assessing readiness, but they are not the sole authority. Their feedback is valuable, but it must be balanced with input from project teams, leadership, and objective data sources.
You can take the doctor-patient analogy here. The patient may tell you they are feeling well, however the trained physician may see symptoms that things may not be what they seem. Of course, the patient will need to understand why things may not be as they appear and want the treatment for it to go ahead. However, the physician has the accountability to form a diagnosis and subscribe the treatment. A trained change practitioner is no different and needs to cast a lens taking into account a range of evidence to form an assessment.
Mapping the Required vs. Observed Levels of Readiness
To truly determine readiness, it’s essential to compare the required level of readiness at each phase of a project with the observed level.
Define Required ReadinessWhat specific outcomes must be achieved at this stage? E.g. Awareness level, discussions and briefings about the change at impacted business units, town hall sessions, coaching sessions, etc.
What capabilities, processes, and systems need to be in place?
Assess Observed ReadinessUse surveys, interviews, and observations to gather qualitative data.
Analyse quantitative data from project reports, metrics, and tools.
Identify Gaps and RisksWhere do observed levels fall short of required levels?
What are the risks of proceeding with these gaps?
Develop a Mitigation PlanCollaborate with stakeholders to address critical gaps.
Adjust timelines, allocate resources, gain more leadership presence or provide additional training, refreshers as needed.
What specific outcomes must be achieved at this stage? E.g. Awareness level, discussions and briefings about the change at impacted business units, town hall sessions, coaching sessions, etc.
What capabilities, processes, and systems need to be in place?
Use surveys, interviews, and observations to gather qualitative data.
Analyse quantitative data from project reports, metrics, and tools.
Where do observed levels fall short of required levels?
What are the risks of proceeding with these gaps?
Collaborate with stakeholders to address critical gaps.
Adjust timelines, allocate resources, gain more leadership presence or provide additional training, refreshers as needed.
Example
In a healthcare organisation transitioning to electronic medical records (EMR), required readiness included:
Leadership capable of driving adoption across departments.
Staff proficient in using the new system.
IT support ready to address technical issues.
Observed readiness showed gaps in staff proficiency and IT capacity. The organisation postponed the rollout to provide targeted training and hire additional contract IT staff, avoiding potential disruptions to patient care.
What to Do With Readiness Outcomes
A readiness assessment is only as valuable as the actions it informs. Once gaps are identified, they must drive decisions and interventions to keep the initiative on track.
Turning Insights Into Action
Engage Stakeholders in Decision-Making
Share readiness findings with key stakeholders, including project teams, sponsors, and impacted groups. Align on priorities for closing gaps.
Tailor Interventions to Critical Needs
Focus efforts on the most significant gaps that could derail the initiative. This is a key point since there may be a long list of desirable elements that should be there but are not. Most projects have limited time and resources so you should always focus on the most critical gaps that need addressing.
Monitor Progress Continuously
Readiness is not static. Reassess periodically to ensure interventions are effective. In this way you can also track the ongoing shifts in readiness, hopefully demonstrating that the readiness is increasing closer to the Go-Live.
A manufacturing company preparing to launch a new product line used readiness outcomes to guide their actions:
Leadership Readiness Gap: Conducted intensive coaching sessions with plant managers to align messaging and prepare for likely employee questions and responses.
Process Gap: Piloted the production process in a single plant to refine workflows prior to broader roll out.
Technological Gap: Added two weeks to testing cycles to address system bugs.
These targeted interventions ensured a smoother launch with minimal disruption.
Evidence-Based Readiness: A Balanced Approach
Stakeholder perceptions are important, but they must be balanced with objective evidence. An evidence-based approach combines multiple data sources to provide a more accurate and actionable view of readiness. Prior to Covid, it would be typical to ‘walk the floor’ to get a sense what is happening and actual sentiments on the floor for employees. With a virtual workforce, there are digital means to gage engagement and sentiments.
Key Sources of Evidence
Surveys and InterviewsCapture stakeholder sentiments, concerns, and insights.
Use open-ended questions to uncover nuanced perspectives.
ObservationMonitor real-world behaviours, such as system usage or meeting participation.
Identify gaps between what people say and what they do.
Metrics and ReportsAnalyse training completion rates, system performance, and project milestones. Other metrics may also include operational indicators and reporting.
Leverage digital tools to uncover trends and correlations.
Digital ToolsLeverage corporate social channels such as Yammer to gain overall understanding of potential sentiments and engagement levels.
Project website pages may also be created, with viewership tracked to assess if viewership levels are as anticipated
Use digital survey tools to manage and analyse data
Capture stakeholder sentiments, concerns, and insights.
Use open-ended questions to uncover nuanced perspectives.
Monitor real-world behaviours, such as system usage or meeting participation.
Identify gaps between what people say and what they do.
Analyse training completion rates, system performance, and project milestones. Other metrics may also include operational indicators and reporting.
Leverage digital tools to uncover trends and correlations.
Leverage corporate social channels such as Yammer to gain overall understanding of potential sentiments and engagement levels.
Project website pages may also be created, with viewership tracked to assess if viewership levels are as anticipated
Use digital survey tools to manage and analyse data
Application of Evidence-Based Readiness
A global telecom company implementing an AI-driven customer support platform combined data sources to assess readiness:
Surveys revealed high awareness but low confidence in AI capabilities.
Metrics showed that only 40% of staff had completed required training.
Observations identified resistance among middle managers who feared job displacement.
Using this evidence, the company developed a tailored plan to address resistance, enhance training, and engage leaders as champions of the change.
Overcoming Methodology Constraints
Many change practitioners fall into the trap of rigidly following methodologies, even when they don’t fit the context. While frameworks provide valuable structure, they must be adapted to the unique needs of each initiative.
Guiding Principles for Flexibility
Start with the End in Mind
Focus on the outcomes you need to achieve, not the steps prescribed by a methodology.
Adapt to Organisational Context
Tailor your approach to fit the size, complexity, and culture of the organisation.
Leverage Technology
Use digital tools to enhance traditional methodologies with real-time data and insights.
Example: Adapting Methodologies
A technology company scaling its agile transformation initially followed a rigid methodology that required readiness surveys every six weeks. When resistance from regional teams emerged, the change team shifted to weekly check-ins and introduced agile workshops tailored to each team’s needs.
The Future of Change Readiness
As change initiatives become more complex, traditional readiness assessments will no longer suffice. The future lies in leveraging new technologies, data, and continuous improvement to create a dynamic, real-time view of readiness.
Emerging Trends
Real-Time Dashboards
Track readiness across dimensions in real time, using digital tools to visualize progress. This is especially valuable when the change is complex and helps establish a baseline for future evaluations.
AI-Driven Insights
Use AI to analyse large datasets, uncover patterns, and predict risks. Tools such as Change Automator can help to link different data sources from different systems, run your change readiness surveys, so that you get an integrated holistic lens across the evidence. AI-generated insights can help you uncover trends in the data, especially critical when you have a complex change program with different data sets. You can then easily create and share live dashboards with your stakeholders.
Continuous Assessments
Move from one-time assessments to iterative readiness evaluations throughout the project lifecycle. As you learn more about readiness of your stakeholders, there may be areas that you would want to probe further into subsequently.
Change readiness is not a survey, an assessment, or a methodology step. It’s a strategic, evidence-based process that ensures organisations are truly prepared for change at every level. Especially with complex change, readiness levels may evolve throughout the journey. With each evolution, particular interventions may be required depending on what the evidence is telling us.
By adopting a holistic approach, engaging stakeholders, and leveraging data, change practitioners can move beyond perceptions and drive meaningful, sustainable transformation that will successfully achieve targets.
To read more about using change data to maximise results check out our articles:
Digitisation, competition and changing industry conditions have amongst other things brought on an accelerated change agenda for a lot of organisations. What were previously thought to be 1 to 5 year horizons of change suddenly became an immediate change. Not only is working from home a norm for a lot of organisations but the struggle for enterprises to survive and stay relevant in the new norm means more changes. The normal equilibrium for a lot of these organisations is one that consumes a smaller number of changes at any one time. Suddenly, with the increased number of changes this leads to change saturation.
In change management, think of change saturation as a cup that fills up. The size of the cup is the change capacity. With limited capacity, there is only so much volume that is inherent. As the amount of change or the pace of change increases and the cup overflows the changes don’t stick and simply fall by the waist side and may result in change fatigue. This is when the negative impact of changes can occur.
What impacts an organisation’s change capacity?
1.Change leadership
Leaders can have significant influence on the organisation. Also, change leadership is a significant part of how change is managed and delivered. Effective change leadership can build on the capability of teams to be more agile and capable of absorbing more changes. Effective change leadership can also help to maximise how optimal the change is socialised and implemented, and therefore how it lands.
2. Change capability
The organisation’s change capability is one of the most important factors in determining their change capacity. Think of agile startup organisations that are constantly pivoting, introducing new operating models, products and services. This is part of their cultural norm. Other organisations that maybe less agile can also develop some of these capabilities through experience and development.
3. Nature of change
Not all types of changes are the same. Typically, a lot of the changes driven by senior leaders are about improving the bottom line or top line, improving customer experience or improving efficiency. Some are more complex changes requiring significant change journeys. Others may even be inherently ‘negatively perceived’ such as organisational restructuring and layoffs. However, there are also changes that are inherently seen as benefiting the work of employees (such as process improvement leading to less red tape).
4. Number of changes
The number of changes also impact the change capacity. Obviously more changes mean more capacity consumed, within an extent.
5. Impact of each change
The impact level of each change is also critical. Some initiatives have significant impact that requires a long period of time to embed the changes, e.g. culture change and complex system and process changes. On the other hand, simple process changes may not require much capacity and simple communication is all that is needed.
6. Overall change landscape
The overall change landscape of the organisation also affects perception and therefore in some ways the capacity for change. If competitors within the industry are all undergoing significant transformations then it sets the tone for what’s to come. In the same way, if all our friends are used to virtual ways of working then we become more open to it.
What’s the benefits of measuring change saturation?
Measuring change saturation can be significantly beneficial for the organisation. Understanding the tipping point means that PMO and change teams can work to avoid this from a planning perspective. Finding out during or after the releases that there is too much change saturation is an expensive exercise that diminishes the planned initiative benefits. It also leads to loss of productivity and operational disruptions. Moreover, employees lose faith in the ability of the organisation to manage change.
With greater clarity of the change saturation points organisations can work to monitor, track and manage the risk of over saturation. Measures can then be put in place to ensure minimal business disruption and protection of initiative benefits. This should be a key focus for risk in change.
How to measure change saturation?
Firstly, there is not one change saturation point for the whole organisation. Each department or even team may have different change saturation points. This is because they have different leaders, different cultural norms and different change capabilities.
So how do we measure the change saturation at a department or division level? Look historically at how changes have been received, starting with the past few months.
1. Monitor operational indicators
Depending on what the department is in charge of, understanding the change saturation point means closely monitoring the operational indicators. During change saturation operational indicators are usually also negatively impacted, depending on the nature of the changes.
For a call centre this could be average handling time, customer satisfaction rate, absenteeism, etc. For a back office department it could be efficiency or effectiveness measures, case completion rate, case quality rating, etc. You don’t need to be the expert in all the various operational measures of each department as you can tap on the operations representatives of these departments.
2. Get feedback from leaders
Interview or conduct surveys with departmental leaders to understand their perception of how changes have been implemented and any potential disruptions on the business. Understand how their teams have experienced change. Ask them whether it has been challenging to balance operational needs with change-induced activities. For example, were there challenges in employees attending initiative training sessions, and completing their role delivery obligations?
3. Be aware of potential biases
Be careful of opinions and feedback from leaders and employees. There may be a tendency to over-state and complain that there is constantly too much change. This happens because some over-state the risk of change saturation hoping that this may lead to less change and therefore easier to manage the operations of a business. Take care to avoid this bias.
4. Identify points of change saturation
If the department has undergone periods with multiple change initiatives that has resulted in negative impact on operational indicators and leaders have also provided feedback of similar change disruptions then measure this level of change. Record this specifically.
This requires a portfolio-level view of all the changes that have occurred and the various impacts of each initiative. With this change portfolio measurement you are able to then identify this level as perhaps just exceeding the change saturation point for that department. With this identified you can then plot this change saturation line. You should also closely monitor this level and adjust as needed.
Using The Change Compass change impact can be expressed in terms of hours of impact per week. The change saturation line can the plotted against the change impact levels. From this, you’re able to easily visualise to what extent there could be risk in exceeding the change saturation line.
It is important to note that measuring change impacts and therefore change saturation should ideally be at a weekly level. Measuring change impact at a monthly level may not be sufficiently detailed enough since there could be changes in impact levels within each month. For example, for Finance the quarter-end consolidation cycle could start mid-month and therefore the change impact indication may show up as less than it actually should be simply because the data is rolled-up by month.
Deriving a monthly dashboard in which to inform not just the change volume, but types of changes, risks, and impacted areas will do wonders to provide clear visibility for the business to get ready for and to track changes.
Other disciplines such as HR, Marketing or Operations rely on data to make critical business decisions. The Change function and change leaders should also follow best practices. Being armed with the right change impact data means that you can help the business to precisely pin-point change saturation points. This can provide tremendous value to the business in terms of business, initiative and risk protection.
If you’re keen to chat more about how you are managing change saturation and to find out more about our solutions feel free to contact us here to organise a chat.
