Change management professionals often struggle with proving the worth of their services and why they are needed. There are certainly plenty of reasons why change management professionals are required and most experienced project managers and senior leaders would acknowledge this. However, for the less mature organisations that may not have had effective change management experts leading initiatives, the rationale on the additional value of change management may be less clear.
When we look across different project members and project teams, it is easy to argue that without developers, the technical project cannot progress. Without business analysts, we cannot understand and flesh out the core business steps required in the initiative. And of course, we definitely need a project manager for a project. But, what’s the justification for a change manager? Many projects have other project or business representatives do the change work instead.
As an attempt to justify in a very direct way, the value of change management, many resort to ROI calculations and aim toward higher ROI. This ROI of change management may seem like a great way to convey and show in a very direct and financial way, the value of change management towards project success. After all, we use ROI for calculating projects, why not use the same for change management as well to value the people side of change?
There are plenty of articles on how to best calculate change management ROI. Here are a couple:
1. PROSCI
Prosci has a good, clear way of calculating change management ROI within a project (though it doesn’t take into account speed of adoption). You simply evaluate to what extent employee adoption is important to the project. Then you take the overall expected project benefits and deduct the part of the expected benefits if there was no adoption. This is termed “people side benefit contribution”.
People Side Benefit Contribution = Expected Project Benefits – Expected Project Benefits (if adoption and usage = 0)
People Side Benefit Coefficient = People Side Benefit Contribution / Expected Project Benefits
2. Rightpoint
Rightpoint has a variation to this calculation. They have added ELV (Employee Lifetime Value) to the calculation.
Using ROI may be useful when the cost of the initiative is the critical focus for the organisation for its strategic investment. However, it is not the only way to convey the overall value of successful change management. In addition, the ROI method limits the value of change management to focus on the cost invested versus the value created. Also, this type of calculation limits the value of change to a project by project perspective.
So, how else do we show the direct financial value of change management? Let’s look to research. It turns out there are plenty of research examples. Here are some:
McKinsey & Company. (2016). The people power of transformations. This study found that transformation initiatives are 5.8 times more successful if CEOs communicate a compelling change story, and 6.3 times more successful when leaders share messages about change efforts with the rest of the organization. Link here.
Korn Ferry. (2018). Engaging hearts and minds: Preparing for a changing world. This study found that calls out change as a key trend found that companies with high levels of employee engagement had 4.5 times higher revenue growth compared to companies with low levels of engagement, noting that all companies are undergoing change. Link here.
IBM. (2016). Making change work … while the world keeps changing. This study found that 76% of successful projects include change management activities at the beginning of their overall project plans, which is 33% more than less successful projects. Link here.
IBM. (2015) Why a business case for change management. The article references a survey carried out in 2010 where companies that apply a value (benefit) realization approach (of which change management is a core component) complete projects at least twice as quickly and under budget by a factor of at least 1.9 times, Compared to those that don’t. Link here.
Towers Watson. (2013). Change and communication ROI. Organizations with highly effective communication and change management practices are more than twice as likely to significantly outperform their peers in total shareholder returns, versus organizations that are not highly effective in either of these areas. Link here.
Prosci. (2020). Best Practices in Change Management 11th Edition. The paper referred to a Prosci study that found that projects with excellent change management practices 6 times more likelihood of meeting project objectives than those that are poor. Link here.
So the value the importance of change management, let’s take a comparison to see the difference in using a ROI calculation of the value of change management versus using findings from the above research findings to demonstrate the derived value.
Let’s take a typical project example. Company A has ….
Annual revenue of $1 billion with 5% profitability
The revenue growth is 1%
Project A costs $1Million and is targeted for $3 million in benefits.
If the expected project benefits without adoption would be $1Million, then, the people-side contribution is …
$2Million / $3Million = $667K.
Let’s contrast this to other calculations using research.
Research findings | Calculation
Korn Ferry study where companies with high levels of employee engagement had 4.5 times higher revenue growth compared to companies with low levels of engagement. Taking a very conservative approach of portioning on 1/3 of employee engagement linked to change, this means 1.5 times higher revenue growth. | Taking a very conservative approach of portioning 1/3 of employee engagement as linked to change, this means 1.5 times higher revenue growth. This means if the revenue growth is 1%, then the additional revenue is $15 Million per year.
You can see that $15 million in value is much higher than the $667K in initiative ROI. From these examples, you can see that the financial value dwarfs that from the ROI calculation. On top of this, these are from research findings, which may have a stronger perceived validity and be easier to be trusted by stakeholders than the ROI calculation.
To point out, it is not an apple-to-apple comparison between the change management ROI from one initiative to the organisational value of change management across initiatives. However, the call out is that:
The financial value of change management does not need to be limited to individual initiatives
The sum may be greater than its parts. Rather than measuring at initiative levels, research findings are looking at organisational-level value
The value of change management may be more than cost, but also other value drivers such as revenue
As change management practitioners we should not shy away from calling out and citing the value of change management. Cost may be one value, but the true benefit of change management is both the top line as well as the bottom line. Directly referring to the research-backed findings also helps to highlight its value size and importance.
To do this, we should also work to deliver organisational value in managing change and not limit ourselves to one initiative. Focus on uplifting change management capability in the forms of leadership styles, change governance, change analytics, and change champion network capability, just to name a few.
Change management is often seen as a ‘soft’ discipline that is more an ‘art’ than science. However, successful change management, like managing a business, relies on having the right data to understand if the journey is going in the right direction toward change adoption. The data can inform whether the objectives will be achieved or not.
Data science has emerged to be one of the most sought-after skills in the marketplace at the moment. This is not a surprise because data is what powers and drives our digital economy. Data has the power to make or break companies. Companies that leverages data can significant improve customer experiences, improve efficiency, improve revenue, etc. In fact all facets of how a company is run can benefit from data science. In this article, we explore practical data science techniques that organizations can use to improve change outcomes and achieve their goals more effectively.
Improved decision making
One of the significant benefits of using data science in change management is the ability to make informed decisions. Data science techniques, such as predictive analytics and statistical analysis, allow organizations to extract insights from data that would be almost impossible to detect or analyse manually. This enables organizations to make data-driven decisions that are supported by empirical evidence rather than intuition or guesswork.
Increased Efficiency
Data science can help streamline the change management process and make it more efficient. By automating repetitive tasks, such as data collection, cleaning, and analysis, organizations can free up resources and focus on more critical aspects of change management. Moreover, data science can provide real-time updates and feedback, making it easier for organizations to track progress, identify bottlenecks, and adjust the change management plan accordingly.
Improved Accuracy
Data science techniques can improve the accuracy of change management efforts by removing bias and subjectivity from decision-making processes. By relying on empirical evidence, data science enables organizations to make decisions based on objective facts rather than personal opinions or biases. This can help reduce the risk of errors and ensure that change management efforts are based on the most accurate and reliable data available.
Better Risk Management
Data science can help organizations identify potential risks and develop contingency plans to mitigate those risks. Predictive analytics can be used to forecast the impact of change management efforts and identify potential risks that may arise during the transition. For example, change impacts across multiple initiatives against seasonal operations workload peaks and troughs.
Enhanced Communication
Data science can help facilitate better communication and collaboration between stakeholders involved in the change management process. By presenting data in a visual format, such as graphs, charts, and maps, data science can make complex information more accessible and understandable to all stakeholders. This can help ensure that everyone involved in the change management process has a clear understanding of the goals, objectives, and progress of the transition.
Key data science approaches in change management
Conduct a Data Audit
Before embarking on any change management initiative, it’s essential to conduct a data audit to ensure that the data being used is accurate, complete, and consistent. For example, data related to the current status or the baseline, before change takes place. A data audit involves identifying data sources, reviewing data quality, and creating a data inventory. This can help organizations identify gaps in data and ensure that data is available to support the change management process. This includes any impacted stakeholder status or operational data.
During a data audit, change managers should ask themselves the following questions:
What data sources from change leaders and key stakeholders do we need to support the change management process?
Is the data we are using accurate and reliable?
Are there any gaps in our data inventory?
What data do we need to collect to support our change management initiatives, including measurable impact data?
Using Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics is a valuable data science technique that can be used to forecast the impact of change management initiatives. Predictive analytics involves using historical data to build models that can predict the future impact of change management initiatives. This can help organizations identify potential risks and develop proactive strategies to mitigate those risks.
Change managers can use predictive analytics to answer the following questions:
What is the expected impact of our change management initiatives?
What are the potential risks associated with our change management initiatives?
What proactive strategies can we implement to mitigate those risks?
How can we use predictive analytics to optimize the change management process?
Leveraging Business Intelligence
Business intelligence is a data science technique that involves using tools and techniques to transform raw data into actionable insights. Business intelligence tools can help organizations identify trends, patterns, and insights that can inform the change management process. This can help organizations make informed decisions, improve communication, and increase the efficiency of change management initiatives.
Change managers can use business intelligence to answer the following questions:
What insights can we gain from our data?
What trends and patterns are emerging from our data?
How can we use business intelligence to improve communication and collaboration among stakeholders?
How can we use business intelligence to increase the efficiency of change management initiatives?
Using Data Visualization
Data visualization is a valuable data science technique that involves presenting data in a visual format such as graphs, charts, and maps. Data visualization can help organizations communicate complex information more effectively and make it easier for stakeholders to understand the goals, objectives, and progress of change management initiatives. This can improve communication and increase stakeholder engagement in the change management process.
Change managers can use data visualization to answer the following questions:
How can we present our data in a way that is easy to understand?
How can we use data visualization to communicate progress and results to stakeholders?
How can we use data visualization to identify trends and patterns in our data?
How can we use data visualization to increase stakeholder engagement in the change management process?
Monitoring and Evaluating Progress
Monitoring and evaluating progress is a critical part of the change management process. Data science techniques, such as statistical analysis and data mining, can be used to monitor progress and evaluate the effectiveness of change management initiatives. This can help organizations identify areas for improvement, adjust the change management plan, and ensure that change management initiatives are achieving the desired outcomes.
Change managers can use monitoring and evaluation techniques to answer the following questions:
How can we measure the effectiveness of our change management initiatives? (e.g. employee engagement, customer satisfaction, business outcomes, etc.) And what method do we use to collect the data? E.g. surveys or focus groups?
What data do we need to collect to evaluate the change initiative progress?
How can we use statistical analysis and data mining to identify areas for improvement?
How can we use monitoring of ongoing support or continuous improvement?
The outlined approaches are some of the key ways in which we can use data science to manage the change process. Change practitioners should invest in their data science capability and adopt data science techniques to drive effective change management success. Stakeholders will take more notice of change management status and they may also better understand the value of managing change. Most importantly, data helps to achieve change objectives.
In this Change Practitioner Q&A series we talk to change managers to ask them how they approach their work. This time we are talking to Fiona Johnson.
Change Compass: Hi Fiona, describe yourself in 3 sentences.
Fiona: I’m a ‘seasoned” change practitioner who has survived many types of workplaces relatively unscathed ! Honestly, I could write a book about it. I always try and see the positive aspects of any workplace and do my best to enhance and support the cultural norms AND keep a sense of humour. I like to collaborate with professional and supportive team members and coach and mentor team members.
Change Compass: What has been the most challenging situation for you as a change practitioner? Tell us what happened and how you fared through it.
Fiona: I’ve had a lot of challenges, but I think the key is getting leaders to lead the change and supporting them.
I had an instance where I had to “sell” the benefits of change management to a very resistant Financial Controller. At the start of the project ( basically an operating model change) , he was totally focussed on the numbers and not the people and lacked the insight that change is always about people.
I had a team made up of business representatives and I set up regular fortnightly meetings to get his attention on issues we needed resolving and keep him up to date. I made the meetings short and sharp and each team members gave an update on the work they were doing to give them visibility. He realised the value of change management once the project delivered as that was when the gaps became evident. I think we were able to prepare him for the implementation but once the project wrapped up it was evident there was a lot of embedment activities not planned for and I think this would have caused more pain.
Although change initiatives are clearer now about the roles and responsibilities of the Sponsor and Business Owner, there is a still a reluctance amongst senior leaders to lead from the front in case it’s a failure and reflects negatively on them. I think this is an education piece and leaders need to trust change managers.
Change Compass: What are the most critical and most useful things to focus on when you first start on a project, and why.
Fiona: These tend to be the questions I focus on … • What are the business drivers? Why? Because this helps form the narrative and links to strategy and then to the frontline – “What’s in it for me?” • Who is the Sponsor and how actively engaged are they? They need to be involved and advocating throughout the project. • How much funding is set aside for Change Management ? I’ve implemented change on a shoestring but its better if there is funding for communication and training as this indicates consideration for the recipients. • What’s the organisations history of managing change – is there a “good” change example and what made it stand out, conversely what was a poor experience and what factors contributed to it ? • What is the culture like ? Take note of employees’ surveys as they provide markers on morale and pain points. • Finally identify a network of strong champions and advocates to help the change and provide them with the tools to do this.
Change Compass: As change practitioners we don’t often get to stick around to see the fruits of our labour, but from your experience what are the top factors in driving full change adoption?
Fiona: For me …. • Understanding the future state and identifying existing organisation metrics that can monitor and measure, or if there are gaps, ensuring these are filled before the change. • Handover to a committed business owner to manage and maintain momentum and who understands their role and responsibilities. • Building governance structures to review and report on the changes to the Executives or using existing forums. • Reporting and tracking are key but also other types of controls such as operating procedures and training. • Involving other areas such as QA, Compliance, HR and Finance in the discussions relating to embedment
Change Compass: You’re known to be great at explaining complex changes to stakeholders. What’s your secret?
Fiona: I have the grandmother test … would your grandmother understand this? Also, use basic communication rules such a targeting your audiences – there’s a difference between communicating to white collar and blue collar. Other tips include … • Use storytelling and personas your audience can relate to • Use your advocates and sponsors to spread the message. • Keep it simple and use a variety of mediums
There is no change curve. A single change curve doesn’t exist in most organisations. The concept of a single change curve means you’re always looking at it from the myopic lens of a single project or a single change. If we adopt a humanistic and human-centred view, what we see is that at any one time there are likely multiple change curves happening, to the same person, the same team, the same organisation.
At any one time, an impacted stakeholder maybe undergoing the 3rd iteraction of changes in one project, whilst partially adopting the new behaviours of another project, whilst just learning about the details of yet another project. And it may not even be projects or programs. It could be smaller team-led continuous improvement initiatives.
The concept of Agile methodology has revolutionized the way organizations approach software development and project management. It emphasizes flexibility, adaptability, and continuous improvement. However, the frequent introduction of multiple Agile changes within an organization can lead to multiple ‘S’ curves, which can result in several challenges related to adoption and business performance and capacity.
Multiple S curves refer to the continuous introduction of new Agile changes, each of which leads to a new adoption process and a corresponding performance improvement. This results in a series of S-shaped curves, each representing a different stage of the Agile adoption process.
The S curve is assuming that all of the changes are well implemented with good people experiences. The initial curve shows the slowness of the change adoption in the beginning, followed by a faster change adoption process, and finally capering off.
However, when the change is not well implemented due to various reasons the experience can be more like a V curve, where the experience and performance dips down into the ‘valley of despair’, followed by a ramp-up of improving experiences and change adoption.
The introduction of multiple Agile changes within an organization can lead to several challenges related to adoption and business performance and capacity. Firstly, continuous change can lead to confusion and uncertainty among employees. It can be difficult for employees to keep up with the latest changes and understand how they should adjust their work processes accordingly. This can result in decreased productivity and morale among employees.
Moreover, frequent changes can also result in increased cognitive strain and workload for employees. They may need to continuously learn new processes and techniques, leading to burnout and decreased job satisfaction.
Another challenge of having multiple Agile changes is that it can lead to decreased consistency in processes and outcomes. Each change may result in different outcomes and different ways of working, making it difficult to standardize and measure performance. This can result in a lack of accountability and a decrease in the organization’s overall efficiency.
In addition to the challenges related to adoption and performance, multiple Agile changes can also result in a decreased business capacity. The frequent changes can disrupt established workflows, making it difficult for teams to complete projects in a timely manner. This can lead to decreased project velocity and increased project risk, making it challenging for the organization to meet its goals and objectives.
So, while Agile methodology is a powerful tool for organizations, the frequent introduction of multiple Agile changes can result in several challenges related to adoption, performance, and capacity. To mitigate these challenges, organizations should take a strategic approach to Agile adoption, ensuring that changes are well-planned, communicated effectively, and implemented in a controlled manner. By doing so, organizations can ensure that the benefits of Agile methodology are realized while minimizing the risks associated with multiple changes.
To truly manage the multiple change curves, data is key. Without understanding which change curves are happening at what time it is not possible to manage change holistically. With data, you can easily drill into what is happening when, to whom, to what extent, and in what way. It is only with data that we can effectively orchestrate change across the board.
If you are going on a journey to capture change impacts across the organisation, be aware of how you are capturing the data so that you are truly addressing business issues critical to the organisation. For example:
Ensure that the data captured can be easily formatted and visualised to support a range of business decision-making contexts without too much manual work. The more manual the set up of the data is, the more time and effort it requires to answer the various data cuts that stakeholders may be needing
Balancing critical data points required versus having too many data fields and therefore too Cumberland and difficult to capture the data. The more data you are required to collect, the more complex the process is for those whom you are collecting the data from
Thanks to the nature of agile projects, the data will change constantly. The tracking of constantly changing change data is critical. However, it should also be easy and quick to update the data
Organisations under changes will invariably have changes in organisational structures, teams or roles. Ensure that your data-capturing process makes it easy to update the structure as they change.
Have a chat with us to understand more about how to leverage digital solutions to multiple change impacts across the organisation, and how to leverage AI and automation to make your lives easier in leveraging a data platform to make critical business decisions using change impact data.
So next time you talk about THE change curve, just be aware that you’re likely not adopting a people-centric view of change. You may want to look more holistically at what your impacted stakeholders are undergoing or about to undergo. Adopt a holistic mindset of what impacted stakeholders are going through as you plan out your change approach.
If you’re interested in exploring more about managing agile changes check out the following:
good change adoption dashboard can make or break the full benefit realization of a change initiative. It captures the essence of what stakeholders need to focus on to drive full change adoption. This visual representation of the status and progress of a change initiative provides real-time data and insights into how well-impacted employees are adopting the change and what steps can be taken to improve adoption rates. In this article, we will outline the steps for designing an effective change adoption dashboard.
Change adoption is often only measured toward the end of a change initiative. This is a mistake since the adoption journey can start as early as the project commencement, or when stakeholders start hearing about the initiative. At a minimum, change adoption should be defined and agreed upon before significant change impact happens. If you are implementing a system this will be well before the system go-live.
These are the key steps in building a great change project adoption dashboard.
Step 1: Define the Objectives of the Change Initiative
The first step in designing a change adoption dashboard is to clearly define the objectives of the change initiative. This includes understanding what the change is, what it aims to achieve, and what the desired outcomes are. Understanding the objectives of the change initiative is critical to defining the metrics that will be used to measure adoption and success.
If your initiative has a long list of objectives, be careful not to be tempted to start incorporating all of these into your dashboard. Your task is to pin down the most critical change management objectives that must be met in order for the initiative to be successful. If you are really struggling with how many objectives you should focus on, aim for the top three.
Step 2: Identify Key Metrics
Once the objectives of the change initiative have been defined, the next step is to identify the key metrics that will be used to measure adoption and success. These metrics should be directly tied to the objectives of the change initiative and should provide actionable insights into the progress and success of the change.
Some examples of metrics that can be used to measure change adoption include:
1. Stakeholder engagement levels (depending on your stakeholder impacts these could be customer, employee or partners)
2. Stakeholder engagement levels (depending on your stakeholder impacts these could be customer, employee or partners)
3. User adoption rates
4. Process improvement metrics
5. Time to adoption
6. Feedback from employees
The key is to locate the few metrics that will form the core of what full change adoption means. As a general rule, this often means a behaviour change of some kind. Here are some examples.
1. If the goal is changing a business process from A to B. Then you are looking for employees to start following the new process B. Then, identify the core behaviours that mean following process B.
2. If the goal is to start using a new system, then you would focus on system usage. Also focus on tracking any workarounds that employees may resort to in order not to use the system.
3. If the goal is to improve customer conversations, then you would focus on the quality of those conversations using key indicators. This may involve call listening or customer satisfaction ratings.
Again, ensure you are not over-extending yourself by picking too many metrics. The more there is, the more work there is. Having too many metrics also lead to attention dilution, and you start to loose stakeholder focus on the more critical metrics compared to less critical ones.
In the group of metrics you’ve chosen, if there is no behaviour measure then it is likely you may have missed the most critical element of change adoption. In most cases, behaviour change metric is essential for any change adoption dashboard.
If your change process involves too many behaviour steps, then focus on ones that are easier to track and report on. In a system implementation project, they could be system usage reports or login frequency.
Examples of target behaviours as a part of behaviour change
Step 3: Choose the Right Visualization Techniques
The next step in designing a change adoption dashboard is to choose the right visualization techniques. The visualizations should be chosen based on the data that needs to be displayed and the insights that need to be gained. Some examples of visualization techniques that can be used include:
Bar graphs: to display changes in metrics over time
Pie charts: to display the distribution of data
Line charts: to display changes in metrics over time
Heat maps: to display the distribution of data on a map
Selection of charts can be technical, and your goal is always to choose the right type of chart to make it easier for the audience to understand and interpret. Minimise on having too many colors since this can be distracting and overwhelming. Use colours carefully and only to show a particular point or to highlight a finding. Choosing the wrong chart can mean more questions than answers for your stakeholders, so choose carefully.
Beyond just having a collection of charts, modern dashboards have a mixture of different types of visuals to aid easy stakeholder understanding. For example, you could have different data ‘tiles’ that show key figures or trends. You may also want to incorporate key text descriptions of findings or trends in your dashboard. Having a mixture of different types of information can help your stakeholders greatly and avoid data saturation.
Example of chart styles from The Change Compass
Step 4: Design the Dashboard
Once the objectives, metrics, and visualization techniques have been defined, the next step is to design the dashboard. The design should be intuitive and user-friendly, with the ability to drill down into the data to gain deeper insights. The dashboard should also be accessible to all stakeholders, including employees, managers, and executives.
Data visualisation is a discipline in itself. For a general overview and key tips on chart design and selection visit our article to learn more about data visualisation techniques.
To reduce manual work in constantly updating and producing the dashboard for your stakeholders think about leveraging technical solutions to do this for you. A common approach is to use excel spreadsheet and PowerBI. This may be feasible for some, but it often involves using a PowerBI expert (which may come at a cost), and any time you want to change the dashboard you need to loop back the expert to do it for you.
The Change Compass has incorporated powerful and intuitive dashboarding and charting features so that you do not need to be an expert to create a dashboard. Reference our templates as examples and create your own dashboard with a few clicks.
An Example of a Change Adoption Dashboard from The Change Compass
Step 5: Test and Refine the Dashboard
The final step in designing a change adoption dashboard is to test and refine it. This includes testing the dashboard with a small group of stakeholders and getting their feedback. Based on their feedback, the dashboard can be refined and improved until it provides the insights and data that stakeholders need to drive change adoption.
A key part of this step is testing any automation process in dashboard generation. Is the data accurate? Is it recent and updated? What operating rhythms do you need to have in place to ensure that the process flows smoothly, and that you get the dashboard produced every week/month/quarter?
Step 6: Continuously Monitor and Update the Dashboard
It is important to continuously monitor the change adoption dashboard and update it regularly. This will help to ensure that the dashboard remains relevant and provides the most up-to-date information on the progress of the change initiative.
The reality is that stakeholders will very likely get bored with the same dashboard time and time again. They will likely suggest changes and amendments from time to time. Anticipate this and proactively improve your dashboard. Does it drive the right stakeholder focus and conversation? If not, tweak it.
Good stakeholder conversations mean that your stakeholders are getting to the roots of why the change is or is not taking place. The data presented prompts the constant focus and avoids diversion in that focus. This is also a journey for your key stakeholders to find meaning in what it takes to lead the change and reinforce the change to get business results.
Summary
Designing an effective change adoption dashboard is a critical step in ensuring the success of change initiatives. By providing real-time data and insights into how well employees are adopting the change, a change adoption dashboard can help key stakeholders make informed decisions and take action to improve adoption rates. Ultimately it is about achieving the full initiative benefits targeted. By following the steps outlined in this article, change managers can design a change adoption dashboard that provides the insights they need to drive change adoption.
Building and executing a change adoption dashboard can be a manually intensive and time consuming exercise. Leverage technology tools that incorporates automation and AI. You will find that this can significantly increase the speed in which you are able to execute on not just the change dashboard, but driving the overall change delivery. For example, you can leverage out-of-the-box features such as forecasting and natural language query to save significant time and effort.
Have a chat to us about what options there are to help you do this.
It is the year of rabbit in the Chinese New Year of 2023. A quarter of the world’s population celebrates this. It is also the first year that a lot of countries are emerging from Covid and where there are little or no restrictions on travel and movement. People are travelling again and taking vacations. There is optimism in the air. Optimism that hopefully, the year brings better luck in health and economy for people a new year with hopefully less change and fewer disruptions.
With any Chinese New Year, there is a set of traditional customs that accompany the new year. These customs have developed over the years as people gather to pray, to gather, to celebrate, and to make wishes for the new year. For example, the customs of a family getting together to clean their house, having dinner, and staying u late on New Year’s Eve were formed in the Wei and Jin dynasties (220-420 AD). From the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD) entertainment formed including as firecrackers, dragon and lion dances, and lantern shows.
These customs have been formed to welcome the new and the good and remove the bad and the old. It helps to gear the families and communities to bring positivity in facing the new year. These rituals help people focus on the milestone and use it as an opportunity to reset and renew.
In running change projects, we also need to re-gear ourselves for the new year so that we ourselves are in the right head space and outlook to drive successful change in the new year. How might we do this? Chinese new year customs offer some useful suggestions.
Tip 1 – Getting the house in order
To prepare for the new year the Chinese clean their houses and surrounding areas as a symbol of sweeping out any misfortune and traces of bad luck. This is aimed to rid the house of back luck and misfortune of the past to open up the spaces for all that is new, including good luck.
Change practitioners should also follow suit to ensure that their change initiative is set up for success. Keeping the ‘house in order’ means:
Ensuring the documentation and data are optimised, easy to access, orderly, and can meet audit requirements.
Access to files is well organised and appropriate. Roles that no longer require access may need permission updates
The change team resourcing is optimised. Is there sufficient change resources to meet project requirements for the new year? How can resourcing be optimised? If the change management stream was asked to cut costs, what would be items to consider?
Tip 2: Visiting relatives and friends – or stakeholders
Another Chinese New Year custom is to visit friends and relatives. This is a way for people to bring good wishes to each other. Often these visits involve bringing gifts such as fruit and local products.
Change practitioners should begin the new year by meeting with various stakeholder groups. Bring positive thoughts and wishes to your meetings. Re-connect with your stakeholder groups to find out how their holiday period fared. This may be one of those few opportunities during the year where you’re able to connect to your stakeholders at a personal level by understanding more about their families (whatever form the family may consist of).
When you re-connect with your stakeholder groups, think about:
What are the new or changing needs of your stakeholders in the new year?
Which stakeholders do you need to spend more or less time with as a result of your experience last year?
Where are your stakeholders along the change journey? What else could help to speed up their adoption of the change?
What communication, engagement, and learning needs have worked well or not so well with them?
Typical Chinese New Year customs
Tip 3: Setting off firecrackers and fireworks – or re-highlighting the change
In the Chinese New Year, the firecrackers and fireworks are to create a festive atmosphere to welcome the new year. It is about creating the right environment.
In a similar way, change practitioners need to think about how to open the new year with a bang to re-orient their stakeholders to focus on the change. This does not mean setting off fireworks literally. But it means being clear about what communications and engagement tactics might be needed to create the right environment for people to focus on the change in the new year.
It may not need to be a communications campaign. Some ideas of what may work in organisations to draw attention to re-orientate back to the focus on the change:
An interview with the project sponsor
Town hall session
A social lunch or drinks session
Posters and cards
Emails about the focus for the year
Show-and-tell session about the holiday period
Tip 4: New year’s shopping – or update
People buy food and gifts for Chinese New Year for friends and family to celebrate the fresh new year. This also includes wearing new clothes as a symbol of good health and prosperity for the new year.
In a similar vein, change practitioners should think about what reset or update is needed for the new year. What has been learned from the past year which can be applied in the new year? Does the change approach need to be adjusted or tweaked for the new year?
What aspects of the change needs to be updated for the new year?
These might include such as:
New survey format or tool to allow the project to easily design conditional questioning to probe deeper into potential change readiness and change adoption blockers
Change messaging or positioning that may need to be tweaked to better resonate with particular stakeholder groups. Look at the data in terms of feedback, click rates, or viewership rate of communication materials as evidence
Change measurement system may need to be tweaked. Are you able to collect the right type and level of data to make critical change decisions? How should measures be altered accordingly to better suit the demands of the new year?
Leverage AI and automation to work more productively and deliver more value. There is ChatGPT which is wildly talked about that can uses to write content for all types of purposes. The Change Compass also offers a range of automation and AI tools to make your lives easier in delivering change
These are some of the ways in which change practitioners can practice traditional Chinese New Year’s customs and rituals and apply them to their projects. Customs have been formed over hundreds of years and exist to mark milestones collectively for people. They help gear us for the new year, to be better prepared, and to be in the right mindset. Moreover, they help us to have the capacity to be optimistic. Through optimism, we can welcome the new year with intentions toward successful change.
In this Change Practitioner Q&A Series we interview change practitioners to find out more about how they approach their work.
A bit about Alvaro …
Alvaro is a change and program management professional, with experience in diverse industries, from Energy & Utilities, Education, Tech, Professional services, and Financial Services. He has worked across programs in transformation, technology, restructures, risk, regulatory, and culture.
Change Compass: Hi Alvaro, describe yourself in 3 sentences
Alvaro:
Personally, I tend to be cheerful and optimistic.
Professionally, I’m quite driven. I love to play a big part in complex pieces of work, being accountable for end-to-end delivery.
I like to “zoom in and out”. Diving into particular task detail, and also being clear of its value in the organisation, community, and society as a whole.
Change Compass: What has been the most challenging situation for you as a change practitioner? Tell us what happened and how you fared through it.
Alvaro:
The evolving nature of the change role and therefore the expectation on me as a practitioner. The definition of “change practitioner” is subjective across industries, teams, and projects; and thus, the “role” is not necessarily tied to a “title”. I’ve experienced this multiple times on projects.
Consider the overlap between the change analyst and business analyst roles, or between a change manager and a project manager. Since change management is not an isolated function, but rather is embedded across various teams, roles, activities, and artefacts (e.g., implementation plan), it’s not always easy to clarify roles and responsibilities. And this overlapping becomes more blurred when you add Agile ways of working/methodologies, product management, human-centred design, etc, which reminds me of The Change Compass articles on the role of Change Management in Agile.
These situations may be problematic if people in the team believe change management is an isolated function, or limit the practitioner to a particular methodology, potentially leading to “step on toes” situations – which I’m sure your readers are familiar with.
To overcome this, in the short term, I’ve spent time ensuring clarity of roles and responsibilities. Sometimes, this requires peer education on what change management is, which might even lead to some tough conversations. However, we should at least try to agree on common ground.
In the long-term (and I think we are heading there), industries, communities of practice, and professionals overall should move away from resourcing based on “titles” to evaluating “skills”. For example, rather than requesting a PM and a Change Lead, let’s think about the skills required for the management of such a piece vs the volume of expected effort.
Change Compass: What are the most critical and most useful things to focus on when you first start on a project, and why.
Alvaro: I would say three things:
1) Data: From PMO/CMO, find out about the product, service, and industry… but to start, obtain an employee list with information on location, business areas, and roles. This will allow you to dissect the organisation to understand the complexity of each area, and how to best plan your engagement. All you need is the basic understanding of organisational design, and pivot table skills.
2) Governance: Change professionals are usually not accountable for this, but we should definitely be a part of it. It makes a difference when roles and responsibilities (from business sponsor to the intern), communication, and approval channels are clear. This includes agreed ways of working. I don’t mean unnecessary formal documentation or undesired and draining team-building workshops. A visual representation (accessible for contributors) with one or two conversations should suffice.
3) Project documentation as a product: Clear, honest, diligent, and accessible documentation on what you are working on, feeling comfortable to disclose the work in progress. If you treat your project documentation as a great product for your stakeholders (from the beginning), you’ll save a lot of time for them and yourself (and they will love you for it).
TIP: Look at the collaboration tools at the company. Some are better than others, I strongly recommend Confluence.
Change Compass: As change practitioners, we don’t often get to stick around to see the fruits of our labour, but from your experience what are the top factors in driving full change adoption?
Alvaro:
Discuss with your team and business owners the expected adoption and embedment outcomes from the beginning, including how they will be measured.
Include a decent timeframe within the implementation plan for adoption and embedment work (before and after Go Live). Do not squeeze this within “hyper-care”.
Understand the embedment systems at the organisation (if any). This may include existing forums, regular surveys, champions, and team leader/supervisor conversations within the business. Instead of creating “new” sessions, you can agree with the business to leverage these.
Adoption & embedment documentation tends to be a “tick the box” exercise. Those supervising change within organisations need to be more outcome-oriented, rather than auditors (checking if the change manager completed “x” or “y” artefact). This will promote a focus on the quality of delivery, over a focus on the completion of documentation. For change managers, it means moving from “I’ve done the embedment plan” to “I’ve co-designed an embedment plan with the stakeholders”.
Change Compass: You’ve been known as great at managing tough stakeholders. What’s your secret?
Alvaro:
The honest yet boring side of it is that I actually enjoy conflict resolution. Years back, I used to work at a restaurant and my peers would always ask me to resolve a situation with a tough customer. It doesn’t sound like helpful advice, right? Well, I guess my take is: practice conflict resolution! You may understand it but it gets better with experience. Other things are:
• Empathy: You never talk to a “title” (e.g., Executive Manager), they are a person, with a life behind their job. • Transparency: Don’t play politics… it’s 2022 at the time of this article. Be yourself and say what and how things are. • Vulnerability: Geez! This one is so important. Admitting you (or what you represent) might be wrong (or can be better) is extremely powerful. Build trust by being human.
Change Compass: If you could alter the change management practice for the better, what would you want to see happen?
Alvaro:
I would love to see a focus on skills, not titles or fixed “change methodologies”. This also includes seeing change as embedded across roles, artifacts, and activities, not as an isolated function.
Skills for a change practitioner must include strong project management, as well as data analysis to drive decisions in engagement, overall timing, and measurement. This includes companies using integrated tools to understand change across the organisation, as well as change practitioners understanding how to leverage them.
Finally, change management institutions and communities of practice must push to better integrate change management within project management methodologies. For example, as part of Prince 2 or Safe Scrum. There’s no need for a “change role”, but many aspects are missed (or unclear).
Change saturation is talked about as one of top key challenges facing organisations as the pace of change is dialled up. The pace of change has been increasing for organisations and does not show any evidence of slowing down. Several surveys have indicated the seriousness of change saturation for change practitioners and senior leaders. This includes several Prosci surveys that have indicated the importance of change saturation for a large percentage of companies. There is also plenty of articles that focus on change saturation.
But why is change saturation happening and what is the cause of it? Why is it not talked about in the past and why now?
Pace of technology change
We can see all around us that the pace of technology change is speeding up. In the 1980s most people did not have access to the computer. Now there are computing features and devices on our bodies, on our laps, on our desks, at every shop and office, etc. In fact, it is hard to think of a world where these features are taken away from us. Not just Generation Z, but most of us in other generations would also agree.
The role of AI and machine learning of late has driven significant investment and change in organisations. This involves the power of AI to improve productivity and carry out existing work tasks at a significantly improved quality and pace than was previously imaginable. There are not many large organisations that are not leveraging this as a competitive differentiator.
Pace of innovation
Though technology has driven massive change at an increasing speed in impacting our lives, a key call out on top of this is the pace of innovation. Technical changes are only valuable if they are used by people. The ability for us to apply technical advancements to a wide range of human needs is what creates innovation. Techology firms are constantly looking for ways to improve the human experience. Now, we are seeing this driven by hundreds of millions of startups around the world. This is the latest force that challenges existing ways of doing things to reinvent and improve existing business models and improve how we work and live.
Culture lag
“The term cultural lag refers to the notion that culture takes time to catch up with technological innovations, and the resulting social problems that are caused by this lag. In other words, cultural lag occurs whenever there is an unequal rate of change between different parts of culture causing a gap between material and non-material culture.” (Wikipedia).
Some organisations and industries are running faster to take up, transform and reap the benefits of change. Technology firms tend to move fast and used to significant transformations in business models and ways of working. Other organisations may be less effective and change at a slower pace. Even within organisations, some departments seem to be faster at adopting change than others. The organisational culture differences can be quite stark. The leadership capability, the mindset, hierarchy structures, the operational processes, levels of agility and work approach all make up the cultural behaviours between the haves and have nots.
This is what differentiates successful organisations compared to those who are less successful … the ability adapt and change quickly to keep pace.
Large companies are by design siloed
Large organisations are by design a series of siloed departments. Depending the organisation structure it could be that each department is a separate kingdom with very different cultural traits and ways of working than other departments. Or, it could be countries that are operating differently. It could also be vertical or functional lines of grouping employees that shape the way people work.
Yes, there are ways in which large organistions can be designed to be less siloed. For example, through having the right operating and alignment processes across departments and teams it is possible to reduce this silo. Centres of excellence groups can act to connect disparate functional workers across the organisations without a formalised reporting structure. For example, Business Analysts that may sit in different departments. Having the right town halls or sharing forums can also help to share the work across a large number of teams. Some multinationals are particularly good at doing this to share best practices and reduce waste.
Irrespective of how large organisations are structured, for most, initiatives are driven by project teams. Each project team has its own challenges, stakeholders, budgets, timelines and business pressures. By design each project team is a silo. If there are 50 projects in an organisation then there are 50 silos. Even if all project teams report to one division, for example a transformation office, there are still challenges in ‘integrating’ the work across projects.
Now you can see why large organisations are really feeling the pinch in change saturation. With the increasing speed of industry and technology changes come an increasing number of changes in the organisation. The increased volume of change as well as increased speed of change results in the feeling of change saturation in employees. Sure, improved change capability can help in some situations in the uptake of larger volumes of change. However, people capacity is limited and there is only so much human change bandwidth within any given time.
Examples of data visualisation from The Change Compass
The power of data in addressing saturation
Having a good initiative portfolio management system may help to connect the dots from a portfolio and project management perspective. Data provides visibility and shows the true picture of what is happening, allowing visualisation of what were only felt, into logical and precise factors of the what, why and how of the changes.
However, portfolio management systems only tend to focus on the picture from a project perspective. This includes:
Project costs
Project timelines
Project resourcing
Project benefits and tracking
However, what changes mean to the business and the organisations is a very different picture than what it means to project/transformation teams. The picture for the ‘receivers of change’ versus the ‘drivers of change’. Having a robust picture for the drivers of change (PMO, senior leaders, project teams, etc.) is critical and necessary. But it does not inform the organisation of what the journey looks like for employees to undergo the various changes in the organisations.
The picture of the ‘receivers of change’ is the picture that is required to examine if there is change saturation, the extent of it and what to do about it. This includes data such as:
People change impact volume, severity, timeline
The who, when, how, what of people change impact
Type of people impact, whether employee, customer or partner impacts
Most organisations do not collect these types of data. Some change management teams manually create heatmaps to support this. However, they only capture a portion of the data listed above. Also, these are highly manual and usually not sufficiently robust to support the level of detailed required in business decision making on prioritisation and sequencing.
There lies the dilemma for large organisations. Significant amounts of investments are made in transformation. Significant benefits are anticipated. However, research shows that a lot of transformation efforts do not reach anywhere close to their targets. With increasing volumes of change, orchestrating the system across initiatives is key. And the missing link is in the people impact component to power the success of transformations through data.
By utilising digital means of capturing, farming and visualising change impact data, organisations can solve a range of business problems linked to change saturation. Data can inform and predict:
Employee sentiments toward change
People capacity
Operational performance
A number of project, business and benefit risks
Change adoption and progress tracking
Opportunity for better prioritisation and sequencing of releases
Using machine learning and AI it is possible to derive a range of powerful insights into key risks and opportunities that organisations may be facing with change. Risks linked to business performance and capacity challenges is usually top of mind for companies as a mere few percentage points drop in performance could mean tens of millions of dollars in value lost. The other important factor is risks and opportunities linked to benefit realisation across the initiative portfolio. With the right orchestration and sequencing balance, the overall initiative benefits can be optimised.
Measuring change is not just an activity, it is about achieving a change outcome. The particular outcome can range from understanding how ready stakeholders are for the change, how change mature they are, whether they have adopted the change, or whether they have the capacity for change. Achieving this change outcome is not just about selecting the right measure or collecting the right data. Even after analysing the data and interpreting the results, there is a number of steps required to achieve the targeted change outcome.
In the first part of ‘The Ultimate Guide to Measuring Change’ the focus is on outlining the various areas in which change may be measured. These include initiative-based change management measures such as training evaluation or communications effectiveness. Non-initiative-based change management measures include change leadership assessment, change saturation assessment or change maturity assessment.
In this part 2 of the same topic, we focus on the various steps involved in achieving your change outcome when you embark on your change measurement exercise. So, you have already selected the change management measures. You know how the measurement works and how to collect the data. What next?
Dashboard design
Developing a good dashboard can make or break the success of your initiative. A good dashboard draws the attention of your stakeholders to the right areas of focus and can prompt action. As your stakeholders receive ongoing feedback on how the measures are tracking in the dashboard, this provides them with evidence of whether any actions they have taken have influenced the measures.
On the other hand, a badly designed dashboard can be overwhelming, difficult to understand, and most importantly do not prompt the right attention and action required from stakeholders. In this case, the dashboard may be skimmed over by stakeholders and not taken seriously. This is absolutely what we want to avoid.
Some key considerations in designing dashboards
Focus on the critical few. More is not better when it comes to dashboard design. The dashboard should comprise of key measures that tell a good picture (not necessarily a thorough one) of what is happening and if things are on track. For example, if you would like to present a readiness dashboard, key measures could be:
Overall readiness score
Readiness by business unit
Readiness by roles
Training completion rates
Yammer chat trends
2. Determining visual formats in your dashboard. Not all data visualisation formats are created equally. Some tend to be harder for users to understand than others. Overly colourful charts can also distract the user from focusing on what you want him/her to focus on.
A key question you should always ask yourself is ‘can the audience understand what this chart is showing in 5 seconds without context’. This makes it challenging, right? This is exactly what we need to aim for to make it easy for the audience.
3. Create a balance of different types of measures that, in total, capture core aspects of what the audience would like to find out about. For example, in the above example, there is a balance of measures such as surveys, stakeholder ratings during meetings, completion rates and trend analysis.
Your dashboard could also have a mix of visuals from charts, figures, quotes, insights, and data tables. It does not always need to be in the form of charts alone.
4. Experiment with different types of visuals and see which ones are the most appealing in terms of generating insight and action from your stakeholders. Depending on the stakeholders you work with, some data visualisation formats may not resonate as much as others. So it may take experimenting to figure out the most impactful set for your particular stakeholders.
5. Allow the user to drill through the data, where possible. When you present the dashboard to your stakeholders, this will naturally prompt a series of questions and discussions. Essentially, by allowing drill-through of the data, you are answering questions around ‘why’.
Common questions include what data comprise this component? Real examples could be ‘why is this business unit not ready for the change’, ‘why is the training completion so low for last month’, and ‘why are stakeholders not confident about our overall readiness’. To facilitate queries such as these, it is always very helpful to be able to click into the data points that comprise a particular chart.
6. Your dashboard should form an overall picture of the story you are trying to tell on a regular basis. Designing any dashboard requires you to be clear about the key story you are trying to tell to your stakeholders. Some potential stories could be:
We are slowly getting ready for this change, but not quite there yet
Certain business units or roles are finding this change challenging and ongoing support and engagement is required to overcome their potential resistance
We are incrementally making headways to engage the impacted employees, but some are more engaged than others
We have not made significant grounds in our change maturity, though we are laying the right foundations to support the shift
7. Automating dashboard data collection. If you are running a less complex initiative or in a smaller organisation it may make sense to resort to Excel to create dashboards. Many also use Tableau or Power BI. However, both can be quite technical and would require time and effort to set up and use. Experts in Tableau and Power BI within the organisation may likely be pulled into multiple demands already. Leveraging off-the-shelf data visualisation platforms such as The Change Compass may provide a way to save significant time to enable plug-and-play options for complex change environments. In this case, no expert knowledge is required to set up or maintain dashboards.
Making recommendations
So you’ve selected the change management measures, created the dashboard, and allowed the ability to drill-through the data as needed. The most important next step is to prepare your recommendations. You already have the what, the why, and now it’s time to answer the ‘so what’. This is the part where you deliver your biggest value and make recommendations to improve the current status.
There are several things to consider in making your recommendations:
The recommendations should be very logical and a natural extension of the metrics and results you’ve presented. It should almost be a ‘no-brainer’ for your stakeholders in your recommendations. On the other hand, if your recommendation is not substantiated by the metrics you’ve just presented, or there is data missing, your stakeholders may easily challenge the basis of your recommendations.
Practice writing out the reasoning for your recommendations to test its deductive and logical reasoning. Break this down into a step-by-step series of premises in which you can analyse and ‘prove’ the recommendation where possible.
For example:
The Finance department has the lowest training completion rate
Many participants from Finance commented that they did not understand why they are doing the training.
There seem to be more questions about the initiative from Finance employees on Yammer
The number of engagement sessions held in Finance is lower than in other departments
Overall readiness scores for Finance are also lower than other departments
Workload in Finance is not high during readiness survey nor during the training rollout
The last employee engagement surveys showed that Finance employees had lower engagement scores than other departments
Your recommendation: Interview select Finance employees to understand why they are less engaged. Since it’s unlikely due to workload, it may be due to leaders not putting the time and focus to engage employees about this initiative. As a result, there is less engagement in the Finance department. So the premise that needs to be tested is if the lower engagement is due to Finance leadership not engaging the group about the initiative.
The key call out here is to be able to sequence together a series of deductions that lead to the recommendation. Each data visualisation shown is a step in this deduction that leads the user to agree with your recommendation.
3. Your recommendation must be actionable, and helps to move the needle toward improving the change outcome. It should not be just a hypothesis, a conclusion or worse, an opinion. It must be something that can be acted on by someone. For example, a set of actions to remediate the change engagement, to motivate leaders to resolve employee resistance, to celebrate success with the team in the current progress, etc.
Ensuring data integrity
There is nothing worse than standing in front of your audience and being challenged by the data you are presenting because of data integrity. If you are caught in the position of presenting data that is not accurate then you may only have a small window of opportunity to salvage your reputation. To avoid this, ensure you have done your homework on the integrity of the data.
There are several things you can do in ensuring data integrity:
Look for patterns that may not make sense. There are many ways in which you can easily zoom in on potential errors by checking:
Variance from previous data, e.g. Is there an unusual deviation from previous months’ report that may not make sense in terms of engagement scores?
All data points have been updated, e.g. Are you missing any survey data from particular business units? Have all initiative impacts been updated?
Patterns that may not make sense, e.g. You would have expected that Marketing would be the less change ready but the data suggests they are on-par with other business units. This may prompt additional investigation
Drill-through significant findings to check that it makes sense. E.g. The bar chart shows that March has the highest impact level on the business. Drill into March data to double-check that this matches the observation and that it is not a chart error.
Regular data audits. If your dashboard will be presented every month, aim to start auditing your data at least a few days before the presentation to leave enough time to do any follow-up on chasing the right data.
Send your dashboard to a ‘friendly stakeholder’ whom you can confide in without being challenged or critiqued. Ask the stakeholder for feedback to check if there is any glaring error and if the data makes sense.
Storytelling
Having a set of metrics presented in a dashboard is exactly what it is … a set of data. It may be presented in a way that is easy to read and easy to understand. However, the purpose of dashboards is so that they can be presented and discussed so as to facilitate regular monitoring and decision-making. This means that to really get the full impact out of the dashboards you need to be able to tell compelling stories that will grab the attention of your stakeholders and motivate them into action.
If you are making a full presentation, then you may want to follow the following sequence:
1. Key summary of findings and recommendations
This is the Barbara Minto pyramid model of starting with a quick summary of all your points including recommendations to quickly grab the attention of your audience. After this, they will be clear in terms of what you will be talking about in your segment. This is a form of executive summary and is very effective for senior executives who may have a low attention span and can easily get lost in the details.
2. Key findings and insights
Walk through your key findings and insights. Ideally, stick to no more than 3 major points. This is because with too many points the audience is unlikely to remember them and may be lost in the details. If you have a lot to talk about, group them into themes so that this makes it easy for your audience to understand and remember. Again, aim for no more than 3 themes if possible.
3. Why – substantiated by data
This is probably the hardest part to facilitate because it is likely that your audience may want to dive straight into the details of the data and start to ask all kinds of questions. You may want to guide the conversation by telling the audience exactly the flow of what you will be going through to minimise any major disruptions in your storytelling.
Avoid overwhelming your audience with too much data. A part of your storytelling is to balance having just enough data to support your observations and lead them to agree with your recommendations in the next step.
Balance discussion with your overall storytelling flow by allowing time and space for reflection and questions. To maximise engagement, prompt certain members of your audience to see if the data resonates. This can add weight to what you are presenting.
4. Recommendations
If you are making a regular update at a recurring meeting such as a monthly planning meeting, committee meeting, or change governance meeting, then this could be the sequence that you will be following. In this context, you may have limited time to highlight key observations and may not have enough time to dive into the details of all the data. The focus is for a short and sharp call out of key findings, highlighting data that supports your observations, followed by a logical set of recommendations that are action-based.
This is the sequence for your presentation for updates:
Key findings and observations
What is new and different since the last meeting, or what trends to note
Why – substantiated by data
Recommendations
Change governance
It would be great if you can easily leverage existing meetings and business routines to incorporate your charts and dashboards so that they can be used. However, it could be that existing meeting chairpersons do not currently see the value or that there is no current meeting that could serve this purpose. Getting the value out of your dataset means that you need to think about the overall system of change governance.
If you are working in 1 project you can leverage existing project reporting rhythms such as monthly meetings for business stakeholders or meetings with impacted business units, project team and the project sponsor. If you find that certain important stakeholders may not have a way to receive this information or that they should be involved in decision-making, you may need to work with your project manager and project sponsor to address this gap.
Ensuring that your change metrics are used in the right change governance forums may take time to influence. Often the ‘gatekeeper’ of the forums may not be focused on change management and be reluctant to provide additional agenda within an already crowded meeting.
To influence and get your metrics in the key decision-making forums, depending on your organisation, try influencing these key stakeholders:
Portfolio manager/PMO
Project managers/project sponsors
Senior leaders from impacted businesses that see the value of your change metrics
Business planning/Strategy managers that may be able to leverage your change data for better planning
Risk partners who are responsible for influencing the business. They may be particularly interested in risk-in-change
HR business partners who may be concerned about people capacity, engagement, and sentiments
Building capability in change analytics
Not all of your stakeholders will understand the data you are presenting straight away. Especially in the beginning, it could take a bit of time to induct them to what the data is showing, how to interpret it and the significance of the data. Some stakeholders may want to spend most of the session critiquing and diving into the details of the data. Others may want to focus on parts of the data that are not what you want them to focus on. Or, it could be that they need more coaching and support to decipher what the dashboard is telling them. Be aware and ready to pre-empt and guide the flow of the conversation.
To build the capability in change analytics within your organisation:
Start by calling out the fact that you are presenting a new set of data and that you will be focused on spending time to support the audience in understanding and interpreting the data in the beginning
Use your business rhythms and regular meetings/committees to start your meeting segment by walking through step by step the art of interpreting the data
Provide coaching or drop-in sessions for a broader set of stakeholders to provide guidance as needed
Create an intranet page for the program or portfolio where stakeholders can access the data and ‘self-help’ in building their change analytics capability
Most of what you read about change is only concerned with the various stakeholders within one singular change journey. This ranges from various change methodologies to techniques and the experience of change, including the ‘change curve’ that dips after go-live and then slowly rises up. Is this really the only value of change? Are we only adding value one change at a time?
In managing change at a program or portfolio level, we are overseeing multiple changes. The focus is no longer focusing on the tactics and execution of individual changes. Instead, the focus is on how to get the maximum organisational impact to maximise value and realise maximum benefits. This is in done in conjunction with protecting the business-as-usual activities and overall business performance.
The ultimate value of change management is in orchestrating change across the organisation. This is not just in terms of change programs, but orchestrating how other departments and business units handle change. Change does not just happen in a project setting, since it is also led by various departments as a part of general business improvement.
Different corporate functions have a role to play in change orchestration.
This role is not just for the PMO, or the change practitioner.
And what is change orchestration?
It is the act and the ability to effectively steer the flow of change through the organisation in a way that balances the need for the pace and intensity of change, with the pace of BAU and overall business performance.
To effectively orchestrate change the conductor needs to clearly see and know what each change initiative should be doing in the overall system.
– Is each initiative acting in harmony with other changes? Or are there conflicting messages? – Is the pace of each change the right pace for the organisation? Or is it too fast/slow? – Does the runway need to cleared for big strategic initiatives to land? When and where? – How is each initiative evolving in their agile development? What is the change outcome becoming?
Corporate functions such as PMO, Operations, Risk, Strategy, HR and Marketing could all have a role to play in helping to orchestrate change for the company.
How?
By seeing what the change initiatives are and how they’re developing. By sharing the data on the changes they’re driving, whether they’re impacting employees, customers or partners. By participating in joint planning and governance of the overall portfolio of changes. By sharing risks of potential execution on business performance. By analysing the data and sharing how there can be opportunities to better create and improve employee or customer experiences.
It is up to change practitioners to educate and involve various corporate functions to create this synergy.
With the active involvement of various corporate functions, the act of change orchestration can be more harmonised, holistic and in synch.
This ultimately means optimising business performance and maximising benefit realisation across the whole change portfolio of initiatives.
Download our table to understand more about how to influence and orchestrate change across the organisation using The Change Compass. The power is in using data to drive visibility, clarity, and understanding of how change impacts not just our employees, but also organisational partners, and customers. In this way, business units such as Strategy, Marketing, HR, Corporate Affairs, and Operations all have a role to play in orchestrating change.
