The topic of change is often inundated with literature stressing that it is about people, feeling, attitudes and behaviour. While these are important, lot of articles centred about the human-nature of change often ignore the importance of data during the change and transformation process. This is no different for the topic of employee readiness for change. People’s attitudes and behaviour need to be observed, measured and tracked during change.
Employee readiness for change is a critical factor that determines the outcome of organisational transformations. By leveraging data-driven insights, companies can proactively assess and enhance their employees’ preparedness, paving the way for smoother transitions and improved business results.
Let’s explore the concept of employee readiness for change and delve into strategies for using data to optimise readiness during transformations. We will discuss key metrics, change readiness assessments, employee engagement techniques, and real-time monitoring to help organisations navigate change effectively.
What is Employee Readiness for Change?
Employee readiness for change refers to the extent to which individuals within an organisation are prepared, willing, and capable of embracing and implementing change. It encompasses their understanding of the change, their motivation to support it, and their ability to adapt and perform effectively in the new environment.
Assessing employee readiness involves evaluating three key elements:
Organisational readiness: This aspect focuses on the company’s overall preparedness for change, including factors such as leadership commitment, resource availability, and clear objectives.
Open attitudes toward change: Gauging employees’ understanding and willingness to embrace change is crucial. Positive attitudes contribute to successful resistance management and building change readiness.
Individual readiness: On a personal level, assessing each employee’s readiness, willingness, and ability to adapt to change is essential. This involves considering their skills, knowledge, and emotional preparedness.
Note that individual readiness is only one component of the overall readiness. A lot of people only focus on this to the detriment of truly assessing the overall readiness.
By conducting a comprehensive assessment of these elements, organisations can gain valuable insights into their employees’ readiness for change. This information serves as a foundation for developing targeted strategies to enhance readiness and facilitate successful transformations.
How to Use Data to Improve Employee Readiness During Transformations
Harnessing the power of data analytics is essential for enhancing workforce preparedness during organisational transformations. By systematically gathering and interpreting relevant data, organisations can uncover potential obstacles and craft bespoke strategies to bolster readiness and ensure seamless transitions.
Determining Critical Metrics for Change Preparedness
To effectively utilize data, organisations must first establish the critical metrics that will serve as indicators of readiness. These metrics provide a foundation for assessing the current state and tracking future progress:
Engagement indices: Measure the degree to which employees are actively involved and invested in organisational activities. High engagement suggests a supportive environment for change initiatives.
Flexibility indicators: Evaluate employees’ capacity to adjust to new roles and technologies. This metric identifies those who may benefit from targeted support.
Completion rates of developmental programs: Monitor the percentage of the workforce completing essential training. This figure highlights areas where skill enhancement is necessary.
Executing a Holistic Change Preparedness Evaluation
With metrics in place, conduct a thorough evaluation of change preparedness at both organisational and individual levels. Utilize surveys, interviews, and focus groups to gather rich data. This comprehensive approach reveals resistance points and directs attention to intervention opportunities:
Cultural assessment: Analyse underlying cultural traits that influence how change is perceived and implemented. Insights into assertiveness and hierarchy can guide communication strategies.
Leadership analysis: Assess the readiness and skillset of leaders to champion change. Effective leadership is pivotal for the success of transformation efforts.
Enhancing Workforce Involvement Through Data Insights
Data-driven insights can significantly enhance employee involvement during periods of change. By examining workforce data, organisations can tailor communication and training to better resonate with their employees:
Customized messaging: Develop communication that speaks directly to the needs and concerns of various employee segments. This ensures messages are impactful and engaging.
Focused learning initiatives: Identify specific knowledge gaps and create targeted training programs. Customized learning enhances employees’ ability to adapt to change confidently.
Continuous Strategy Adaptation via Real-Time Data
Ongoing monitoring of strategy effectiveness through real-time analytics is vital. This continuous process allows organisations to refine their approaches based on evolving data patterns, maintaining high levels of readiness:
Regular data collection: Actively seek feedback from employees regarding their transition experiences. This input is crucial for identifying areas needing adjustment.
Dynamic decision-making: Leverage real-time (or least recent) data to inform strategic decisions and optimize change management initiatives, ensuring they remain aligned with organisational goals.
1. Identify Key Metrics for Change Readiness
Establishing a robust framework of metrics is fundamental to accurately gauge change readiness within an organisation. These metrics function as critical indicators, allowing leaders to monitor the pulse of their workforce during transformation initiatives. A well-defined set of metrics provides a structured approach to assessing readiness and identifying areas requiring attention.
Engagement Indicators
Evaluating employee engagement is crucial for understanding the workforce’s readiness for change. This involves gathering insights into how employees perceive their roles and the organisation’s objectives. A workforce that demonstrates high levels of commitment and enthusiasm tends to be more agile and supportive of change efforts. Methods such as employee sentiment analysis and engagement surveys can help capture these dynamics, offering a nuanced view of organisational health.
Flexibility Metrics
Flexibility metrics provide a window into the ease with which employees can transition to new processes and systems. This involves examining historical data on change adaptability and using tools like behavioural assessments to gauge employees’ readiness for new challenges. Understanding the flexibility of employees can guide targeted support and interventions, ensuring smoother transitions during organisational shifts.
Completion Rates of Educational Programs
Monitoring the completion rates of educational initiatives is essential to assess how prepared employees are for impending changes. This metric reflects the organisation’s dedication to equipping its workforce with the skills needed for transformation. Analysing completion data, alongside post-training assessments, can offer insights into the effectiveness of learning interventions and highlight areas for development.
Together, these metrics form a comprehensive picture of an organisation’s change readiness. By establishing a baseline for these indicators, organisations can track progress over time, adjusting strategies as necessary to enhance readiness and facilitate successful transformations.
2. Conduct a Comprehensive Change Readiness Assessment
To pave the way for a successful transformation, conducting a comprehensive change readiness assessment becomes imperative. This systematic evaluation delves into the organisation’s preparedness at both the macro and micro levels, providing insights that are critical for shaping effective change strategies. Utilizing a blend of qualitative and quantitative methods, the assessment illuminates the landscape of readiness, offering a strategic foundation for decision-making.
Strategic Evaluation Components
A multifaceted readiness assessment encompasses several strategic components, each designed to gather a holistic understanding of the organisational climate:
Cultural Insight Analysis: Delve into the organisational culture to uncover factors that may affect acceptance of change. This involves exploring existing communication styles, shared values, and prevalent behaviours that could influence the transformation journey. Gaining a clear picture of these cultural dynamics aids in crafting initiatives that resonate with the workforce’s inherent beliefs.
Leadership Capacity Evaluation: Determine the readiness and effectiveness of leadership in spearheading change efforts. Examine their ability to inspire and motivate, as well as their capacity to navigate the complexities of organisational transformation. Strong leadership commitment is essential for instilling confidence and guiding the organisation through change.
Resource Readiness Check: Evaluate the sufficiency and distribution of resources critical for supporting change initiatives. Consider the existing technological capabilities, financial support, and human resources available to drive the transformation. Addressing resource gaps early ensures that the organisation is well-prepared to meet the demands of change.
Analysing Data for Targeted Interventions
Upon gathering data through the readiness assessment, a thorough analysis is essential to uncover insights that inform strategic interventions. This analysis should focus on identifying potential resistance points and areas ripe for development:
Resistance Identification: Detect and chart areas where reluctance to change may manifest. Utilize employee feedback, trends from past projects, and current mood assessments to pinpoint these zones. Understanding these resistance factors allows for proactive measures to encourage acceptance and reduce pushback.
Opportunity Leveraging: Spot areas with high readiness levels that can be used to propel change efforts forward. Recognize organisational strengths and existing competencies that can be harnessed to support the transition. By leveraging these opportunities, organisations can accelerate progress and cultivate a culture of continuous growth.
Conducting a comprehensive change readiness assessment provides a strategic lens through which organisations can navigate the complexities of transformation. By systematically evaluating readiness and leveraging data-driven insights, organisations can craft tailored strategies that enhance employee preparedness and drive successful change outcomes.
3. Utilise Data Analytics to Foster Employee Engagement
Employing data analytics is essential to deepening employee involvement during change processes. By utilizing advanced analytical tools, organisations can uncover key drivers of motivation and engagement within their workforce. This enables the development of strategies that are not only data-informed but also tailored to enhance a culture of commitment and adaptability.
Strategic Communication Approaches
Data analytics offer organisations the ability to refine communication strategies in a way that aligns with the diverse preferences and needs of employees. By examining patterns in communication effectiveness and gathering feedback, companies can create messaging frameworks that are clear and meaningful. This strategic approach ensures that communication is not just disseminated but absorbed, fostering a sense of inclusion and understanding across the organisation.
Customised Development Pathways
Insights from analytics enable the design of development pathways that cater to the specific learning and growth needs of employees. Analysing performance metrics and capability assessments allows organisations to pinpoint where support is most needed, leading to bespoke development initiatives. These pathways not only address skill gaps but also promote a learning culture that equips employees for future challenges.
Ongoing Engagement Assessment
Real-time analytics provide a robust mechanism for continuously assessing employee engagement throughout the transformation journey. Establishing metrics that reflect engagement sentiment and participation levels helps organisations react swiftly to shifts in morale. This proactive engagement assessment ensures that initiatives remain aligned with employee expectations and organisational objectives, fostering a sustained commitment to change.
4. Monitor and Adapt Strategies Using Real-Time Data
Leveraging real-time data analytics is crucial for dynamically guiding change initiatives. This approach enables organisations to continuously evaluate the effectiveness of their strategies, ensuring they remain aligned with shifting business needs and employee expectations. By integrating adaptive feedback mechanisms, companies can refine their tactics, promoting an environment of agility and responsiveness.
Dynamic Data Acquisition
Establishing a robust system for dynamic data acquisition is essential to maintain an accurate understanding of organisational and employee dynamics. Real-time analytics platforms and dashboards provide comprehensive insights into change progress, such as engagement indices, performance metrics, and sentiment analysis. Regularly capturing this data allows organisations to proactively identify patterns and shifts that may influence the success of change initiatives.
Strategic Insights-Driven Adjustments
The insights obtained from real-time data empower organisations to make calculated adjustments to their strategies. This adaptive approach ensures that interventions remain pertinent and effective, addressing emerging challenges and capitalizing on new opportunities:
Incorporating Employee Perspectives: Integrate direct insights from employees into strategic refinements. Understanding their experiences and perceptions offers a nuanced perspective of the change process, allowing for precise enhancements.
Pattern Recognition: Use data patterns to recognize trends that may require strategic shifts. For example, a downward trend in engagement metrics could indicate the need for improved communication or support mechanisms.
Efficient Resource Deployment: Employ data insights to enhance resource deployment, ensuring that efforts are concentrated where they are most impactful. This targeted approach enhances the effectiveness of change initiatives and maximizes results.
Proactive Decision-Making
Real-time data analytics enable proactive decision-making, empowering leaders to swiftly adjust to evolving conditions. This capability is vital for sustaining momentum and ensuring that change efforts remain aligned with organisational objectives. By adopting a data-informed mindset, organisations can navigate the complexities of transformation with confidence and precision.
By harnessing the power of data analytics, organisations can proactively assess and enhance employee readiness during transformations, paving the way for smoother transitions and improved business outcomes. Embracing a data-driven approach to change management is no longer optional; it is a strategic imperative for organisations seeking to thrive in an ever-evolving landscape. If you’re ready to transform your change management processes and unlock the full potential of your workforce, chat to us to explore how we can help you leverage data and insights to navigate change with confidence and precision.
In today’s fast-paced business environment, most organizations are engaged in numerous change initiatives, including organizational transformation, simultaneously. These initiatives might range from digital transformation efforts to restructuring, new product launches, or cultural shifts. For change management practitioners and leaders, the challenge is not only to ensure each initiative succeeds but also to align these efforts strategically to maximize overall business benefit. Let’s explore practical strategies for aligning multiple initiatives and measuring change adoption, providing actionable insights for change practitioners and leaders.
The Complexity of Multiple Change Initiatives
The complexity of managing multiple change initiatives lies in the potential for overlap, conflicting priorities, and resource strain. Each initiative, while aiming to deliver specific benefits, competes for attention, time, and resources. Moreover, when several initiatives target similar business outcomes, it becomes challenging to attribute success to any single effort. Most business units are only measuring a certain number of business metrics, and with a large number of initiatives there will bound to be overlaps. This makes it essential to adopt a strategic approach that ensures alignment and optimal resource utilisation.
One of the most critical aspects of managing multiple change initiatives is measuring the adoption of each change. This involves not only tracking how well each initiative is being implemented but also creating a clear and detailed plan to understand its impact on the organization. The following strategies can help you effectively measure change adoption across various initiatives:
1. Establish Common Metrics
Establishing common metrics across all change initiatives is a foundational step in ensuring that change adoption is measured consistently and effectively. Common metrics provide a standardized way to evaluate progress, compare the success of different initiatives, and gain a holistic view of the organization’s overall change efforts. This approach allows for “apples-to-apples” comparisons, enabling senior leaders to make informed decisions about resource allocation, prioritization, and potential adjustments needed to maximize business benefits.
By identifying and applying a set of core metrics consistently across all change initiatives, organizations can better track the adoption process, identify areas where additional support may be needed, and ultimately ensure that changes are embedded successfully and sustainably.
Here’s a deeper look at some of the common metrics that can be established (note that we take a holistic and strategic lense in ‘adoption’, and not limiting adoption to the end of the project):
Employee Awareness and Understanding of the Change
Employee awareness and understanding are the first critical steps in the change adoption process. Without a clear understanding of what the change entails, why it is happening, and how it will impact their work, employees may experience discomfort and are unlikely to fully embrace the change. Measuring awareness and understanding helps ensure that communication efforts are effective and that employees have the necessary information to begin adopting the change.
Awareness Surveys: Regular surveys can be conducted to assess employees’ awareness of the change initiative. Questions can focus on whether employees are aware of the change, if they understand the reasons behind it, and if they can articulate the expected outcomes.
Knowledge Assessments: Beyond awareness, knowledge assessments can help gauge how well employees understand the details of the change. This could involve quizzes, interactive sessions, or discussions that test their understanding of new processes, tools, or organizational structures.
Communication Effectiveness: Track the effectiveness of communication campaigns through metrics such as email open rates, attendance at town halls or webinars, and engagement with internal communication platforms. High levels of engagement can indicate that employees are receiving and processing the information about the change.
Employee Engagement and Buy-in
Employee engagement and buy-in are essential for successful change adoption. If employees are not engaged or do not buy into the change, they are less likely to put in the effort needed to adopt new behaviours, processes, or tools, which decreases the chances of success. Measuring engagement and buy-in provides insight into how committed employees are to making the change successful.
Engagement Scores: Use engagement surveys to measure overall employee engagement levels before and after the change initiative. These scores can help you understand the impact of the change on employee morale and identify any groups that may need additional support.
Feedback Channels: Monitor and analyse feedback from employees through formal and informal channels. This includes responses to surveys, comments in focus groups, and feedback collected through suggestion boxes or digital platforms. The sentiment expressed in this feedback can be a strong indicator of buy-in.
Participation Rates: Track participation in change-related activities such as training sessions, workshops, and change champion programs. High participation rates typically indicate strong engagement and willingness to adopt the change.
Utilisation of New Systems, Processes, or Tools
The utilisation of new systems, processes, or tools introduced by a change initiative is a direct measure of adoption. If employees are not using the new tools or following the new processes, the change initiative cannot deliver its intended benefits. Measuring utilisation helps ensure that the changes are being practically applied in day-to-day operations.
System Usage Analytics: For technology-driven changes, track the usage of new systems through analytics. Metrics such as login frequency, time spent on the system, and the completion of key tasks can provide a clear picture of adoption.
Process Adherence: Implement tracking mechanisms to monitor adherence to new processes. This could involve audits, self-reporting, or the use of process management tools that track whether employees are following the new workflows.
Tool Adoption Rates: Measure the adoption rates of any new tools introduced as part of the change. This could include tracking the number of users, the frequency of use, and the breadth of functionality being utilised.
Proficiency in Applying the Change
Proficiency in applying the change is a crucial metric because it not only indicates whether employees are using the new systems, processes, or tools, but also how effectively they are using them. This metric helps ensure that employees have the necessary skills and competencies to fully leverage the change and achieve the desired outcomes.
Skill Assessments: Conduct skill assessments to measure employees’ proficiency in using new tools, systems, or processes. This could involve practical exams, simulations, or peer reviews where employees demonstrate their competency.
Performance Metrics: Monitor performance metrics related to the new processes or tools. For example, if a change initiative involves a new sales system, track metrics like sales conversion rates, the accuracy of data entry, or the speed of customer service resolution.
Certification Programs: Implement certification or accreditation programs where employees must demonstrate a certain level of proficiency to earn certification. Tracking the completion rates of these programs can indicate overall proficiency levels.
Realization of Expected Business Benefits
The ultimate goal of any change initiative is to realize clear goals and the expected business benefits, whether they be financial, operational, or strategic. Measuring the realization of these benefits provides a clear indication of the success of the change initiative and its impact on the organization.
Benefit Tracking: Establish specific, measurable business benefits for each change initiative, such as cost savings, revenue growth, improved customer satisfaction, or increased productivity. Each initiative should have clear objectives to track these metrics regularly and assess whether the change is delivering the expected outcomes.
ROI Analysis: Conduct return on investment (ROI) analysis for each initiative, comparing the costs of implementation against the benefits realized. This helps quantify the financial impact of the change and determine its overall value to the organization.
Outcome-Based Metrics: Focus on outcome-based metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with the organization’s strategic goals. For example, if a change initiative aims to improve customer experience, track customer satisfaction scores, retention rates, and repeat business.
Note that these may not be activities that change practitioners are leading within a project setting, however they should play a key part in contributing to the design and tracking of the adoption which then leads to the ultimate benefits.
Implementing Common Metrics in Practice
Implementing common metrics across multiple change initiatives requires a coordinated effort and a strong governance framework. Here are some practical steps to ensure that these metrics are applied effectively:
Alignment with Strategic Goals: Ensure that the selected metrics align with the organization’s broader strategic goals. This alignment helps prioritize initiatives and ensures that all change efforts contribute to the organization’s overall objectives.
Centralized Data Management: Establish a centralized data management system to collect, store, and analyze metrics across all initiatives. This system should allow for easy comparison and aggregation of data, providing a comprehensive view of change adoption.
Consistent Methodology: Develop a consistent methodology for measuring and reporting metrics. This includes standardized survey questions, data collection tools, and reporting formats to ensure that metrics are comparable across different initiatives.
Continuous Monitoring and Reporting: Regularly monitor and report on the metrics to track progress and identify any areas of concern. Strong leadership is essential in using dashboards and scorecards to provide real-time visibility into change adoption across the organization.
Feedback and Adjustment: Use the insights gained from these metrics to provide feedback to initiative leaders and make necessary adjustments. Continuous improvement is key to ensuring that change initiatives remain on track and deliver the expected benefits.
Implementing metric tracking can be a very manual and labour intensive process. However, there are various digital tools that can be leverage to automate the data capture and streamline the data analysis and insight generation process. Chat to us to find out how The Change Compass can help.
2. Conduct Regular Assessments
Regular assessments are critical to understanding how well each initiative is being adopted and its impact on the organisation. These assessments should be scheduled at key milestones and involve both quantitative and qualitative evaluation.
Pulse Surveys: Conduct pulse surveys at regular intervals to gauge employee sentiment and engagement with each initiative. These short, focused surveys can provide real-time insights into how changes are being received and where additional support may be needed. However do note that pulse survey in themselves may only provide very superficial insights without the depth that may be required to understand the ‘why’ or ‘how’.
Performance Reviews: Where possible integrate change adoption metrics into regular performance reviews. This ensures that the impact of initiatives is continuously monitored and that any issues are addressed promptly.
Change Audits: Periodically perform change audits to assess the effectiveness of each initiative. This involves reviewing processes, outcomes, and feedback to determine whether the change is being adopted as intended.
3. Leverage Existing Channels
Leverage existing communication and feedback channels to measure adoption. This approach ensures that you are not overloading employees with new processes and allows for seamless integration into their daily routines.
Employee Feedback Platforms: Utilise platforms already in place, such as intranet forums like Yammer, suggestion inboxes, or regular team meetings, to gather feedback on change initiatives. This feedback can provide valuable insights into adoption levels and potential areas of resistance.
Usage Analytics: For technology-driven initiatives, use existing analytics tools to monitor system usage and user behaviour. This can help identify adoption rates and areas where additional training or support may be needed.
Regular Check-ins: Integrate adoption tracking into regular team check-ins. This allows managers to discuss progress with their teams and identify any challenges early on.
4. Quantify Qualitative Data
While quantitative metrics are essential, qualitative data provides context and deeper insights into how changes are being adopted. It’s important to develop methods to quantify this qualitative data to better understand the impact of your initiatives. Quantitative data are easier to present, and may be more memorable to your stakeholders.
Sentiment Analysis: Use sentiment analysis tools to analyse employee feedback, comments from surveys, or even social media mentions. This helps quantify the overall sentiment towards each initiative, providing a clearer picture of adoption.
Focus Groups: Conduct focus groups to gather in-depth feedback on specific initiatives. While this data is qualitative, you can quantify it by categorizing responses into themes and measuring the frequency of each theme.
Narrative Metrics: Develop narrative metrics that capture the stories behind the numbers. For example, if an initiative aims to improve customer service, track success stories where employees went above and beyond as a result of the new changes.
5. Analyse Trends and Patterns
Analysing trends and patterns over time is essential for understanding the broader impact of multiple initiatives. By looking at adoption data longitudinally, you can identify which initiatives are driving long-term change and which may require adjustments.
Adoption Trajectories: Track the adoption trajectories of each initiative. Are there certain initiatives that show rapid early adoption but then plateau? Understanding these patterns can help refine strategies to sustain momentum.
Cross-Initiative Analysis: Compare adoption trends across different initiatives. Look for correlations or conflicts between initiatives. For example, if one initiative shows strong adoption while another lags, investigate whether they are competing for the same resources or if there is confusion about priorities.
Predictive Analytics: Use predictive analytics to forecast future adoption trends based on historical data. This can help in proactive decision-making and resource allocation. This is absolutely the value of data, when you have historical data you can easily forecast what lies ahead and provide an overlay for change portfolio consideration during business planning cycles.
6. Communicate Progress Transparently
Transparent communication is vital for building trust and ensuring that everyone in the organization is aware of the progress of each initiative. This helps in aligning efforts and maintaining momentum.
Regular Updates: Provide regular updates on the progress of each initiative. Use a variety of channels such as newsletters, town halls, or internal social media to keep everyone informed.
Success Stories: Share success stories that highlight the benefits of adoption. This not only celebrates achievements but also reinforces the value of the initiatives and encourages further adoption.
Dashboard Reporting: Develop a dashboard that tracks and displays adoption metrics for all initiatives in real-time. Make this dashboard accessible to key stakeholders to ensure transparency and accountability.
7. Establish a Governance Framework
A governance framework is essential for coordinating multiple initiatives and ensuring that they are aligned with the organization’s strategic goals. This framework should provide structure, oversight, and guidance for all change efforts.
Steering Committees: Establish steering committees composed of senior leaders who oversee the progress of all initiatives. These committees should ensure that initiatives are aligned with business objectives and that resources are appropriately allocated.
Change Champions: Identify change champions within the organization who can advocate for adoption and provide support to their peers. These individuals play a crucial role in driving change from within and ensuring alignment across initiatives, similar to a strong leadership team.
Standardised Processes: Develop standardized business processes for planning, implementing, and measuring change initiatives. This ensures consistency and allows for more effective comparison and integration of efforts. In establishing the right routines they become embedded within business practices and are not seen as an ‘additional effort required’ on top of their day-jobs.
Aligning Multiple Initiatives for Maximum Business Benefit
While measuring adoption is crucial, aligning multiple initiatives to maximize business benefits is the ultimate goal. Here are key strategies to ensure alignment:
1. Prioritise Initiatives Based on Strategic Value
Not all initiatives are created equal. Prioritising initiatives based on their strategic value ensures that resources are allocated effectively and that the most critical changes receive the attention they deserve.
Value Assessment: Conduct a value assessment for each initiative to determine its potential impact on the organization’s strategic goals. Focus on initiatives that align most closely with these goals.
Resource Allocation: Allocate resources based on the strategic value of each initiative. This may involve dedicating more resources to high-priority initiatives while scaling back on others.
Phased Implementation: Consider implementing high-priority initiatives in phases. This allows you to focus efforts on achieving quick wins, which can build momentum for broader change.
Integration of change initiatives is essential to avoid duplication of efforts and to ensure that all initiatives are working towards common goals. This requires a coordinated approach and effective communication across initiatives and stakeholders.
Change Integration Plan: Develop a change integration plan that outlines how different initiatives will work together. This plan should identify potential overlaps and ensure that all initiatives are aligned. It could be that lower prioritised initiatives be pushed out making the runway for more strategic initiatives with higher priorities. It could also be ‘packaging’ change releases across different initiatives where they make sense to deliver change to the impacted teams in a more cohesive and easier-to-digest manner, similar to a comprehensive change management plan. This may be due to the nature of the changes or the volume and capacity required in the impact of the changes.
Cross-Functional Teams: Establish cross-functional teams to oversee the integration of initiatives. These teams should include team members who are representatives from each initiative to ensure collaboration and alignment. Ideally, cross-functional forums already exist and this is just tapping into an existing channel.
Unified Communication Strategy: Create a unified communication strategy that aligns messaging across initiatives. This helps avoid confusion and ensures that employees receive consistent information. To do this, data is required to be able to have a clear view in terms of communication content and planned releases.
3. Monitor and Adjust in Real-Time
The business environment is dynamic, and change initiatives need to be adaptable. Monitoring progress in real-time and being willing to adjust strategies is crucial for success. At a minimum, set up routine reporting timelines so that data and reporting are harmonised and embedded within the operating rhythms of those involved.
Real-Time Monitoring: Use real-time data to monitor the progress of each initiative within the change process. This allows you to identify issues early and make adjustments as needed.
Agile Approach: Adopt an agile approach to change management, where initiatives are continuously reviewed and adjusted based on feedback and changing circumstances.
Flexibility in Execution: Be prepared to pivot if an initiative is not delivering the expected results or needs to be adjusted based on the challenges of impacted business teams. This might involve reallocating resources, adjusting timelines, or even pausing initiatives that are not aligned with current business needs.
Successfully managing and aligning multiple change initiatives is a complex but achievable task. By establishing common metrics, conducting regular assessments, leveraging existing channels, and quantifying qualitative data, you can effectively measure adoption. Aligning initiatives for maximum business benefit requires prioritisation, integration, and real-time monitoring. For change management practitioners and leaders, these strategies are essential for driving organisational success in a world of increased rate of change. By strategically aligning multiple initiatives, you can ensure that the organisation not only adapts to change but thrives in it.
Though not elaborated, what is inherent in this article is the importance of behaviour in adoption, understanding it, and measuring it. To read more about driving behaviour change check out The Ultimate Guide to Behaviour Change.
Organisational change management professionals are increasingly requested to provide measurement, data, and insights to various stakeholder groups. Not only does this include tracking various change management outcomes such as business readiness or adoption, but stakeholder concerns also include such as change saturation and visibility of incoming initiative impacts.
To become better at working with data there is much that change managers can learn best practices from data scientists (without becoming one of course). Let’s explore how change management can benefit from the practices and methodologies employed by data scientists, focusing on time allocation, digital tools, system building, hypothesis-led approaches, and the growing need for data and analytical capabilities.
Data scientists spend a substantial portion of their time on data collection and cleansing from data sources. According to industry estimates, about 60-80% of a data scientist’s time is dedicated to these tasks. This meticulous process ensures that the data used for analysis is accurate, complete, and reliable.
In the below diagram from researchgate.net you can see that for data scientists the vast majority of the time is spent on collecting, cleansing and organising data.
You might say that change managers are not data scientists because the work nature is different, and therefore should not need to carve out time for these activities? Well, it turns out that the type of activities and proportions of time spent is similar across a range of data professionals, including business analysts.
Below is the survey results published by Business Broadway, showing that even business analysts and data analysts spend significant time in data collection, cleansing, and preparation.
Lessons for Change Management
a. Emphasize Data Collection and Cleansing: For change managers, this translates to prioritizing the collection of reliable data related to change initiatives as a part of a structured approach. This might include stakeholder feedback, performance metrics, impact data and other relevant data points. Clean data is essential for accurate analysis and insightful decision-making. Data projects undertaken by change managers are not going to be as large or as complex as data scientists, however the key takeaway is that this part of the work is critical and sufficient time should be allocated and not skipped.
What is data change management and why is it important?
Data change management involves overseeing and controlling changes in data systems to ensure accuracy and consistency. It’s crucial for minimizing errors, maintaining data integrity, and enhancing decision-making processes. Effective management safeguards against potential risks associated with data alterations, ensuring organizations can adapt to shifts in information seamlessly.
b. Allocate Time Wisely: Just as data scientists allocate significant time to data preparation, change managers should also dedicate sufficient time to gathering and cleaning data before diving into analysis. This ensures that the insights derived are based on accurate and reliable information.
It also depends on the data topic and your audience. If you are presenting comparative data, for example, change volume across different business units. You may be able to do spot checks on the data and not verify every data line. However, if you are presenting to operations business units like call centres where they are very sensitive to time and capacity challenges, you may need to go quite granular in terms of exactly what the time impost is across initiatives.
c. Training and Awareness: Ensuring that the change management team understands the importance of data quality and is trained in basic data cleansing techniques can go a long way in improving the overall effectiveness of change initiatives in the desired future state. Think of scheduling regular data sessions/workshops to review and present data observations and findings to enhance the team’s ability to capture accurate data as well as the ability to interpret and apply insights. The more capable the team is in understanding data, the more value they can add to their stakeholders leveraging data insights.
2. Leveraging Digital Tools: Enhancing Efficiency and Accuracy
Data scientists rely on a variety of digital tools to streamline their work. These tools assist in data collection, auditing, visualization, and insight generation. AI and machine learning technologies are increasingly being used to automate and enhance these processes.
Data scientists rely on various programming, machine learning and data visualisation such as SQL, Python, Jupyter, R as well as various charting tools.
a. Adopt Digital Tools: Change managers should leverage digital tools to support each phase of their data work. There are plenty of digital tools out there for various tasks such as surveys, data analysis and reporting tools.
For example, Change Compass has built-in data analysis, data interpretation, data audit, AI and other tools to help streamline and reduce manual efforts across various data work steps. However, once again even with automation and AI the work of data checking and cleansing does not go away. It becomes even more important.
b. Utilize AI and Machine Learning: AI can play a crucial role in automating repetitive tasks, identifying patterns, data outliers, and generating insights. For example, AI-driven analytics tools can help predict potential change saturation, level of employee adoption or identify areas needing additional support during various phases of change initiatives.
With Change Compass for example, AI may be leverage to summarise data, call out key risks, generate data, and forecast future trends.
c. Continuous Learning: Continuous learning is essential for ensuring that change management teams stay adept at handling data and generating valuable insights. With greater stakeholder expectations and demands, regular training sessions on the latest data management practices and techniques can be helpful. These sessions can cover a wide range of topics, including data collection methodologies, data cleansing techniques, data visualisation techniques and the use of AI and machine learning for predictive analytics. By fostering a culture of continuous learning, organizations can ensure that their change management teams remain proficient in leveraging data for driving effective change.
In addition to formal training, creating opportunities for hands-on experience with real-world data can significantly enhance the learning process. For instance, change teams can work on pilot projects where they apply new data analysis techniques to solve specific challenges within the organization. Regular knowledge-sharing sessions, where team members present case studies and share insights from their experiences, can also promote collective learning and continuous improvement.
Furthermore, fostering collaboration between change managers and data scientists or data analysts can provide invaluable mentorship and cross-functional learning opportunities. By investing in continuous learning and development, organizations can build a change management function that is not only skilled in data management but also adept at generating actionable insights that drive successful change initiatives.
3. Building the Right System: Ensuring Sustainable Insight Generation
It is not just about individuals or teams working on data. A robust system is vital for ongoing insight generation. This involves creating processes for data collection, auditing, cleansing, and establishing data governance and governance bodies to manage and report on data.
Governance structures play a vital role in managing and reporting data. Establishing governance bodies ensures that there is accountability and oversight in data management practices. These bodies can develop and enforce data policies, and oversee data quality initiatives. They can also be responsible for supporting the management of a central data repository where all relevant data is stored and managed.
a. Establish Clear Processes: Develop and document processes for collecting and managing data related to change initiatives and document any new processes. This ensures consistency and reliability in data handling. There should also be effective communication of these processes using designated communication channels to ensure smooth transition and adherence.
b. Implement Governance Structures: Set up governance bodies to oversee data governance practices as a part of data governance efforts. This includes ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations and maintaining data integrity. The governance can sponsor the investment and usage of the change data platform. This repository should be accessible to stakeholders involved in the change management process, promoting transparency and collaboration. Note that a governance group can simply be a leadership team regular team meeting and does not need to be necessarily creating a special committee. Data governance group members (potentially representative business owners) foster a sense of ownership and can be empowered to resolve potential issues with data and usage. Key performance indicators and key change indicators may be setup as goals.
c. Invest in system Infrastructure: Build the necessary system infrastructure to support data management and analysis that is easy to use and provides the features to support insight generation and application for the change team.
Data scientists and data teams often use a hypothesis-led approach, where they test, reject, or confirm hypotheses using data. This method goes beyond simply reporting what the data shows to understanding the underlying causes and implications.
a. Define Hypotheses: Before analyzing data, clearly define the hypotheses you want to test. For instance, if there is a hypothesis that there is a risk of too much change in Department A, specify the data needed to test this hypothesis.
b. Use Data to Confirm or Reject Hypotheses: Collect and analyze data to confirm or reject your hypotheses. This approach helps in making informed decisions rather than relying on assumptions or certain stakeholder opinions.
c. Focus on Actionable Insights: Hypothesis-led analysis often leads to more actionable insights. It is also easier to use this approach to dispel any myths of false perceptions.
For example: Resolving Lack of Adoption
Hypothesis: The lack of adoption of a new software tool in the organization is due to insufficient coaching and support for employees.
Data Collection:
Gather data on the presence of managerial coaching and perceived quality. Also gather data on post go live user support.
Collect feedback from employees through surveys regarding the adequacy and clarity of coaching and support.
Analyse usage data of the new software to identify adoption rates across different departments.
Analysis:
Compare adoption rates between employees who received sufficient coaching and support versus those who did not.
Correlate feedback scores on training effectiveness with usage data to see if those who found the training useful are more likely to adopt the tool.
Segment data by department to identify if certain teams have lower adoption rates and investigate their specific training experiences.
Actionable Insights:
If data shows a positive correlation between coaching and support, and software adoption, this supports the hypothesis that enhancing coaching and support programs can improve adoption rates.
If certain departments show lower adoption despite completing coaching sessions, investigate further into department-specific issues such as workload or differing processes that may affect adoption.
Implement targeted interventions such as additional training sessions, one-on-one support, or improved training materials for departments with low adoption rates.
5. Building Data and Analytical Capabilities: A Core Need for Change Management
As data and analytical capabilities become increasingly crucial, change management functions must build the necessary people and process capabilities to leverage data-based insights effectively.
a. Invest in Training: Equip change management teams with the skills needed to manage data and generate insights. This includes training in data analysis, visualization, and interpretation.
b. Foster a Data-Driven Culture: A lot of organisations are already on the bandwagon to encourage a culture where data is valued and used for decision-making from current state to future state. The change process needs to promote this equally within the change management function. This involves promoting the use of data in everyday tasks and ensuring that all team members understand its importance. Think of incorporating data-led discussions into routine meeting meetings.
c. Develop Analytical Frameworks: Create frameworks and methodologies for analyzing change management data. This includes defining common key metrics, setting benchmarks, and establishing protocols for data collection and analysis for change data. Data and visual templates may be easier to follow for those with lower capabilities in data analytics.
Practical Steps to Implement Data-Driven Change Management
To integrate these lessons effectively, senior change practitioners can follow these practical steps:
Develop a Data Strategy: Create a comprehensive data strategy that outlines the processes, tools, and governance structures needed to manage change management data effectively.
Conduct a Data Audit: Begin by auditing the existing data related to change management. Identify gaps and areas for improvement.
Adopt a Hypothesis-Led Approach: Encourage the use of hypothesis-led approaches to move beyond descriptive analytics and derive more meaningful insights.
Invest in Technology: Invest in the necessary digital tools and technologies to support data collection, cleansing, visualization, and analysis.
Train the Team: Provide training and development opportunities for the change management team to build their data and analytical capabilities.
Collaborate Across Functions: Foster collaboration between change management and data science teams to leverage their expertise and insights.
Implement Governance Structures: Establish governance bodies to oversee data management practices and ensure compliance with regulations and standards.
By learning from the practices and methodologies of data scientists, change management functions can significantly enhance their effectiveness. Prioritizing data collection and cleansing, leveraging digital tools, building robust systems, adopting hypothesis-led approaches, and developing data and analytical capabilities are key strategies that change management teams can implement. By doing so, they can ensure that their change initiatives are data-driven, insightful, and impactful, ultimately leading to better business outcomes.
It used to be that change management is the ‘poor’, neglected cousin of other disciplines in terms of access to functional software to assist in its performance across every aspect of change and risk management. There is a wide range of software available for a range of project management disciplines such as, business analysis, testing, project management, portfolio management, etc. However, for change management, the pickings have been almost non-existent 10 years ago.
Fast forward to 2022, there is now a handful of change management software in the market to assist with various work categories for the change manager. However, there is still ways to go in the understand of organisational change management in the marketplace. Compilations of change management software offering on the internet is usually a mixture of all types of software, many of which are not organisational change management in nature, and instead, technical change management (used by IT folks). For example https://orgmapper.com/change-management-tool/
How does a change management process help a company?
A change management process helps a company by providing a structured approach to minimizing disruptions and transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It minimizes resistance, enhances communication, and ensures that changes align with business goals, ultimately leading to smoother transitions and improved outcomes.
How can change management software help the change practitioner?
What is the implementation of change management?
The implementation of change management involves a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It includes strategies for managing resistance, communication plans, and training initiatives to ensure that changes are adopted effectively and sustainable within the organization.
Project change delivery
The vast majority of change management professionals in the industry are focused on delivering projects and implementing effective change management strategies to enable them to make an informed decision about their approach. It’s no wonder that most change management tools, including project management software and various change tools, are focused to support the entire change process and project delivery as a result, maintaining consistency throughout all initiatives. What are some of the areas in which project change delivery work can be made easier by software?
1. Automating change management deliverable work
A significant part of the work of change management professionals is spent on preparing for and documenting a clear roadmap of change management deliverables. These include detailed impact assessment, learning plan, stakeholder matrix, and type of change plans, etc. These deliverables are critical documents which are critical dependency for other project milestones. For example, stakeholder analysis and matrix is critical before broader stakeholder engagement can be made, since the analysis reveals who the stakeholders are and how they may be engaged throughout the change process.
One of the biggest pains faced by change management professionals is the amount of time required to manually create these deliverable documents. The work can be tedious, requiring weeks of manual work to complete. For example, the stakeholder matrix document can be a brain-numbing piece of activity, wading through a data dump of the organisational directory to determine every Tom, Dick and Harry which titles and names should be included in the stakeholder list for the project. Then, a lot of similar information then must be re-typed and entered into different versions in other change management deliverable documents such as detailed impact assessment or learning needs analysis, ultimately affecting customer satisfaction.
Software can automate much of the manual work involved. For example, Change Automator, a robust workflow automation software, allows the ease of use to link data already captured earlier on in the project, such as the relevant stakeholders matrix, with other change management deliverables such as detailed impact assessment, to ensure the right people are involved and to minimise manual re-work. With the ability to track changes, any data updated in one document will therefore update content in other documents, including integrations with tools like Power BI. This then saves on the tedious re-work required when data is updated or changes, which is pretty much a given throughout the project lifecycle. From a quality perspective, this also ensures any human-error is reduced in the data that should be synchronised across documents.
A common risk in change management delivery is that stakeholders may be left out inadvertently, or that a previously captured stakeholder in the stakeholder matrix is left out in the engagement process due to human-error. The impact of this type of error can be disastrous to the outcome of the project. Having cross-linked documents in one central place reduces the risk for this type of error.
2. Change management survey (readiness and adoption)
A key part of change management success is through careful monitoring of stakeholders throughout the change process to ensure visibility. In the earlier part of the project, this involves understanding to what extent stakeholders may be clear of the objectives of the project, their roles in it, and general awareness. Later on in the project, it could be more on understanding their engagement level of support which can be a predictor of ultimate adoption and overall support for the change. This overall change readiness level should be monitored across the project through surveys or interviews.
Surveys are inherently time consuming to design, administer and report manually. Significant time can be taken throughout each phase of the survey process. This is a no-brainer in terms of using a software tool. Most projects use Microsoft Forms or SurveyMonkey to do the job. However, you may want more robust features such as conditional question design, for example, if a respondent answers ‘yes’ for not supporting the change, then an additional question pops up to ask why.
Surveys can include sentiment analysis where the focus of the survey is on any shifts in stakeholder feelings and attitudes toward the project. In this case, it is critical to define in detail the characters of each stakeholder group in concern. These would then determine respondent characteristics to measure in the survey design.
There are also tools that measure employee sentiments through corporate social media channels such as Yammer and Teams. For example, Swoop Analytics can help to measure collaboration styles and other behavioural insights about how employees interact with each other on those channels. The data map can reveal key influencers and core influential network connectors.
The biggest value of change surveys lies in the reporting. Most survey tools offer fairly simple reporting using bar charts or pie charts. For short, simple surveys these may suffice. However, if you are working on a fairly detailed change adoption tracking survey, more advanced reporting features may be required. You may want to easily change the colour scheme of the chart, change different chart types, identify anomalies and trends, or highlight certain parts of the data to make it easier for your audience.
3. Project change reporting
Having the ease and flexibility of experimenting with different chart designs is critical for stakeholder impact. If you need hours of work to come up with a few charts the likelihood is that you will not bother. Some stakeholders may also have various personal preferences which can easily take significant time to modify. This is especially when you need the time to focus on engaging with your stakeholders, rather than tweaking excel spreadsheets.
Creating the right AI dashboard can create significant impact on stakeholders and help achieve your change objectives. Data speaks for itself and the right data visualisation can create memorable impact more than words alone. If you are driving toward change adoption, then having an AI-enhanced dashboard of core behaviour changes and tracked capability shifts, along with key metrics and key features, can act as a core part of change governance conversations. With a monthly cadence of reviewing these core data points, stakeholders can hold each other accountable to understand remaining work involved and zoom in on how to drive full change adoption.
Change reporting may not be limited to just survey results. Even seemingly ‘boring’ spreadsheet data such as detailed impact assessment may be easily turned into highly visual and interesting reports to help stakeholders understand what the changes mean and how different groups are impacted by the change.
One of the more popular ways in which change delivery has adopted software is in leveraging digital tools that provide functions to onboard or train users of new or changed systems. There are numerous providers in this area. These include WalkMe, UserGuiding, and Userlane.
Most of the tools provide similar functions to help walk users through interfaces of the system and even allow interactive experience where users can be tested in clicking on the right part of the system as a part of the training or onboarding process. The application is always for system interfaces since the tool only supports web-based systems.
Change capability
Another way in which change management software may assist change practitioners is in building change management capabilities related to change capability and documentation methodologies. There are various tools that help to measure, track, and report on change management activities and assess the impact of change initiatives, including key performance indicators and change impact analysis. This clarity could be that you would like to measure the change leadership skills of leaders, change alignment agility of stakeholder groups, or test employees as a part of skills assessment to ensure they have the right skills for the new system or process.
Using change management software, you can easily pre-program test items and answers to make it easy for yourself to score and tabulate audit test results without any manual work. You can also assign weightings to different questions to evaluate the capability of the respondent as a part of an assessment. You can even configure the assessment to provide results to the respondent at the end of the assessment, and email the feedback as well. Generally, these features are only offered as a part of a learning management system where significant time and effort is required to prepare the system for the assessment. Now, digital tools offer easy point-and-click features, with pre-configured templates saving you significant time and cost.
Change portfolio management
Managing a portfolio of initiatives used to be an approach only adopted by more mature organisations. However, with the rapid pace and intensity of changes, more and more organisations are adopting this approach to manage multiple initiatives.
Managing a portfolio of initiatives can only be done via data. There is already a myriad of project portfolio management systems in the market to help PMOs and project portfolio managers manage a slew of initiatives. The focus of project portfolio management systems is on project timelines, cost, resourcing, etc.
Change portfolio management focuses on the impact of changes and how they may impact the organisation across initiatives. There is also focus on change delivery resourcing and change capability development. One of the most critical pain points faced by organisations is change saturation and change fatigue. To better manage a portfolio of initiatives from a change perspective and manage potential change saturation, data is required.
Effective change portfolio management tools can help you:
Identify and plot change saturation points for different parts of the organisation
Identify risk levels of potential change saturation across roles, locations, layers of the organisations, etc.
Assess to what extent changes may be better delivered as an integrated package to one part of the organisation, or broken down to smaller, more digestable chunks
Assess to what extent changes may be better aligned and delivered through integrated messaging from an impacted stakeholder perspective (vs. from project perspective)
In summary, there are many strong reasons why change management professionals should adopt digital change management solutions to achieve greater change outcomes as well as to automate the tedious parts of the work to gain time to spend with stakeholders. With the ever increasing pace of digitisation in organisations, change management must also follow suit in digitising itself. Just as we could use modern fabrication techniques to build skyscrapers that are stronger and more resilient vs using traditional brick and mortar, so should change managers in leveraging digital tools to support digital transformations.
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.
