Difference between revisions of "Change Initiatives"

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	<h2>Introduction</h2>		<h2>Introduction</h2>
−	<p>'''[http://eitbokwiki.org/Glossary#eit Enterprise information technology (EIT)]'''projects are rarely just about changes in technology. Projects that increase business value always involve an array of people &mdash; the [http://eitbokwiki.org/Glossary#stakeholder stakeholders]. </p>	+	<p>'''[http://eitbokwiki.org/Glossary#eit Enterprise information technology (EIT)]''' projects are rarely just about changes in technology. Projects that increase business value always involve an array of people &mdash; the [http://eitbokwiki.org/Glossary#stakeholder stakeholders]. </p>
	<p>The greatest risk to the successful implementation of a change project initiative is the failure to take into consideration major aspects of ''[http://eitbokwiki.org/Glossary#ocm organizational change management (OCM)]''. Poor communications, inadequate training, insufficient workforce planning, or fear of the unknown future state can lead to a lack of acceptance of business changes and poor performance at the end-user level. In some cases, failure to provide for adequate organizational change-management planning can result in the loss of millions of dollars in a failed or delayed implementation.</p>		<p>The greatest risk to the successful implementation of a change project initiative is the failure to take into consideration major aspects of ''[http://eitbokwiki.org/Glossary#ocm organizational change management (OCM)]''. Poor communications, inadequate training, insufficient workforce planning, or fear of the unknown future state can lead to a lack of acceptance of business changes and poor performance at the end-user level. In some cases, failure to provide for adequate organizational change-management planning can result in the loss of millions of dollars in a failed or delayed implementation.</p>
	<p>[http://eitbokwiki.org/Glossary#ocm OCM] encompasses all activities aimed at helping the people within an organization successfully accept and adopt new technologies, accept changes to how they perform their job, and design new ways to serve their customers. The change itself is defined in the EIT strategic planning process as described in the [http://eitbokwiki.org/Strategy_and_Governance Change Strategy and Governance chapter] and, if needed, can be broken down into more than one project (either sequential or parallel) as the team examines the types and spans of the details of the needed changes. (Specific details for the EIT changes are defined in the [http://eitbokwiki.org/Requirements Requirements chapter].) Effective change management enables the transformation of strategy, processes, technology, and people to enhance performance and ensure continuous improvement in an ever-changing environment. A comprehensive and structured approach to organizational change management is critical to the success of any project that brings about significant change.</p>		<p>[http://eitbokwiki.org/Glossary#ocm OCM] encompasses all activities aimed at helping the people within an organization successfully accept and adopt new technologies, accept changes to how they perform their job, and design new ways to serve their customers. The change itself is defined in the EIT strategic planning process as described in the [http://eitbokwiki.org/Strategy_and_Governance Change Strategy and Governance chapter] and, if needed, can be broken down into more than one project (either sequential or parallel) as the team examines the types and spans of the details of the needed changes. (Specific details for the EIT changes are defined in the [http://eitbokwiki.org/Requirements Requirements chapter].) Effective change management enables the transformation of strategy, processes, technology, and people to enhance performance and ensure continuous improvement in an ever-changing environment. A comprehensive and structured approach to organizational change management is critical to the success of any project that brings about significant change.</p>

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Revision as of 07:36, 4 February 2016

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1 Introduction

Enterprise information technology (EIT) projects are rarely just about changes in technology. Projects that increase business value always involve an array of people — the stakeholders.

The greatest risk to the successful implementation of a change project initiative is the failure to take into consideration major aspects of organizational change management (OCM). Poor communications, inadequate training, insufficient workforce planning, or fear of the unknown future state can lead to a lack of acceptance of business changes and poor performance at the end-user level. In some cases, failure to provide for adequate organizational change-management planning can result in the loss of millions of dollars in a failed or delayed implementation.

OCM encompasses all activities aimed at helping the people within an organization successfully accept and adopt new technologies, accept changes to how they perform their job, and design new ways to serve their customers. The change itself is defined in the EIT strategic planning process as described in the Change Strategy and Governance chapter and, if needed, can be broken down into more than one project (either sequential or parallel) as the team examines the types and spans of the details of the needed changes. (Specific details for the EIT changes are defined in the Requirements chapter.) Effective change management enables the transformation of strategy, processes, technology, and people to enhance performance and ensure continuous improvement in an ever-changing environment. A comprehensive and structured approach to organizational change management is critical to the success of any project that brings about significant change.

OCM is a continual process that is embedded within a project at every stage. The change-management approach can include performing change impact analysis, organizational change readiness, organizational effectiveness, communication, and stakeholder and process assessments.

The activities associated with organizational change management should be integrated and executed under the umbrella of the portfolio management discipline. Portfolio management’s purpose is to ensure that all EIT projects directly support an organizational strategy and that a consistent prioritization process is used to initialize projects, whether for new or sustainment activities.

2 Goals and Principles

The OCM model follows three guiding principles:

• Principle 1: Change is decentralized — OCM activities such as communications, leadership alignment, impact identification, organization redesign, role definition, and role mapping are embedded within the process of change. All team members are involved in these activities as a natural aspect of their work. This means focusing the work of change where it is happening. This approach increases buy in. The organization coordinates and orchestrates these efforts and facilitates the identification and mitigation of issues throughout the project life cycle from initiation to institutionalization of the change into the day-to-day operation of the organization.
• Principle 2: The business must own the solution — Ownership includes both ownership of the project’s solution and ownership of its successful implementation from a site readiness perspective. This is achieved through robust stakeholder management, ongoing and timely communication, and training and development of the target organizational unit’s workforce and management.
• Principle 3: Success is based on outcomes, not simply deliverables — This approach helps the organization understand the impacts, identify the local issues, and address the issues before they become unmanageable. The success of organizational change management is measured relative to the growing increase in commitment of the employees affected by the change, that they know how to use the new system, step into new roles and responsibilities, and adopt new processes as the way of doing business going forward.

3 Context Diagram

Figure 1. Organizational Change Management

4 Levels of Organizational Change Management

There are typically multiple levels of change management within an organization. These levels span the organizational structure from strategic OCM focused on the roles and responsibilities of senior leaders to drive change throughout the organization, to project-level change management, and down to the individual. The individual in the organization is a key element that is often overlooked and it is at the individual level where the change becomes the most “real” or tangible. Addressing the needs of individuals undergoing change is a key component of success. Portfolio-level change management views the changes occurring across the organization in a holistic and integrated manner.

5 Strategic Organizational Change Management

The six key phases described below represent the core strategic OCM approach to assessing, planning, generating, executing, and evaluating the work of organizational change.

Figure 2. Strategic Organizational Change Management

• Establish change-focused leadership — Research has repeatedly confirmed that the presence and guidance of leaders during periods of intense organizational change is a critical factor in the success of change. OCM assesses the change-leadership needs, trains and coaches for those needs, and promotes leadership engagement throughout the project as a core accelerator of successful change.
• Assess change — OCM performs in-depth assessments of the organization’s readiness for change and analysis of key stakeholder needs and business impacts of the change. The assessments provide qualitative and quantitative data that lead to comprehensive and effective OCM planning and execution.
• Align executives — OCM facilitates the alignment of the organization’s leaders with the project mission, vision, and key success metrics that drive consistent communication and aligned behavior of organizational change agents. The results are increased organizational confidence and positive momentum in support of the change initiative.
• Translate and communicate — OCM team members including the change manager, training and communications support, sponsor, and other key stakeholders translate knowledge gained from the assessment and alignment activities into detailed plans that define how stakeholders are informed of project goals, progress, and impacts, as well as how stakeholders are prepared to function successfully in the new environment. These plans should include the elements described in the table below.

Plan	Definition
Master change plan	Provides an overview of the business reasons for change. Also describes the change-management approach and implementation tactics, feedback mechanisms to be deployed, and schedule of activities.
Communications strategy and plan	Provides an overall framework for selecting, managing, and coordinating communication activities that prepare stakeholders and help build their commitment to change.
Training strategy and plan	Identifies the audience, learning objectives, delivery methods, and timing of training activities.
Management assessment and development plan	Assesses and creates identifiable actions that senior and mid-level managers can use to sponsor the change and make it successful.

Tasks associated with these plans may also be integrated into the overall project management plan.

• Execute plans — The project manager, OCM team, and the organization’s executive steering committee and functional change agents work together to facilitate the integration and coordination of the implementation from the core disciplines of OCM including project management, organization assessment, communications, management development, and training.
• Evaluate — Evaluation of OCM progress and success contributes to the stabilization of organizational change. Best practice is to provide onsite support following major change activities to assess where continuous improvement may be needed in order for the new processes and procedures to take hold and become the new way of doing business. This is also an important task for organizational learning and knowledge transfer.

6 Project OCM Approach and Framework

Organizational change does not happen overnight; it takes time. Affected employees must first understand what the changes are, why they are important to both them and the organization, and how they should personally prepare for the new environment. Only then can the changes be embraced as the organization transitions and operates under a new set of processes, using a new set of applications and technologies.

Each project is different and each organization has unique change-management challenges. There is no “cookie-cutter” approach to organizational change. Each organization (each division and location for that matter) can have different cultures, different ways of disseminating change, and different information. These challenges can be addressed by using the five-stage framework shown below.

Figure 3. Project OCM Approach and Framework

6.1 Plan for Organizational Change

During the Plan stage of any project, take into consideration the organization’s structure with various divisions and departments, as well as how processes flow cross-functionally through those departments. Consider the current state of the organization’s support structure including organizational culture, leadership style, history preferred training, and communications vehicles, as these factors affect what the change activities should be and how they are deployed. With this understanding and a basic picture of the future state, you can solidify the approach, techniques, timelines, and staff responsibilities for the change process. There are three areas of planning in this stage:

1. Define the leadership action and involvement plan for the change-leadership executive and identified sponsors to align them with the objectives of supporting the project and resulting change. Leadership actions and involvement may vary by role. For example, John, V.P. of Sales, should focus his involvement on the changes in his area while Yvonne, Chief Information Officer, should focus her efforts on leading the change in EIT.
2. Work with the organization to clearly understand and classify the affected business units, then understand their current roles and responsibilities, their preferred communications methods, and their unique culture, and then fine tune the approach for later tasks to address those challenges in the most efficient manner possible. Next, identify the key subject matter experts (SMEs) who support the change-leadership process and serve as champions for their respective business units.
3. Identify the end users and other stakeholders who are impacted by the project transition. Identify which tools and communication venues are most effective in providing high-level overviews, summaries, and regular updates to keep all stakeholders engaged in the change process. The end users go through extensive functional training so that they can interface with the transformed environment effectively and efficiently.

As an option in the final step in the Plan stage, prepare the change-leadership executive, sponsors, and SMEs for the remaining stages, their respective responsibilities, and methods and tools to be used. At the conclusion of the Plan stage:

• The high-level approach for transition is fully defined and shared.
• The executive change leader, key stakeholders, and SMEs are defined and recruited.
• The leadership action and involvement plan is defined and implemented with the change-leadership executive and sponsors.
• Change-leadership executive, sponsors, and participants are informed about the benefits of the change and aligned with the project goals.
• Roles and responsibilities are understood by the entire team.

6.2 Understand the Nature of the Change

The entire context of the change, not just EIT, needs be understood. The second stage in the change life cycle is to define areas across the impacted organization where changes occur including processes, policies, procedures, required skills, roles/responsibilities, and organizational structure. Defining these areas improves impacted staff success in the future. In identifying these changes, also identify where potential risks may exist. By minimizing the degree of change and associated impact to staff and ongoing business operations, you minimize the level of change required of staff.

The OCM team works closely with SMEs during the Understand stage to evaluate the as-is and to-be business process models for all areas of service support to define potential impacts. These business process models are simple tools used to compare the current state (as is) with the desired future state (to be) and document the gaps that exist between those two states. For example, if in the current state a paper sales receipt is provided to a customer and in the future a receipt will be emailed, then the as-is/to-be analysis documents the differences between how receipts are provided to the customer now and in the future. The gap, or change, in that process is then categorized as an potential communications or training need. Use your best SMEs and all available documentation to prepare your as-is business process models. In many instances, these models use standard process flow and swim lane diagrams outlining both processes and ownership and, where necessary, shows an iterative progression following project stages.

Figure 4. Swim Lane Example

Work products generated during the Understand stage (e.g., the as-is/to-be analysis, process reengineering artifacts, glossary of new terms, new policies and procedures, data maps, and application configuration and design documents) provide the required to-be process information, which includes both new and modified processes. Potential risks are also defined through an analysis of the new and modified business processes by the combined effort of the organization team and the OCM team. Be rigorous in documenting all gaps, be patient, and make sure that your understanding is correct. Ignoring potential areas of resistance can mean confusion, miscommunication, or at worst, subversive behavior in the future. The results of the analysis are then communicated across the affected organizations.

At the conclusion of the Understand stage, the change-leadership team has a broad understanding of several areas:

• The specific functional areas and cross-functional processes within the organization that are impacted
• The source of the impact and how it occurs
• The associated potential risks (such as miscommunication, resistance, and confusion)
• A listing of to-be processes and associated gaps with the future process (that is, new and modified processes)
• A listing of required policy changes
• Documentation of the to-be processes to share with the organization

6.3 Assess the Impact of Change

In the Assess stage, work with the organization to jointly analyze each area of potential change to understand the overall change impact. Also analyze each potential risk to define mitigation strategies. This assessment involves the organization both by functional areas and by geographic areas. It is very important that non-core locations participate in this assessment process to provide a successful transformation. Use a series of surveys, workshops, and small working groups to complete the analysis and capture the results. Then classify each change area as low, medium, or high with respect to change, including business process, policy, skill set, staff roles and responsibilities, and training requirements.

With the assistance of the organization’s SMEs, define the expected degree of resistance that you might encounter. People naturally resist change and knowing in advance where resistance is likely results in a more efficient process of transition. Classify each potential risk as low, medium, or high, along with a degree of probability. Then define a mitigation strategy for each potential risk. Results from this stage are carefully communicated across the affected organizations and used to design an effective transition plan.

At the conclusion of the Assess stage, the OCM and organization teams have:

• A broad understanding of the areas and processes that are impacted
• A list of policies and business issues to be resolved to facilitate the desired change in the future
• An initial list of possible pockets of resistance
• Descriptions of potential barriers to success
• A broad understanding and categorization of potential risks

6.4 Design/Approve Change Activities

With the changes and potential risks defined, categorized, and understood, update the planning stage information to include all of the detailed activities and specific communications used to facilitate transition to the new state. Workshops, broad communications, specific outreach activities, group meetings, demo sessions, and intranet sites are all typical avenues for communicating change, and are a common part of our change-leadership process.

The OCM team may review staff training and the knowledge transfer plans created by the instructional designers and training specialists to verify that these plans contain the necessary elements to adequately prepare the staff for their new roles and responsibilities, and that any pockets of resistance are adequately addressed. This is a crucial communication point for the entire organization as it provides a roadmap for how the change will be accomplished and, more importantly, how each person should prepare to interact with the system after transition.

The various audiences and stakeholders provide significant input to the activities. Not all activities are appropriate for all audiences. Therefore, specifically target the most effective communications for each group. Some of these activities may include outreach presentations, workshops, web sessions, and training. Ultimately, the change-management efforts involve all impacted parties. To address this larger audience, engage organization managers and supervisors to deliver change messages. The change-management activities are designed, approved, and finalized during this process.

At the conclusion of the Design/Approve stage, you have:

• An updated plan outlining the specific tasks and techniques to be employed throughout the remainder of the project for enabling change
• Verification that training and knowledge-transfer activities are in place to fully prepare staff to be efficient and effective in the new environment
• Broad and detailed communications supporting the transition process

6.5 Transform

The Transform stage implements the various plans and activities defined in the Design/Approve stage and carefully monitors the success of the change-leadership activities. Activities continue until the system is live, and well beyond, as the organization adjusts to the new environment, processes, and technologies, and fine tunes daily roles and responsibilities. As you receive feedback from the affected organization, you update plans and activities, and define new activities as required to address any problem areas. In reality, the transform process begins with the planning stage activities, but the difficult work occurs when the communications and outreach activities are underway, and the organization begins to assimilate the information.

At the onset of the project, you may send out a formal survey to business units affected by the transformation. This survey includes questions about transformation awareness, such as system knowledge, leadership visibility, and identification of issues and concerns, just to name a few.

At the conclusion of the Transform stage, there are:

• Updated and revised change-leadership plans to address feedback on the changes
• Results of the execution the change-leadership activities designed to support the transition
• Staff that have been guided and supported through the transition and prepared for the transformed environment
• Reinforcement of the changes for several weeks to monitor and address or any problem areas

At the conclusion of the project, business units participating in this change initiative have a thorough understanding of the processes employed for the transformation and a set of tools and techniques that can be used for fine tuning the organization post-implementation or during later stages of the maintenance agreement. Knowledge transfer is a key reason for creating the initial partnership and working together through the five-stage process.

7 Portfolio OCM Approach and Framework

Portfolio-level OCM constructs an approach to understanding, evaluating, and managing the suite of changes occurring in the organization. Because the organization often has multiple projects and initiatives occurring simultaneously, OCM involves taking stock of the changes happening across the enterprise and analyzing their collective impact.

The portfolio change-management processes typically occur in five phases.

Phase	Description
1) Identify	The Identify phase sets the boundaries for portfolio analysis. This phase includes establishing the scope of the analysis, which could be the entire enterprise or an examination of the changes impacting a particular group or type of change (for instance, changes initiated by the EIT group). This phase looks for both project and non-project change.
2) Investigate	The Investigate phase involves collecting or generating data on the changes occurring across the portfolio. The first step is collecting data on each initiative in the portfolio, including budget, schedule, and key resources. This data is assessed to gauge the change-management risk and the overall level of change in the portfolio. The results of the investigation are mapped to show which groups in the organization are impacted by each of the changes in the portfolio.
3) Analyze	The Analyze phase is where conclusions are drawn about the portfolio changes. This phase may include a visual representation indicating the level of change impact or change capacity on groups throughout the organization.
4) Act	In the Act phase, specific risks to projects, groups, points in time, and the organization as a whole are captured and an action plan is established. Typically a report is produced and presented to the business leaders and others in the organization who need insight into the portfolio of changes. Based on the information provided, mitigation strategies are identified and acted upon.
5) Monitor, Manage, and Control	The Monitor, Manage, and Control phase determines how an organization manages changes occurring across the portfolio on a go-forward basis. How changes enter and exit the portfolio, and what lessons the organization can learn by taking an enterprise perspective are used to fine tune the change-management process.

The goal of portfolio change management is to create a clear understanding of the portfolio of changes. With solid data about the portfolio of changes, senior leaders are prepared to prioritize and mitigate the consequences of change fatigue and change impacts. Following a structured process to portfolio change management provides leaders a new perspective on the portfolio allowing them to manage the changes more holistically.

8 Organizational Change Leadership

Organizational change leadership can be thought of as the driving forces, visions, and processes that fuel large-scale transformation. Change leadership has its own unique demands and requires a different leadership mindset to lead the organization to a new place.

In his seminal book Leading Change, former Harvard Business School Professor Dr. John P. Kotter describes the eight steps crucial for leading change in an organization. [1]

	Craft and use a significant opportunity as a means for exciting people to sign up to change their organization.
	Assemble a group with the power and energy to lead and support a collaborative change effort.
	Shape a vision to help steer the change effort and develop strategic initiatives to achieve that vision.
	Raise a large force of people who are ready and willing, and urgently want to drive change.
	Remove obstacles to change, change systems, or structures that pose threats to the achievement of the vision.
	Consistently produce, track, evaluate, and celebrate volumes of small and large accomplishments, and then correlate them to results.
	Use increasing credibility to change systems, structures, and policies that don’t align with the vision; hire, promote, and develop employees who can implement the vision; reinvigorate the process with new projects, themes, and volunteers.
	Articulate the connections between the new behaviors and organizational success, and develop the means to ensure leadership development and succession.

There are specific links between leadership, project management, and change management. The connection between leadership and project management is related to decisions that are made by leaders. The connection between leadership and change management is tied to the actions of the senior leader.

Key change-leadership responsibilities include:

• Repeatedly and regularly communicating directly with employees; explaining why the change is happening and the risks of not changing, and aligning the change with the planned future state of the organization.
• Building a coalition of key leaders in the organization to consistently communicate the reasons for the changes across all levels.
• Participating actively and visibly throughout the entire change process and gathering feedback from employees.

Making change a success requires leaders to play a pivotal role. One of the biggest issues is that senior leaders don’t know what good sponsorship looks like in concrete terms. The change manager with their suite of tools and related experience is in a unique position to educate and coach senior leaders to fulfill their change-leadership role.

9 Individual Change Management

Change happens at the individual level, one person at a time. Even large, complex organizational changes are only successful if the individual changes how, where, or when they do their day-to-day work. When we speak of organizational change, we are describing the end result of many individuals moving from their own current state to their own future state.

The ADKAR model was first published in 1998 after research with more than 300 companies undergoing major change projects. In 2006, Prosci [2] released the first complete text on the ADKAR model in Jeffrey Hiatt’s book ADKAR: a Model for Change in Business, Government and our Community. [3] The ADKAR model is an individual change-management model. It outlines the five building blocks of successful change, whether that change is occurring at home or work.

Research shows that the most commonly cited reason for project failure is problems with the people dimension of change. Effective change management with employees is one of the top overall success factors for the project.

There are five key goals that form the basis of the ADKAR model:

• A   Awareness of the need to change
• D   Desire to participate and support the change
• K   Knowledge of how to change (and what the change looks like)
• A   Ability to implement the change on a day-to-day basis
• R   Reinforcement to keep the change in place

Individuals move through these phases when confronted with a change. For example, let’s say you decided to lose some weight. The first thing you probably did was become aware of the need to lose a few pounds. Perhaps you looked in the mirror and didn’t like what you saw or stepped on a scale and the number staring back at you was higher than expected. That feedback built your desire to lose the weight, which is another way of saying that the current state (of your weight) was unacceptable and for your future state (less weight) was more appealing. Now that you have the desire to lose weight, you might then begin to gather some knowledge on what your ideal weight should be or some techniques that you could employ, like diet and exercise. Armed with this knowledge, you’d need to create the ability for change to occur, such as integrating exercise into your daily routine and watching your caloric intake. Finally, in order to keep that weight off, you need some reinforcement such as joining a gym or weight-loss group where you can be supported to maintain the change in the future.

All of us go through these phases at different rates and times when asked to change. Being aware of this process helps the change manager plan for and execute activities that support employees through a transition.

Figure 5. AKDAR Model

Organizational change happens one person at a time. To manage this, a model is needed that describes individual change. Understanding this model empowers change mangers to enable successful organizational change. It is not enough to create fancy communications materials or develop presentations for a kick-off meeting — it is critical to understand how to support each individual through changes in order to have context and purpose for your change-management activities.

10 Summary

In summary, the OCM approaches supported by experienced project management create a structured and integrated approach to the execution of organizational change management.. The associated activities gradually prepare the leaders, individuals, and whole organization for the upcoming change and engage key stakeholders at the right level and most beneficial time.

11 Relevant SFIA Skills

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12 Roles

• C-level officers
• Executive sponsor
• Governance body
• Regulatory authority
• Solution architecture team
• Change agents
• Business architecture team

13 Standards

***No content

14 References

[1] Kotter, John P. 1996. Leading Change.

[2] Prosci. 2014. An overview of Prosci's ADKAR Model. http://www.change-management.com/tutorial-adkar-overview-mod1.htm.

[3] Hiatt, Jeffrey M. 2006. ADKAR: a model for change in business, government and our community.