Do you know how to prepare for change?

The Prosci methodology begins not with change management application but with taking the necessary steps to understand the change and the organization itself before you create your change management strategy. Below are the key activities you need to undertake at the start of project (and change management) planning.

Key 1 – Identify Change Characteristics

Each change in your organization will be unique. As a result, the magnitude of the change management activities will be unique as well.

When sizing your change, make sure to include the following areas:

• Scope of the change
• Number of individuals and groups impacted
• Type of change
• Amount of change

Each of the above factors will influence your change management strategy and dictate how much change management you need.

Key 2 – Assess The Organization

Some organizations are ready, willing and able to change while others are change resistant. Assessing organizational attributes is the second key to developing a high-level change management strategy.

When assessing your organization, it is important to understand the following organizational attributes:

• Organizational value system and culture (adaptability to change)
• Capacity for change (how much more change the organization can absorb)
• Residual effects of past changes (past failures may result in “baggage”)

Key 3 – Analyze Audience Impact

Changes impact groups differently. Some may experience a high degree of change while others experience only minor changes. Each group within your organization is unique and will have unique challenges requiring special tactics appropriate to that group.

When preparing your change management strategy, it must be adapted after understanding:

• What type(s) of change will be felt by the different impacted groups and to what degree
• How many employees are in each group
• What unique organizational barriers exist for each group (i.e. past experience with change, leadership challenges, etc.)

This audience impact analysis allows customization of your five plans: the communications plan, sponsor roadmap, training plan, coaching plan and resistance management plan.

Key 4 – Assess The Project Risks

Each change project has different attributes and therefore different risk factors. The project risk will be a function of the organizational attributes and the change characteristics. You should communicate this risk assessment to the primary project sponsor and use this information to determine if special change management tactics will be required for your project. Using the information you’ve already gathered, use the grid below to assess risk.

Key 5 – Assess Resistance and Identify Special Tactics

Special tactics in your change management strategy may be required given your change and your organization. You may be able to identify special circumstances or possible resistance before the program even begins. This is called Proactive Resistance Management and is one of three avenues for managing resistance.

Have all the keys? Gather all the assessments and data you have compiled from the keys above and combine them into a strategy:

• Change characteristics assessment results
• Organizational assessment results
• Risk assessment
• Recommendations for special tactics

Without these keys, your change management work cannot be tailored to the unique needs of your project.

This blog post was originally published by Tim Creasey in Prosci blog.

How do you know if your change management approach is set up to succeed?

Using the Prosci change management methodology as a foundation, they have created an easy-to-use Checklist for Your Change Management Approach you can use on your initiatives and changes. In this checklist, you will examine these elements of your change management strategy:

• Change management planning
• Sponsorship
• Communication
• Coaching
• Resistance management
• Training
• Reinforcement

Use this checklist (link for download at the end of post) to prepare for upcoming initiatives, analyze progress on current initiatives, and discuss change management with others.

Change management planning

A structured approach to change management was cited as the number two contributor to success in the Best Practices in Change Management – 2016 Edition. Further analysis of the data shows a direct correlation between the use of a structured methodology and change management effectiveness, and change management effectiveness is directly linked to project success.

Keys to implementation:

• Use a structured and planned approach
• Ensure that you have the necessary resources
• Begin your change management activities at the beginning of the project, not as an afterthought or add-on

Sponsorship

Sponsorship was cited as the top success factor in each of the last nine benchmarking studies, over twenty years of research with more than 4,000 participants from 82 countries around the world. In the latest study, over half of all participants rated their sponsors’ understanding and execution as less than adequate.

Keys to implementation:

• Don’t assume your sponsors know what it means to be an effective sponsor of change – there are often gaps in sponsor knowledge
• Remember that sponsorship is more than signing a name at the bottom of a project charter; it involves active and visible participation with the project team, employees and other senior leaders

Communication

Communication will be critical for building awareness and desire to changes. Frequent and open communication was cited as the number six critical success factor in the 2016 Edition of the Best Practices in Change Management.

Keys to implementation:

• The most effective communication is face-to-face, so don’t rely exclusively on ‘broadcast’ forms of written and electronic communication
• Involve both key senders of change messages:
  • Senior business leaders for messages about the impact of the change on the organization
  • Immediate supervisors for messages about the impact of the change on the individual and What’s In It For Me (WIIFM)

Coaching

The role of immediate supervisors during change is critical – they are the preferred sender of messages about how the change impacts an individual, and they play a central role in identifying and managing resistance. Middle managers were cited as one of the main resistors to change in the last benchmarking report. Engaging them as coaches helps to address some of the main causes of manager resistance.

Keys to implementation:

• As with sponsors, don’t assume that managers know what it means to be an effective coach – even some of the best managers are not effective change managers without the proper knowledge and support
• Give coaches the information they need to be the senders of key messages about how the change will impact individuals

Resistance management

Resistance to change by employees and managers has been cited as the top obstacle to project success in the last nine benchmarking studies. The most common reasons for resistance are not tied to the solution you are implementing – they are often related to the current state and the (mis)information in the organization.

Keys to implementation:

• Be proactive about managing resistance by identifying what it might look like and where it might come from
• You can often prevent or mitigate the most common causes of resistance by simply thinking through your change management activities earlier in the change lifecycle

Training

Training is a vital part of building knowledge on how to change and ability to change. Many change practitioners are heavily involved in the training portion of a project, so rely on best practices when planning and facilitating your training.

Keys to Implementation:

• Focus on planning and design (including training needs assessments and involvement with impacted audiences), as this was listed as the top success factor for project-specific training
• Make sure your training is delivered at the right time, when employees are in the knowledge and ability stages of the ADKAR Model

Reinforcement

If people revert back to the old way of doing things after implementation, you have not only wasted time and resources, but your solution does not generate the benefit (or ROI) that you expected. While reinforcement is often overlooked, it is the bridge between the period of change (the transition state) and how things will be done after implementation (the future state).

Keys to implementation:

• Be proactive, systematic and explicit when developing the mechanisms to reinforce the change
• Engage sponsors and coaches in reinforcement as they will be keys to creating the expectation that change will be maintained

Use the Checklist for Your Change Management Approach to be proactive, systematic and thorough in your change management work. The people side of your change is too important to be left up to chance, and you can accelerate change and minimize the disruption by thinking ahead and using a structured approach.

Download checklist from HERE

 This blog post was originally published by Tim Creasey in Proci blog.

Why do we need change management?

The answer may seem obvious to those of us who are change management practitioners. Still, we can get caught up in the details of our current change initiatives and forget about the roots of our practice, or we may struggle in explaining the need for change management in a clear and simple way to those who are unfamiliar with it.

In fact, a recent Prosci webinar on the 5 Tenets of Change Management revealed that many organizations (and practitioners) still struggle with articulating why a change is necessary and how change management supports business outcomes.

Below is an overview of the 5 Tenets of Change Management:

• We change for a reason
• Organizational change requires individual change
• Organizational outcomes are the collective result of individual change
• Change management is an enabling framework for managing the people side of change
• We apply change management to realize the benefits and desired outcomes of change

Now we can use these tenets to lay the foundation for explaining and justifying change management.

Tenet 1 – We change for a reason

When asked how clearly the reasons for change were articulated in their organizations, only 26% of respondents in a January 2017 webinar said that the reasons were articulated clearly or better.

Change is about moving out of a current state (how things are done today), and through a transition state to reach a desired future state. Usually, the reasons we change are to address a current issue or to take advantage of a future opportunity. Either way, the reason we change is to reach a future state where performance is better than in the current state.

Tenet 2 – Organizational change requires individual change

All too often, business professionals view change as happening at the organizational level. A few examples of this perspective include implementing a new ERP, introducing new documentation and optimization processes, or moving the company to a new location. But each of these initiatives requires individual employees to change the way they currently do their work. Unfortunately, 91% of webinar respondents said that these individual changes–which are crucial to the success of the project–were not clearly defined in their organization.

What if no one used the new ERP software? What if no one followed the new documentation and optimization processes? What if employees refused to move to the new location? Then the changes would not happen. Therefore, the most basic and true unit of change is the individual before the organization.

Tenet 3 – Organizational outcomes are the collective result of individual change

Only when individuals are able to change effectively can we achieve the desired organizational outcomes of the change. There are three components that determine the “effectiveness” of an individual change, which ultimately affect how project ROI, results and outcomes are achieved or missed:

1. Speed of adoption – accounts for how quickly employees move through the transition state. The quicker the change is adopted by each individual employee, the more likely the project will come in on schedule and within budget.
2. Ultimate utilization – describes how many employees reach their future state. The more individuals that utilize the change, the more likely it is to stick.
3. Proficiency – describes how well employees perform in their future state. If employees are able to successfully take on their new role or activities, then the organization can realize the benefits of the change.

Prosci’s change management ROI question sets the tone for how dependent organizational outcomes are on individual adoption and usage. The question to ask yourself, and the project teams and senior leaders you support, is this: What percent of project results depend of people changing the way they work? Respondents on the January 2017 webinar provided their answer to the question, and the results show exactly why change management is necessary:

Tenet 4 – Change management is an enabling framework for managing the people side of change

The first three tenets present the reality of change – that it happens at the individual level – and provide the crucial (and often missing) context for change management. And an email on Monday for training on Tuesday for go-live on Wednesday is not change management. But that is how 39% of webinar respondents see change regularly handled in their organization.

Now we can see just how important the role of the individual is in change; the results and outcomes of a change are based on the success of the individual transitions. Without change management, the individual change process is ignored, resulting in slower speed of adoption, lower ultimate utilization and poorer proficiency. Therefore, without change management, the project may not deliver and there is greater risk that the organization may not realize the expected benefits of changing. Understanding how individual and organizational change occurs demonstrates the necessity of having both an individual and organizational perspective in change management.

Tenet 5 – We apply change management to realize the benefits and desired outcomes of change

We need change management because:

• Results and desired outcomes depend on individual transitions
• There are people-side factors that determine or constrain project ROI
• There are costs and risks of ignoring or mismanaging the people side of change
• Because organizations that apply excellent change management are six times more likely to meet or exceed project objectives than organizations that apply poor change management

 This blog post was originally published by Tim Creasey in Proci blog.

The first ever Prosci certification program for Change Management in the Baltics took place on 1-3. February in Tallinn. 9 participants from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania successfully passed the intense but fun 3-day program and received the Prosci® Change Management certificate.

The training was very interactive, in which participants, both individually and in groups, learned how to apply Prosci tools on their own change project.

This training was also a challenge for our facilitator Ekke Sööt, who is now officially a Prosci Certified Advanced Instructor.

By the end of the third training day, some participants literally began to see the world with new eyes (read more about the famous ADKAR model).

Congratulations to all the graduates!

Check our next public certification program schedule here.

Good news – starting from autumn 2017, we are the licensed partner of US company Prosci here in the Baltic States. Prosci has developed the most widely used change management methodology and tools in the world, as well as providing training and consulting solutions. They have been studying change management for 20 years, worked with over 3,500 organizations, including 80% of Fortune 100 companies. Today, Prosci network of partners operates in 45 countries around the world.

What benefits do Estonian organizations get from this?

Partnering with Prosci:

• gives our clients access to the most up-to-date science-based know-how that exists in the world on this topic
• makes in Estonian available a number of evaluation and development tools that support change management

The goal of Prosci is to build organizations’ own abilities by transferring best practices to their clients through various practical development solutions.

What does Prosci offer?
Prosci approach to change is scientific – several decades, they have been studying in many organizations, what ensures success in the changes and what does not. This knowledge has been taken as a basis for the creation of various development tools. Practical usage of these tools in different organizations has helped continuously develop those methodologies.

• Prosci consulting solutions are meant to increase readiness to change and to create a comprehensive system for managing change. Supported by various licensed tools and online applications.
• Prosci role based training’s are addressed to different levels of organization – senior managers, first and middle managers, project managers (teams) and employees. The goal is to create an understanding at each level of their role in the context of change and the ability to make change happen.

At the beginning of this year, we started with the Prosci® Change Management Certification Program, which gives the professional license and provides knowledge, skills and tools on how to manage change more consciously.

At the start of this year, we conducted a study of change management among Estonian organizations, which enabled us to compare Estonian practice with global trends. A summary of the survey was presented at the Change Management Seminar that took place on January 31st, where Mark Dorsett, Vice-President of USA Prosci, gave a keynote on How to best achieve the results that we seek.

Find out more about Prosci solutions HERE.

Wishing more successful changes,
Change Partners team