OCM is the process, tools and techniques to manage the people-side of change to achieve a required business outcome. The change journey is circuitous and evolutionary, and consequently, tools need be customized for each unique client and project. Successful change requires a complex, coordinated strategy of multiple actions sustained over time. Below is my synopsis of three essential tools that any change practioner can use to scale up or down and match clients’ needs.
First and foremost, every change initiative needs to be set up properly with a sponsorship model, especially as this is one of the leading reasons that projects fail according to Prosci research. The purpose of the sponsorship model is to build leadership alignment on vision, goals, milestones and risks, as well as to define the decision making process. Think of this as the underlying social “piping” that helps communication and governance to flow smoothly throughout the organizational hierarchy. The sooner this is put in place (ideally at the start of the project), the better. The sponsor need not be the authoritative expert on the solution, but rather a credible and respected figure championing the change. For sponsors to be effective, they must actively and visibly participate in the project, build a coalition of change leaders, and communicate directly with employees. Sounds simple, right? Just like executives, sponsors often benefit from coaching around the expectations of their role and how to best interact with teams on a regular basis. The number of sponsors depends on the employee size, geographical span and structure of your organization. “Active and visible participation” is a good litmus test for determining a healthy ratio of sponsors to employees.
Next, the change team needs to understand exactly what is changing, why and how for each of the affected audiences. Commonly known as a Change Impact Assessment, this detailed documentation defines each of the exact changes from current to future state organized by criteria such as business unit, function, location, role, change type and magnitude of impacts (high-medium-low). Think of it as a book of accounting with line items, categories and credits and debits – the credits and debits representing what is gained and lost from the employee perspective. Without this level of accounting, big and hairy change cannot be broken down into parts that make sense to the human mind, especially when emotional attachment is running interference. Process mapping is highly complementary to this change assessment in order to visualize how a process will be altered by the change implementation. The Change Impact Assessment can be started after the discovery and design phase in the project lifecycle, and after the majority of what, how, and who has been determined. After variations from current to future state are documented and understood to a large degree, we recommend summarizing the salient themes and priorities to inform the action planning.
Finally, effective change management requires the careful coordination of multiple activities occurring simultaneously over time. Furthermore, a change action plan requires constant adjustment and adaptation to its changing landscape. This is where project management techniques of timelines, scheduling, work breakdown structure, clear owners and milestone dates come into play. Typical headers of a change plan may include sponsorship model, training, communications, managerial coaching, and stakeholder resistance. Each of these is then exploded to a lower level of granularity and the level of detail is again dependent on your organization’s size. For example, you may have a building a network of change champions for a larger organization versus the simple selection of one sponsor for a smaller organization. It’s also important to align your change plan to the themes and priorities of the change impact assessment as the two work in union.
Ensure your own superhero powers! If you are able to leverage just these 3 tools, then the results of your efforts for any change will be exponential. Teams that eliminate this foundational work will undoubtedly find themselves exerting greater effort down the line.
