Implementation Insights Blog

How many projects are being worked on right now in your organization? We find that one of the biggest problems in organizations today is that there is just too much going on, with too little focus, and too few resources. There is lots of activity, but the results don't match up-- there are far too many stalled projects and implementation failures.

One of the easiest and most cost-effective fixes is to prioritize these projects and ensure that attention is paid to the human elements through a structured implementation framework, along with change management training for sponsors and change agents. We never cease to be amazed by organizations that will spend millions on business transformation, mergers & acquisitions, culture change, and other types of innovation, but fail to invest in the people responsible for business strategy execution. Change management training is essentially a rounding error in the costs of these strategic initiatives, and there is so much to be gained, even if all you do is invest in educating sponsors, because sponsors are responsible for 30-50% of the implementation's success.

It's even more powerful if the change management training is integrated into a methodology of tools, tactics, vocabulary, and a common change management process. We aren't talking about theoretical concepts; this change management training must be practical and business-driven. Change management training should be consistent across the enterprise, especially if implementation speed is important.

Let's look at one example: business transformation. It's a common strategic imperative and a key element of company turnaround efforts. Business transformation might include process change driven by Six Sigma or Lean, and may well include new technology. But what about the people aspects of business transformation. How can you speed adoption of process changes and new technology? There are proven strategies and tactics that can be taught in a change management training program that ideally is part of the project implementation process itself.

We are firm believers that AIM (Accelerated Implementation Methodology) is the the best implementation framework for the human elements of change. Our change management training supports the framework, and includes measurement diagnostics, tools, strategies and tactics-- all very practical and business-driven. Choose AIM or look around at what is available, and choose one methodology that is integrated with change management training. It's a simple and cost-effective way to dramatically increase the likelihood of implementation success.

Labels: business transformation, change management training

It’s typical for large-scale technology initiatives such as Enterprise Planning System implementations (ERPs) like SAP and Oracle to be driven by the IT organization. The question is, who owns the initiative? Are these IT initiatives, or strategic business initiatives. Does ownership shift at some point in the SAP or Oracle project life cycle? The reality is that IT can’t be solely accountable for ERP implementation success, and accountability must be shared between IT and the business.

In the early stages of the ERP project life cycle, IT is the driver of the technology selection, analysis, design, and testing processes. Clearly the business end-users must be part of the process. Together, the IT and business owners define the business requirements and design an ERP system that meets the business needs. But it is the business owners who must start to build readiness for the SAP or Oracle implementation by communicating a compelling business case for action and getting the concerns of users out in the open so the inevitable resistance to the ERP implementation can be managed.

IT then takes the lead in making sure the system is “up and running” and meets the “go live” target date. This is what we term “installation,” and it’s a critical step in implementation. However, when you stop at the point of installation, you are still short of achieving adoption for a system like SAP or Oracle, and therefore, Return on Investment. And even though the IT responsibilities are essentially completed at the point of installation, the project is not yet complete until you get users to adopt the new processes that are driven by the ERP technology. This responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the business.

While it’s typical for the project team to be disbanded at this point, the project is in fact not yet complete. Business partners, or what we term the reinforcing sponsors, must consistently and actively express, model, and reinforce the new behaviors, and you can teach them what good sponsorship requires. IT is in no position to address the necessary modeling and reinforcement because they have no positional authority over the users (or what we call Targets).

Providing the appropriate reinforcements is the most important of all business partner (sponsor) responsibilities. Reinforcing sponsors should be applying three essential types of reinforcements at the right time and at the appropriate level of intensity. These can be categorized as positive reinforcement, negative consequences, and degree of work effort.

Most Reinforcing sponsors understand that there is power in positive reinforcement. It’s much more difficult, though, to apply negative consequences for users who work around the ERP system and new processes. For many organizations, corporate cultural norms are powerful influencers of sponsor actions, meaning that it’s culturally unacceptable for business partners to provide direct negative feedback to a Target. It’s simply not done.

Few reinforcing sponsors understand the role of controlling work effort in driving the SAP or Oracle implementation. How difficult is it for Targets to use the system to perform work in the old ways? Is the old system still available? Are “work-arounds” acceptable”? While IT can be helpful in ensuring that these work effort issues are addressed, the accountability for this aspect of the ERP implementation rests primarily with business partners.

By building a partnership based on shared accountability, project teams are far more likely to be positioned for full ERP implementation success.

Labels: ERP implementation, Oracle implementation, SAP implementation

If you are dealing with a business change project that requires people to adjust their beliefs as well as actions, you’ll need to generate commitment to the change. You can’t hit people over the head and make them do what you want them to do. And just because your Sponsors express their personal commitment to the change does not mean that your Targets will follow. You’ll only be successful if you take people through the commitment building process, aggressively using communication and reinforcement to motivate people to leave where they are (the current state) and move to where you want them to be (the future state.)

When you need to win hearts and minds in order for your business change to be successful, you need to manage the 3-stage process of “unfreezing” the behaviors of the current state, transitioning, and “refreezing” the behaviors of the future, desired state. This type of change takes longer, and requires more resources.

While there can be other motivators to change from the present way of doing things, the most powerful are pain and need. If it’s easier, and more comfortable, to continue to do things in the same way, you can anticipate that this is exactly what people will do. So the first critical task is to make certain that the personal motivation to change must be greater than the motivation to stay the same.

Once people begin to move out of the past, there is a predictable period of time known as the transition state. This is a time of high uncertainty, and as Change Agents and leaders, you have to provide your Targets with structure and support so that they can move through the transition to the desired state. Otherwise, you can expect that people will slip back into the old ways.

We’ve all witnessed this. We get through the “installation” of a new system, or a new process, only to find that within a short period of time people retreat back to the old way of doing things. Our change stalls out, or worse, fades away.

What to do? How do you counter the predictable and inevitable downturn in productivity and morale?

This is the point in time where you will really see the benefit of skilled Change Agents and educated Sponsors who can impact the depth and duration of the “valley of despair” of the transition. A well-managed transition can minimize the pain and actually accelerate the change through to adoption and behavior change.

Here is where your investment in educating your Sponsors can really pay off. Sponsors who are able to express, model, and reinforce their commitment and who understand the importance of Frame of Reference can bring Targets through the transition period more quickly and with many fewer “human casualties.”

It’s a time for ensuring there is an abundance of two-way communication so that sources of resistance can be identified and managed. It’s a time for diligently monitoring your change, and making continuous adjustments as situations change.

You can’t ignore the transition state, but when it’s planned and managed correctly, it’s a time of great learning.

Labels: business change projects, Project Sponsorship

There's a lot in the news right now about the need for healthcare transformation, both in the U.S. and the UK. While there are differences in the current state and the future vision depending on the country, healthcare transformation won't be successful without significant attention being paid to the implementation of these changes.

Naturally, there is focus on healthcare IT, including electronic medical records and other technology improvements, and attention on healthcare business process improvement, there's a lot less discussion on healthcare change management. How do you get adoption and behavior change in a complex organization structure involving nurses, physicians, technicians and a variety of healthcare professionals who have important work to do? Work disruption created by significant organizational change can impact quality of patient care, patient satisfaction, and patient outcomes.

If you are concerned about how to manage resistance to change (yes, it is inevitable) and how to accelerate healthcare business changes, you have to develop internal capability across the organization. Organizational change management consulting has to be focused not on doing it for you, but on how you can do it better for yourself.

These changes are not going to end anytime soon, so your organization best be prepared with a systematic and systemic approach for implementing healthcare transformation that can be repeated for the programmatic changes you will continue to experience. If you can unite in using a common framework like IMA's Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM) to build change agent capacity, if you can use a common language, and common deliverables across all the healthcare transformation changes you will gain acceleration and reduce the human casualties of organizational change.

We do have examples of success that we can point to in the healthcare environment where change management best practices have been applied. For example, in Australia, the New South Wales Health organization has been using IMA's AIM methodology for a variety of clinical transformations, including electronic medical records. IMA's role in institutionalizing the AIM methodology has been to provide organizational change management consulting focused on teaching change agents and sponsors involved in a variety of healthcare transformation activities how to tactically apply change management principles that will improve change readiness, sponsorship, communications and behavioral change reinforcements.

Healthcare transformation and organizational change management must be considered together in order to achieve implementation success and project return on investment.

Labels: change management consulting, healthcare transformation, organizational change management

There was an interesting question in the Project Manager Discussion Group on LinkedIn this morning--- what is the number 1 reason for project failure? There are lots of contributing factors, but without a doubt, the top reason for project failure and reduced project return on investment is lack of Project Sponsorship.

If you get Sponsorship for your strategic initiative right, you will be positioned for success. Without it, you are pretty much doomed to fail. We find that despite its critical importance, Sponsorship is one of the most misunderstood aspects of organizational change management. It is an active condition, and it’s based on three distinct behaviors that a Sponsor must demonstrate for the entire lifecycle of the project:
1. What is Expressed by the Sponsor
2. What is Modeled by the Sponsor
3. What is Reinforced by the Sponsor

Since project implementation success is directly linked to adoption of behavioral change, the Sponsor must Express, Model and Reinforce the new behaviors. Most Sponsors have never been made aware of how their own behavior contributes to organizational change management and project return on investment.

This is true for all types of projects and strategic initiatives, including healthcare transformation, business process re-engineering, mergers and acquisitions, and organizational re-structurings.

The good news is that you can measure Sponsorship and train Sponsors why what they model and reinforce is so critical to successful organizational change management. If you want to accelerate implementation, limit resistance to organizational changes, and get to project return on investment, focus your attention on Sponsorship.

Labels: project return on investment, Project Sponsorship

The current economic climate has spurred many organizations to assess their own strategic weaknesses while also identifying competitive market opportunities. This is leading to an increase in business transformation activities. By its nature, business transformation is strategic, but it is also tactical. In other words, business transformation can only be successful when it is linked to tactical organizational change management processes.

If your organization is going to engage in large scale, complex organizational change that involves multiple work streams, you will not achieve your business change objectives without a structured, tactical process that can be applied across these multiple projects. Business transformation programs typically involve projects with significant interdependencies, and must be managed on an enterprisewide basis. At the same time, it is extremely useful to have a robust, systematic organizational change management methodology (like AIM—the Accelerated Implementation Methodology) that can be applied through all phases of the programmatic lifecycle.

Remember that it isn’t sufficient to just install business transformation changes—these changes need to be implemented through to behavior change and behavior adoption if the organization is going to achieve project return on investment. Business transformation initiatives that focus solely on business and technical objectives, but ignore the human objectives, will fall short. You’ll pay for this in resistance to the business transformation changes that will slow you down or even cause failure.

Labels: business transformation, business transformation changes

This is what we call the difference between installation and implementation. When projects are stopped at the point of installation, the project team is disbanded, and the budget ends. This means that there is no oversight or management to make sure that sponsors are reinforcing the right behaviors at the local level. Change management stops short and barriers to change are not addressed.

It’s pretty easy to see why this pattern is so prevalent. First, most organizations are under high stress with far too many competing priorities for resources and budgets. There is a lot of emphasis on adhering to project schedules and budgets, but less on achieving change. Second, the formal organization reinforcements are all around installation, not implementation. Third, senior leadership is usually focused on the next business change and don’t want to invest the time and energy required for full implementation.

Labels: business process re-engineering, installation versus implementation, software implementation