Last week, Don Harrison, developer of the AIM Change Management Methodology, led a webinar on Implementing Agile: Integrating Change Management for Sustained Adoption. If you don’t already know AIM, you’ll find that it not only complements Agile, it is Agile, and was way ahead of its time! In the session, Don provided practical, realistic guidance on what it takes to become an Agile organization, and what risks you need to be prepared for.
Your organization probably has very specific metrics and measurement tools surrounding project management. Measuring if your project is on time, on budget, and technically sound is pretty straight forward. But how do you measure change management success? One thing we can tell you for sure…it is much more important to measure business results than how well change management worked on a project.
In our 35+ years of change management consulting, we have never once come across an organization who told us they have way too many resources with too little to do. Who are we kidding? We’ve never even met a client who had the right amount of resources for their current portfolio of initiatives!
Editor's Note: This article was originally published in July 2017 and has quickly become one of our most popular blogs to date. Because the topic is so timely we have chosen to republish it as this week's blog!
As change management consultants, we’re often asked how Agile and change management fit together. There are a lot of questions about how adding change management to an Agile project management cycle works; there are concerns expressed about whether change management will slow things down, and get in the way of the speed and innovation derived from Agile.
One of the key principles of Next Generation Change Management is to look up the power structure in your organization before you look down, especially in the beginning of a project. What we mean by this is as a Change Agent, you need to spend more time working with your Sponsors (to ensure they are Expressing, Modeling and Reinforcing the change) than trying to convince the targets (those people who will be affected by the change) about the logic and rationale behind it.
That’s promising a lot, but it’s a realistic promise, too. When you are a consulting company (and we are one) you are on a constant quest for new business and increased revenue. There is more competition than ever. Standing apart from your competition can be a challenge, especially if you are competing against one of the big consulting companies.
Building your change management capability is one option worthy of consideration.
Billions of dollars are being spent every year on new technology. From CRM’s to ERP’s to many other technological advances, almost every organization we work with is implementing a new technological advance in one department or another (if not organization wide). But, are these organizations getting their money’s worth from their investments? Unfortunately, return on investment is not a guarantee.
Here’s a pop quiz! During an organizational change, is it better to spend more time on a Communication Plan or on your Reinforcement Strategy? Need a minute to think about it? Let’s put it a different way…
We’ve been talking a lot about Next Generation Change Management, and why it’s so critical for Change Agents to focus on impact not activity. A good starting point for Agents and their Sponsors is to have an agreed upon definition of implementation roles and responsibilities. Don Harrison, developer of the Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM), describes the four roles as a CAST of characters: Champions, Agents, Sponsors and Targets.
Watch This Quick Video Recap:
One of the most common questions we get in our change management consulting is how to overcome resistance to change. Our clients look a little frustrated when we tell them, “you can’t.” But it’s true. It doesn’t matter if a change is perceived as negative or positive, if it is transformational in scope or a small procedural one, resistance is going to occur. And the fact of the matter is, you can’t combat it, solve it or overcome it. Instead, resistance needs to be surfaced, understood and then managed.
