Last week Don Harrison, President of IMA and developer of the Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM), held a free webinar on what he likes to call “Next Generation Change Management” where he discussed his view of what needs to change about change management. The topic was one of our most popular ever and the discussion he led was truly thought provoking.
Enormous investments are being made each year in large scale, complex business and healthcare changes. From ERP Implementations to new patient care models to mergers and acquisitions, the amount of money being spent on organizational change is staggering. With stakes as high as these, organizations simply cannot afford to fail.
In today’s business world where changes are happening with lightning speed, organizations simply do not have a second to spare for unimportant activities. The time your Sponsors and Change Agents spend on implementing changes needs to be laser-focused on moving the dial towards getting a change implemented quickly and successfully.
Dear Colleagues,
One of my favorite quotes comes from Charles Darwin, who famously said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most adaptable to change.” As we begin 2018, I am amazed at how these wise words could not be more appropriate for the modern business world.
Watch This Quick Video Recap:
Whether your organization uses Agile or a more traditional Waterfall approach to project management there is no doubt the end goal is the same. Getting to value realization for every business initiative is, of course, the name of the game. But, while project management protocols focus on delivering projects on time, on budget and to scope, as change management professionals, we know that is not going to be enough. In order to get to full value realization there is more that needs to be done!
If there’s one thing we know for sure, in today’s business world change is everywhere. This endless state of transition causes everyone we know, everywhere we go to be whirling around like crazy. Keyboards are clicking, phones are ringing, meetings are being held (most with “hard stops” because each person has to get to their next meeting). It’s this constant churn of activity that makes an organization seem like it is running and humming like a well-oiled machine.
We often get questions about the Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM) change management methodology from people who are already certified in Prosci’s ADKAR model. That makes sense. Both methodologies are sound change management frameworks that share a lot of common elements.
One of the common challenges Change Agents confront is getting Sponsors to see how their commitment of resources to Change Management can actually make a difference in business results. We hear this all the time from clients who know that projects could be implemented faster and more successfully if they managed the “people-side” of projects with more discipline. We experience it, too, in our own change management consulting.
From ERP and Technology Implementations to Shared Services to Lean Six Sigma and other process improvement initiatives, change is everywhere. But in our experience, only 25-30% of all business changes achieve full benefit realization.
We’ve spent a lot of years in the global Change Management marketplace. Over 35 to be exact. And after all this time, people still don’t seem to “get it.” Day after day, we speak to Sponsors, Senior Executives, and sometimes even Change Agents who still think Change Management is just a buzzword. Or, they believe it is something to be done “out there” by other people. Some still think they can send an email out to the organization announcing a change, and then check Change Management off their to-do list for good.
