How can you balance change management benefits with resource costs?

In my experience with innovation projects, the end destination isn’t always clear. While you may have started with one vision, as you get feedback from your customers, you realize that you need to iterate on your product or service. As such, your change management process must make room for learning and adaptation.

Balancing the benefits of change management with resource costs requires strategic planning, stakeholder involvement, and ongoing evaluation to ensure that the change initiative remains both cost-effective and impactful.

The first task, that often delivers successful change, is comprehensively describing the change being considered - what is the change, why should it occur, when, how, etc. A good upfront specification saves projects from scope creep or potentially starting on a road to change "A" but ending with delivering "B". In the process of assessing it is important to consider both quantitative and qualitative factors, and make room for revision if required along the way. I have seen many where the outcome significantly exceeded expectations because of the diligence at this stage.

This perspective is accurate from the change project or organizational leadership's standpoint. However, the value and urgency of change is often not thought through from a front-line employee or end-user standpoint. For example, an hourly worker may not see the urgency or purpose of change if it impacts them negatively (longer hours of work, higher risk of redundancy etc.). Thinking from the lens of "all" stakeholders and driving effective communication and readiness is imperative for the value and urgency to sync in consistently.

Meine Erfahrung ist, dass zwei wichtige Schritte im Change Management keine gro?e Beachtung finden. Zum einen werden die Betroffenen nicht von Anfang an oder zu sp?t in den Prozess eingebunden und zum anderen werden Entscheidungen getroffen die auf Zustimmung basieren und nicht auf Akzeptanz. Der Widerstand gegen ?nderungen l?sst sich dann nicht messen und wird erst nach der Entscheidung sichtbar. Wichtig ist es, die Akzeptanz für eine Entscheidung vorher zu messen und zwar bei allen, die die Entscheidung anschlie?end umsetzen sollen.

Cost and risks might be intimidating since they might be rather high in both cases. Especially if you include the time of all affected by the change and possible resistance in the organization. The real challenge might be to estimate the benefits. The benefits can be huge if you succeed in changing a culture or way of working. But, estimating this, and convince others that your estimates are correct, can be very challenging.

There are many cases where a project appears urgent but quantitative or qualitative assessment shows that, on balance, it is not or is too risky, and the objective can be achieved another way. There is also the potential that a factor or risk recognized early can be mitigated to ensure the change is efficient and less costly.

It’s always worth taking a full view of the risks (as well as the benefits). That way you can put in place mitigations and engage the wider team early on. Most budget overruns are because people didn’t think through the risks of a change properly, and made assumptions. Risks aren’t inherently bad - but they do need to be fully costed and managed. Top tip: think about what the change will mean for the system the change will operate in too. I often see people think about only the subset of risks that impact them directly. Top tip two: remember that people make change happen, not diagrams and spreadsheets. Too many projects fail because people and culture are forgotten, when in reality that should be at the centre of the change.

I agree and would add that prioritization is a critical step to this process. You need to decide what is most important to you, and accordingly adjust the scope and scale of the change you’re hoping to create.

An example of involving stakeholders in a meaningful way is through personal stories. In my work at Campfire Kinship, I am often asked to facilitate leadership conversations involving strategy and vision ideation. Through creative prompts and community norm-setting, encourage all participants to reflect on lived experiences where they witnessed their personal values connecting with their organizational values. What can they learn from that experience to adapt to current challenges? I also encourage them to gather insights from the lived experiences of their staff and customers, as those in the front lines are closest to the pain points. Integrating their wisdom ensures the gap between executive intent and stakeholder reality is closed.

The engagement and empowerment of stakeholders is often critical to the success of the change planned. Build in opportunities for engagement at different intervals during the project, dependent on the specifics of the project. Many projects omit to properly close the loop by engaging early and again after completion. One of the hardest changes for stakeholders can be situations where there is a business acquisition, sale, or merger (business as a whole or a portion thereof). Here the change can be enormously well received and produce outcomes that exceed expectations, or become a catastrophic failure (even to the extent of going out of business). Often the only difference was the people factor and how they were brought with on the journey.

Una excelente técnica para aprovechar la maximo los recursos en un proyecto de gestión del cambio es con los Train The Trainers. Habilitar a parte de tus stakeholders como agentes capacitadores cubre la necesidad de contratar capacitadores externos; con el bonus de que ellos conocen muy bien su propio negocio.

I’m a big fan of monitoring. Change is a dynamic thing, and you need to keep an eye on it, so you can course correct. Don’t just leave it to the end of a project, iterative review is the way to go. And it’s really important to gather both data, and stories to assess the impact of the change (and understand what lessons you should learn for the next iteration). But the big problem I see far too often is: not deciding what to monitor up front in design phase. Too often benefits and outcomes capture definition work is done post event. That often leads to what I call “decision based evidence making” - where bias leads you to look at data that justifies a decision retrospectively.

In my experience, one of the things that gets underestimated is the importance of qualitative feedback, such as stories from our customers. While there is merit to measuring tangible outcomes, however, to understand the true impact of the change, both qualitative and quantitative measures are necessary.

Almost every project stands to gain advantages from incorporating change management, given its human-centered approach to planning/implementation. By embracing CM, orgs lay the groundwork not only for successful transitions but also for fostering a client-centered mindset within their workforce. This shift equips teams to better understand and meet client needs more effectively. Key benefits of CM include improved communication, enhanced stakeholder engagement, and a structured framework for navigating complexities. Neglecting change management can lead to insufficient adoption or sustainability, resulting in a costly scenario where new initiatives fail to deliver expected returns due to resistance, confusion and lack of engagement.

Think of all the stakeholders in crafting the change management strategy (not just the top layers) and leverage data effectively to navigate and measure the effectiveness of the change management plan and execution.

Change done with care and diligence ensures the outcomes are as expected, often the costs come in under budget, and benefits of the change are fully realized. Stakeholders may be resistant to change because change is hard, but with communication and help they become more comfortable. A change project should not be considered done until everyone is trained and comfortable with whatever the "new normal" is.

It is important to balance the efforts and resources invested in change management efforts according to expected benefits. However, it is important not to fall into the trap of being stuck and focused on these metrics. There are many intangible benefits of change management that are difficult to quantify, and some of those benefits aren’t solely measurable. Use the measures as a compass to guide the work, but don’t make them the destination.

Change is hard, but tapping into our stories can help us see our values in action, and find the strength to keep persevering.