What are the benefits of integrating change management with project management and agile methods?

I agree, bringing in change managers early to get the alignment process underway is key. When stakeholders are brought in and prepared, they often add valuable feedback to the PM, bring up overlooked issues and leaders understand early on how to manage the change more effectively.

In my opinion this is absolutely key, by involving the change manager early in the process you have a better opportunity to not only align the business objectives with the benefits but also conduct proper stakeholder analysis and design effective management strategies that deliver interventions tailored to the individual needs hence better outcomes and success rates

Rather than an integration, I think both CM & PM disciplines should ride together as the driving wheels of a vehicle, both are key disciplines and need to be properly managed for the success of a Project.

I agree and to add I'd stress the importance of continuous communication and reinforcement throughout this process. To effectively manage change, we need to identify potential resistance early and address concerns proactively. Furthermore, we need to ensure we're not just managing change on a project level but fostering a culture of change readiness. This involves training, support, and making sure everyone understands the "why" behind the change. It's about creating a shared vision that ensures the change is sustainable and positively impacts the organization in the long run.

Integrar la gestión del cambio con la gestión de proyectos y métodos ágiles ofrece sinergias que optimizan el éxito organizacional. Al alinear estos procesos, se asegura una transición suave y una respuesta ágil a las necesidades cambiantes. Los beneficios incluyen la mitigación de resistencias, mejora en la comunicación, adaptabilidad a cambios frecuentes, y una entrega de proyectos más efectiva. Esta sinergia maximiza la eficiencia, minimiza riesgos y promueve una cultura organizacional receptiva al cambio continuo.

Yes. PM and CM integration allows for iterative feedback which increases stakeholder engagement and supports change integration.

Moreover, integrating change management with agile methodologies can foster a sense of shared ownership. Agile's iterative nature allows for incremental improvements, while change management ensures these changes align with organizational goals. This combination can create a more resilient team that's better prepared to handle unexpected challenges. Additionally, incorporating change management techniques like stakeholder analysis and resistance management helps to ensure transparency. This can build trust among team members and stakeholders, which can further enhance collaboration and overall project success.

Integrating project and Change management provides the technical perspective and a people-side approach, key elements for successful delivery.

By integrating PM methods, change managers can iterate on solutions and collaborate with the entire project team to come up with the best solution from the beginning and along the lifecycle, rather than being brought in at the end of a project to ensure adoption when decisions have mostly already been made without considerations from the change management team.

L'intégration de la conduite du changement dans la gestion de projets agiles favorise une collaboration plus étroite et un engagement accru entre l'équipe projet et les parties prenantes. Par exemple, l’analyse des parties prenantes et des résistances permet d'identifier et de répondre de manière proactive aux besoins, préoccupations et attentes des collaborateurs impactés par le changement. Cette approche renforce la compréhension et l’adoption du changement, ce qui est essentiel pour assurer le succès d'un projet.

Most importantly, by integrating project management, agile methods and change management in a holistic approach to driving organisational change, you not only improve the quality and value delivered, you reduce resistance, increase speed of adoption and accelerate the stickiness of the change. By working together, the team gets a better sense of how the change is landing, how well managers feel equipped to support and drive the changes and ensure feedback loops drive continuous improvement.

A piece that is often only accounted for at the end of a project is adoption, success criteria and business value. Change managers are in the perfect position to help support business leaders evaluate and measure towards success from beginning to end and beyond. Change managers also have opportunities to use A/B testing in communications and training strategies to test the best options for their end users that will show the most successful method.

En définissant des critères de réussite et en mesurant constamment les progrès de la réussite du changement, on tend à favoriser la succès du projet grace à un alignement constant entre les besoins et l’objectif final.

Integrating change management from the onset of project management is crucial for fostering a life cycle approach to project planning. By doing so, organizations can proactively address potential shifts in requirements and stakeholder expectations. This approach allows for the deliberate carving out of time for thorough stakeholder involvement, enabling iterative processes that enhance adaptability and responsiveness. Unlike reactive strategies that may limit possibilities and hinder project progress, a well-integrated change management methodology facilitates a dynamic and collaborative environment, fostering innovation and ensuring that projects align closely with evolving stakeholder needs throughout their life cycle.

Agile methods are iterative and incremental, making them well-suited for complex or uncertain projects. By integrating change management with project management and agile methods, project managers can create a more holistic approach to change. It can help ensure the realization of change benefits. Here are some methods to increase agility and adaptability: Identify stakeholders, which includes both internal and external stakeholders. Communicate the need for change and benefits. Do this early and often. Get input from stakeholders to build trust and support. Be flexible and adaptable. Things will change, so be prepared to adjust the plan. Empower people to take ownership that can help ensure success.

Agile methods are inherently more flexible than traditional project management approaches, and integrating change management can further increase this flexibility by allowing teams to adapt to changes more easily.

Once the project is closed it does not mean that the change management effort ends there, very often with complex system and behavioural changes it is critical that the users are well supported at the early stages post go-live to ensure that the change does stick and adoption rates are healthy. Also, many projects do not deliver immediate benefits hence why it is key to support the business in designing an effective benefit management plan that clearly describes when the benefits are expected and how they will be measured. Organisations that do this well get valuable data and better insight when deciding on which future projects to undertake and how to derive the best value.

Driving sustainable change is ultimately what most organisations set out to achieve, but in many cases that doesn't quite work out. Where change managers can add a huge amount of value as part of a project team is looking at how to set up the right reinforcement mechanisms in the business. For example, this can mean looking at how new ways of working flow through to people's objectives, how reward and recognition systems are aligned to reinforce the change, ensuring the change fosters collaboration rather than competition, etc. By working collaboratively between PM and CM from the start, these organisational levers can be set on the right setting early on in the change.

This should be called 'Increase change capability maturity' instead. One way that people can track their progress towards a higher level of change capability maturity is to use my Flow of Change Model v1.5 introduced in the best-selling 'Charting Change' which includes the Triple T Metric (short for Time to Transform). Measuring the Triple T Metric across similar sized project, change, and transformation initiatives over time will allow you to measure progression over time. More information at: https://charting-change.com

Two important considerations: 1. Every project changes something, and so project management could be looked at as the science of managing little 'c' changes and change management as the science of managing big 'C' changes. 2. Contrary to popular belief, project management should be seen as a subset of change management - NOT the other way around. You can see visually how this works in my book 'Charting Change' and in this article here: https://bradenkelley.com/2015/11/architecting-the-organization-for-change/

Change management process can be agile. In fact, many organizations are adopting agile change management practices to be more responsive to rapidly changing business environments.