CHA-CHA-CHA-Changes

Change: The Why, What, Where, When and HOW

Why change? The human condition is to seek comfort, not disruption. However, disruption is happening to you every day, you really have no choice. You must face the change needed; stay nimble and agile; and understand that there are better methods, processes, technology, approaches, and markets to conquer. You will eventually be disrupted from your safe position, stuck in status quo, and have your lunch money stolen by the playground bully. Brick and Mortar - meet e-commerce.

What needs to change? This requires a want, a need, a compulsion to always be better. Margins, Speed, Efficiency, Quality, Sales Revenue, Customer Experience, Employee Experience, Brand, Growth trajectory, etc. We all want more, but to do this, we must fully understand that what got us here will decidedly not get us there. We must tackle our fears, become very introspective as companies, and do a full assessment of our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Yes, it is Old School - but the effort allows us to prioritize what must be addressed first. See Eisenhower Matrix below:

Where will Change benefit us most? I have several friends and colleagues that have a running 'hit' list - of opportunities to change and drive revenue, experience (internal and external) margin, and opportunity for their companies. The tenacious do not do a 'hard part do later' - but regularly evaluate the concerns and always work their improvements. They challenge everything, never being satisfied and driving towards better.

When is Change necessary? The better question is when is it not? We must have a good measure of how much effort / investment is required and what are the expected value driven. When following a prioritization matrix, stack the urgent and important and place each major change against each other. It is a scoreboard of expected return vs. effort.

Change for the sake of change is foolhardy. To add dimension and impact to the Eisenhower approach, it must be tempered with return-on-investment, culture and people impacts, disruption to clients (must keep the lights on) - and an understanding of how likely the change will be embraced. Change is hard, changing people is harder as many are stuck in their ways, and need a guiding hand through the desert to the promised land.

How does effective change take place? The most important aspect to tackle is Vision and Mission from leadership. Too often leaders will say "we need to change, we need to be better, faster, more efficient, more disciplined" without an articulated vision of what that looks like. in fairness, that is commonplace. The true visionaries link with the architects, builders, marketers, purveyors, and operators dosed with financial sanity to develop the 'What is possible' view of the outcome. Then and only then can project planning begin.

The best way to begin a project is to tell a strategic story of some great team tackling what was thought to be insurmountable. The story is confirmation that when we all align, we can get to the moon, or Mars or beyond. The effort is going to take a team, filled with curiosity, wanton tenacity, great planning, solid metrics and no quit before they get it right. No one gets it right the first time, but the leaders who stick to their plans win more often than not.

Then we move to planning.... which begins with assessment. We must understand where we are to visualize how to get where we are going. Ofttimes, this requires some very hard truths about current inefficiencies, workflow, unclear communication, poor leadership, poor engagement of workforce - so many variables that need to be measured before corrected and put on the path to improvement.

Ah....then we build our path - the plan. Ofttimes this is best to illustrate in a roadmap. This will help define critical deliverables and design next steps in the process. There is no shortcut around this effort, as the people/systems/processes we are seeking to improve all need the clarity of what is needed to achieve results.

When the roadmap is complete, the project planning begins. With major change, the unintended consequences and twists and turns need a dashboard. If it is a long-term change you seek to affect, many distractions will appear, and teams need to always have an eye on the new current state. Let us call this a sanity check.

There are great free project planning and templates available to anyone seeking to provide clarity to their efforts. Being a black belt or green belt means you know the tools (there are a myriad) and know how to use them, and proven that you have. Its great having those people in an organization; however, I would say the most important cultural characteristic for change to be effective is for everyone in the organization to learn the concepts of change.

Most PM's will tell you that when they are solely tasked with process mapping, gap definition, solutions building, piloting, and testing, their partners will gladly let them do it. This is not effective long-term. Organizations must realize that change is a muscle and needs to be worked every day. While innovative organizations have diversity of thought, they also do not expect PMs to carry the entire load of change. It does require the entire team to effectuate change.

Implementation begins with controls in place to understand how much progress is made, and what remains to be worked. This also affords leadership the opportunity to determine that the destination is still the same. It is best to have phase gates in the process, to make certain the progress is being made and the change is working. Developing back-up plans and fail-safes is always necessary. A caution: Patience is key. When the team is totally on board, most well-orchestrated changes will produce good to great outcomes if done correctly.

Finally, evaluate the change. This allows us to perform after-action reviews (separate article coming on the power of the after-action review), scorecards, celebration (both the learnings and the results) and take on the next hard thing standing in the way. Rinse and repeat.

Change requires Technology, PROCESS and People - all must be coordinated. Good luck in your endeavors. Change is a coming, and never stops. Best to equip yourself and prepare for the journey.