Change Management: It's about the people

Just last week I had a Change Management training and certification in Prosci ADKAR framework, which you may be well familiar with or heard before. It is simple yet powerful tool that lets you understand the universal truth: Change is about people. Although I won't be focusing on ADKAR here, my first post will be on the topic of Change Management per se.

Being inspired by my recent training, I picked a webinar called "Project HEADWAY: It's about the people, stupid" by Mark Mullaly (experienced consultant in project and change management). So what does the author have to say? Well, as you could already guess, change management is all about people and its impact on people and teams. But let's take a closer look on my takeaways from this video.

PMBoK's technical view of Change Management

Contextwise, PMBoK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) does recognize the change but more in technical/scope dimension. If we talk about changes on organizational scale, then to paraphrase Mr. Mullaly: project is the vehicle that drives change in the organization. However, organization is simply an abstract entity on paper (imagined order so to say), and therefore organizations do not change. People do. This is a limitation of classic project managment approach.

Change is not easy, and it is about people

Change is not easy, in fact it is hard. It depends on its size, scope, complexity and uncertainty. Mr. Mullaly mentioned an interesting statistics: 80% of organization changes fail. Change process is not linear, or logical, but takes time and effort to implement. Changing behaviour can not be forced. Common fallacy is that management assuming changing policy will do, or if boss said so it should work. Yet it is important to remember that change is all about people, as Mr. Mullaly said: "Change is something we need to do with people, not to people". People's involvement is the essential part of any change management process.

Best practices are not always the best

Interesting thought was given about best practices. Something that worked really well in one organization does not guarantee success in the other. As simple as that. Why? Because imposing someone else's experience on others takes away a sense of ownership and personal buy-in. Successful practices must be tailed to organizational needs, and become unique for "them". Blind copying can lead to fail.

Start with the future state in mind

As it goes with ADKAR, always start with Awareness and Desire. People should see how this change can make them more successful. For example, if it is a process, then it should be practical, applicable, well understood and accepted in the eyes of the beholder. The path from current state to future state should clearly outline the benefits, and consequence of nothing changing.

Do not make it any harder

Change is already hard, therefore the goal of project manager/change manager to make people's transition as easy as possible. Think how to:

• Not to make it unnecessarily any harder
• Avoid, reduce or minimize difficulties/hurdles along the way

If you want to know more, please watch a webinar at ProjectManagement.com

Hope it was interesting to read, and you could take something useful out of it. I invite all practicing project managers, especially my colleagues, for discussion. Please share your experiences and how did you manage the change in your projects?

#projectmanagement #changemanagement #organizationalchange