People at the Heart of the Transformation

Text of Livia Nascimento

The Changing Hearts and Minds (CH&M), an event held by Vale's Change Management (CM) team, has been consolidating itself as a space for sharing the best practices in the market and interactions between professionals in the field.

Sandrine Moura, global leader of Change Management and Digital Transformation at Vale, emphasizes the importance of creating a support network focused on Change Management and how CH&M has contributed to establishing exchanges and connections.

The theme of the 4th edition’s event was "The practice of Change Management in agile projects", presenting successful cases of Natura & Co, Vale and Petrobras, which showed how Change Management has acted in the agile context.?

What is Agile?

For many companies, the moment of transformation in the form of work had originated with the Agile Manifesto. This document, created in 2001 by 17 technology professionals, has 12 principles and 4 core values:

• Individuals and interactions exceed processes and tools: the quality of interaction between people can solve chronic communication problems.
• Software in operation outpaces comprehensive documentation: customers want results.
• Client collaboration above contract negotiation: teamwork in search of a goal.
• Respond to changes over following a plan: learning from information and feedback and adapting the plan all the time.

The Agile theme was used to be approached by relating to software development projects and IT applications.?However, over time, the principles of Agile Manifesto were seen as valuable in many different contexts, as it allowed deliveries to have greater value. ?When it comes to the life cycle of agile projects, the beginning and end of each phase represents a point of reassessment of the work that has already been and will be do completed. Thus, it is easier to diagnose and correct the errors that impact the performance of work.

?Change is a Human Issue

Natura & Co is made up of four companies – Aesop, The Body Shop, Avon and Natura – and its reason is the concept of "Well-being Well".

For Francimeire Souza, senior manager of Organizational Change Management Natura & Co Latin America, the company's goal in adopting Agile Change Management is having more maturity in changing processes, enhancing the agility mindset and active listening, with tools that support those involved.

Agility brings a set of techniques that aim to enhance any transformation processes. According to Francimeire, three words summarize Agile: simplification, dynamism and interaction, which can be worked on various methods, such as Kanban, Scrum, Lean etc.

We know that changes are constant in the world and in our lives, but the speed factor has been accentuated. Therefore, it is important to manage changes with methodologies that follow this faster pace. On the other hand, being agile does not mean delivering faster, because the method must be at the service of the business.

In Natura's market context, highlighted by an attractive omnichannel experience, it is necessary to look at the consumer's journey with a collaborative model, which means having multidisciplinary teams that bring a holistic vision, but with a unique goal. During the transformation, everyone is in the process, because "change is always a human issue", as Francimeire points out.

Therefore, Natura uses Agile, with fractional deliveries.?The agile approach takes place by sprints and has some ceremonies: planning (planning of deliveries of sprints), sync (dependencies, alignments and risks) and delivery (delivery and review of the plan), in addition to dailies.

In the agile environment, change is expected to continuously evolve over time. To this end, it is important to have: co-creation of change (approach with participation of people affected by change), frequent alignment (cooperative work and support of the change team from leadership to the front line) and feedback (strategy and CM plans adjusted by constant feedback and aligned to delivery cycles).

Thus, Agile Change Management is a form of work that influences and supports change and its support at a speed adherent to the strategy and business need. The effective transformation will result with a change of mindset, with a leading role and holistic view of the leaders and their teams.

Agile and Change Management Working Side by Side

To demonstrate how the connection between Change Management and agility happens in Vale's context, Luiz Lanssoni, change management leader of the Digital Geotechnics Program, presented the synergy between Agile and Change Management.

According to Mr. Lanssoni, Change Management is a set of planned actions aimed at accelerating the adoption and use of something new or different. Based on a survey conducted by Deloitte, Luiz explained that typically an implementation fails because of the human factor that has not been mapped or treated and the risk has not been mitigated. The three main factors for an unsuccessful change are: resistance from employees who do not understand or are afraid of change; inappropriate sponsorship that does not encourage adherence to change and unrealistic expectations due to lack of communication.

Following this, Luiz presented Geotecnia Digital, a multidisciplinary program led by Vale's strategy to apply technology and process development in solving business problems, aligned with the best practices of Geotechnical Engineering and technology in the sector for Geotechnics.

Change Management permeates all layers of Digital Geotechnics, working at the strategy levels (focus on strengthening internal and external connections and increasing the Program’s eminence); Program (implementation of the operational model and performance management reflecting the unfolding of the strategy); tribes (focus on developing the maturity of leaders and optimizing tribal management) and initiatives (moving forward with initiatives and evaluating new capture cycles aligned with the strategy and future vision of Digital Geotechnics).

Luiz presented the Geotec case, an application that is part of an initiative called Geocenter, which analyzes geotechnical structures. The app was implemented throughout 2022 in waves, and with each wave, the CM team used the ADKAR methodology to create awareness for people about the reason for the app's existence. Creating desire by showing the importance of the app and how it would positively impact the routine of geotechnicians, provide knowledge about the use and monitoring of the implementation metrics to measure the support.

To calculate the effectiveness of the implementation, Prosci's SUP metric was used, which indicates the human factors that determine ROI (Return on Investment). In this metric, the factors are: Adoption Speed (S), which shows how fast people are conforming to change; Use (U) of the expected amount, for example, how many people have demonstrated adhering to change, and Proficiency (P), which reflects the ability's level of people to operate in a new scenario.

The evolution and establishment of the SUP for Geotec, as shared by Luiz, occurred through the agile Scrum methodology, which includes ceremonies like those used by Natura & Co, such as planning, daily meetings, refinement, among others.

In the first sprint, there was an understanding of how aspects of the SUP could be measured in Geotec, while the second and third sprint focused on the development of the measurement. In the fourth sprint, the minimum viable product (MVP) of the SUP was developed at Geotec and in the fifth, the refinement was carried out with the customer.?

Throughout the sprints, new ideas were generated, which went to the backlog. With the results, it was demonstrated that the SUP, in addition to calculating the ROI, also helped to identify anomalies, which could reflect a deviation in the expected behavior for change.

Change Management in Innovation Initiatives

By structuring Change Management in agile initiatives, Petrobras seeks autonomy, scope and action at scale.

And after all, why talk about CM in innovation projects? Poliana Barbosa, Manager of Digital Transformation and Innovation Change Management (DTICM), presented some market perceptions that justify this question: about 70% of transformation initiatives fail and 76% of CEOs realize that adaptation to change will be a competitive advantage.

Additionally, according to research conducted by Deloitte, to prepare and transform work for the future, it is necessary to create a culture that celebrates growth, adaptability and resilience; develop workforce capacity through upskilling, reskilling, mobility and implementing new technologies.

According to Poliana, Change Management can and should be applied in any innovation initiative, as it supports multidisciplinary innovation teams (processes, scale agility, R&D, etc.). Therefore, the DTICM area was created at Petrobras in 2019, with the purpose of developing CM competence in the company's innovation teams.

Since then, the area has evolved from an advisory model focused on agile teams in 2020 to serve a portfolio of prioritized initiatives in the first half of 2022. In the second half of this year, CM cells were created as a decentralized model focused on planning and execution of Change Management actions for innovation teams.

Poliana considers it is very important to develop CM skills in team members and preparing people. Thus, to accelerate this journey, some artifacts were created: E-learning in Change Management for agile teams (training on CM and tools), Quick Communication Guide (usage guidelines, model and tips), Quick Training Guide, as well as CM tools (Lean Change Canvas, Impact Mapping, Stakeholder Analysis and CM Action Plan).

The new model of action in Change Management for innovation teams is formed by a CM cell, communication and design cell, aiming results for the business, with increased satisfaction and people’s approval.

The difference between the cells consists of the fact that the CM cell is a local service with operation by prioritizing demands, bringing autonomy to the teams, scope of service and focus on gains in scale. The communication and design cell, on the other hand, focuses on highly complex products, allowing CM cells to have a specialized performance. ?Agility trains have been used for integrated value delivery.

During the transition, the action of Change Management has occurred in three ways: new ways of working (agility in scale: booklets of agile roles, agile ceremony manuals, training and embarking on agile roles and executive boarding), structuring of communication objectives (communication plans with objectives and journeys, knowledge pills, newsletter and video of agility in scale at Petrobras) and launch of agility trains?(change management plan for improvements in train launches and recommendation of change management steps with guides and templates).

The results of this evolution speak for themselves: +45% of Executive Managers impacted by CM actions; +1,100 trainings completed in the CM EAD; +50 attendance in the consulting modality and +20 CM attendances for prioritized initiatives, having as external partners Deloitte and BIP.

Poliana also presented the testimony by a leader of one of the initiatives, which summarizes the case: "supported by technologies, but people are the major cause of these transformations".

Promoting Effective Transformation

The 4th edition of CH&M brought some examples of companies that have embraced Agile in their transformation journeys.?But being agile does not necessarily mean being faster.?The cases presented demonstrated that Agile is, above all, a mindset.

Agile Change Management allows the change process to be people-centered and carried out in a more flexible way, aiming to achieve the result expected by the business. Therefore, in order to make an effective transformation, there must be, in addition to a change of mindset, leadership and teams are key figures throughout the process, because, after all, people are always at the center of the transformation.