Change management - 7 steps to avoid project failure

As you’d expect change doesn’t come easy to any organisation. If you are planning on implementing a new CRM or other digital technologies that forces you to change the way the organisation, individuals and teams operate, then expect some internal push back and barriers to emerge.

Depending on the degrees of push back, who and where from, will disrupt your project somewhere on the scale from negligible to a complete disaster and project failure.

Prosci[1] shows change is represented by 3 clear states, Current, Transition and Future. That is, employees tend to live in the current state and work hard to maintain the status quo with processes, often built by themselves due to inadequate processes and systems in place. Leaders will work in the Future state as they need to, but it also an easier place to be sometimes! The transition state has the greatest potential to be tumultuous as the organisation seeks to re-engineer itself and change.

But don’t worry all is not lost there are seven steps you can take to ensure all challenges through the Transition state especially are surmountable with good outcomes.

1. Proactive executive and board support – this is the single biggest thing to get right. Any project that means change (of any kind) across the organisation must be led from the top. Lack of executive support and active sponsorship will see an unsuccessful project. There is a clear correlation between sponsorship effectiveness and project success.

2. Committed resource – change management can be resource hungry as it needs stamina, time and the right skills so don’t underestimate resourcing needs.

3. Structured approach – provides a consistent, clear direction and transparency in the approach allowing for a structured logical process with a common language, well defined roles and activities that is easy to understand and follow.

4. Employee engagement – whilst leadership is critical from the top, so it’s as important to all employees down through the levels too the most junior, are included and are part of the journey.

5. Regular and open employee communication – communication straddles everything and is the central pillar in any successful change programme. Prosci research showed the reason for the change and “what’s in it for me” being the most important communications.

6. Project management inclusion – whilst change is fundamentally about people, the technical side must still be delivered. Integration your project teams from the start is crucial to ensure project success within the time and budget.

7. Engagement with middle management – Preparing middle management is critically to the success of the change program. Ensuring they have the skills and capacity to bring their teams through the change and getting them to the Future state.

If you only take away one thing. Organisations don’t change, individuals change one person at a time.

[1] https://www.prosci.com/

Chrysalis Digital provides a digital transformation service designed to help build a more agile, efficient and innovative organisation. With its broad cross-sector experience Chrysalis has helped many organisations map their digital path and through careful planning and assessment, choose the right technology partners. Chrysalis Digital is 100% agnostic when recommending CMS and CRM suppliers to its clients.