Successful change management communication informs stakeholders of the time and place for their work.
Time-
is the relationship of stakeholder work and participation to the total amount of time for the initiative, the time frame of the phase(s) they are included in and the period they will need to accomplish their tasks.
Place-
is the relationship of that work to participation and tasks that occur before and after their own (and possibly a connection of importance to the bigger picture).
Well of course this is simple time and project management right? If we communicate what is happening then we are doing a good job.
Sorry, but no.
This is one of those subtle areas of change management that no one seems to notice. Most communication for project management and change management is a snapshot of the responsibilities of the guiding team. Add to that the delivery of “how things are going” and you have communication that simply satisfies the need of the team to check off tasks and verify “forward” movement. It does not address the stakeholders needs (and those fulfilled needs are the seeds for motivation).
What you want is the core end state description, clear phases and tasks that fall within those areas. With that you can create a rough timeline (with the pieces and relationships, but not necessarily exact timeframes) to use as the initial communication. That delivers a big picture. The phases themselves can have their own timelines and the tasks can be linked to each of the frozen “places” on the path. With that core visual built on solid up front planning you have an anchor to address changes within the process.
As you move through the timeframe of the initiative you can change the visual relationships on the timeline to re-jigger the frozen places for stakeholders.
Below is a simple timeline for the contents of a white paper I am writing. The paper moves through a knowledge buildup for the reader to get to a new understanding. With an initiative there is a layering of the right skills at the right time to get to the end state. Both can have those frozen places that rely on something previous and prepare for something to come.
As a stakeholder/reader I can see I am at the 5 W’s which I have arrived at after a summary, background and languaging. As I move forward I will begin to understand High Level Change and make the connection to action. The dark grey signifies completion, the green the frozen place, the numbers phases or parts and the titles description tags. The bright green dot, pick your favorite color, is the end state.
So often practitioners blame the lack of awareness on the deletion of messages.
Shouldn’t that be a signal that something might be wrong?