Before you go do your deliverable extravaganza ask yourself who/what the plan is for. The stakeholders? The project team? Yourself and your role? Is it a living document that illustrates interaction, collaboration and adaptation? Do you consider the Change Management Plan to be the typical collection of documents- stakeholders analysis, communication and training plan?
It can and could be all of those things. But if you happily fill in the blanks on your favorite template you might miss the point.
Change Management is about addressing the people side of getting work done. Which means as a CM you need to spend a lot of time with people. I find it strange to see CM’s filling in all of the things they put on that plan and those templates while the initiative goes along merrily (without them effectively) with the same problems and the same mistakes they all have.
Yes I do most of the things listed- sometimes more sometimes less depending on the clients insistence, time and compensation. Not before I do MY version of a change management plan.
That plan (which is really a to do list of investigation to help fill in some of the things above) includes:
- The root causes that led to this initiative
- The core dysfunctions of the organization (structure, process and culture)
- The way information is exchanged
- Measure, accountability and responsibility as a whole
- The performance management system
The root causes that led to this initiative
There are always things that led to the “idea” and eventually the initiative. It could be previous bad decisions, bad mergers, frozen innovation, overconfidence, attrition and/or a host of other things. The change process will carry forward the effects of those root causes (and the inability to fix things since solutions rarely address root causes). Those effects will then effect ability to change.
The core dysfunctions of the organization (structure, process and culture)
There seems to be a clean yin and yang for established organizations. Unfortunately, success usually comes when there is a tip in either direction. An oil company that relies on long time frames has a strong safety and reporting structure- good thing they do not have to be quickly innovative. A start up just changes no need for a plan with all that energy- until something goes wrong and that confidence goes away. Then the middle mangers need to be brought in to bring some order to the place.
Process can work the same way. Intense measurement unless it is balanced by the correct rewards in the performance system can make things close to perfect until there is a break. Wild and carefree project oriented processes can speed certain things through quickly (say getting something to market fast) but often effect quality.
Founders guide an organization to emulate them or at least follow rules and values the founders espouse. Later there is the inevitable crash against reality- cloning does not exist. There comes a time when rising leaders realize they do not really want to be like the founder. Or the organization just grows too big for the viewport of the culture that developed.
The way information is exchanged
Sometimes the CM role is as easy as translating and relaying information. As an external it is fairly easy for me to interpret peoples wishes, push backs and questions back and forth to their reports and leadership. I am often shocked at how little is really exchanged (and so therefore accomplished) in meetings. (My favorite time killer during meetings when there is nothing Change Management oriented to watch for, is to add up the cost of the meeting- imagine if meetings were actually line items in budgets!)
Measure, accountability and responsibility as a whole
How are people and things measured in the organization? What gets rewarded officially? Unofficially? Is there buck passing? Is accountability hierarchical? Is there a committee system (so that most things die a slow death)? Is “consensus” really just the manager looking for approval and support?
The performance management system
What about the official measurement system- the one that pays people and represents compensation? Does it have anything what so ever to do with the goals of this initiative? (hint: no and here is the biggest problem you will face as a CM)
And now: Is there anything you can do about this? Can structure, process and or culture changes be included in the change process? If the answer is yes, which is rare, then that change management plan just got interesting. And you might want to hold off a little on the typical templates while you think, talk to stakeholders and gather some front loaded information.
While the CM consultant would provide the framework of the facilitation into a Change management plan, why would the contents of the plan itself not be generated by the people themselves? Replace or complement workshops and interviews by a change plan wiki or an other collaborative tool? In the Fourth Revolution setting maybe the Change Management consultant needs to plan how to develop the Change plan, at a higher level? Empowering the people is the most important nowadays…