Not long ago, I spoke with a recruiter and learned about a particular role they had in mind for me. The role leads a system implementation. It looked like a hybrid project and also a change leadership role. While experience is hard-earned, I find it gives you invaluable pattern recognition. So when this recruiter was trying to sell me this role, my mind immediately went to the project team’s composition. This composition spoke to the likelihood of the project being delivered and of a successful change in the eyes of the end-users.
My recruiter friend’s response soon made it clear that the role itself was evolving as a concept- as was the support mechanisms in place. My heart sank a little. Based on these initial answers, I could say the probability of success was marginal at best. My colleagues and bosses would say I am not the type of change professional who needs an assistant for my assistant. If anything, I prefer to both lead and do most of the “hands-on” work. Even so, over many projects, I have found that if you have key people in place, the likelihood of your success soars.
The off cited statement “70% of changes fail” may not have any researched proof. Yet I suspect many professionals like this statement as it is memorable and may even sell the odd consulting assignment.
But rather than critiquing failure, what other factors that help increase the likelihood of success? Success for most projects of this ilk is twofold.
You can have the world’s “best” Project Manager-full of energy, “can do” and zeal for delivering successful change. Yet if there are no resources to support our adventurous PM, what is the likelihood of success?
What if the PM was joined by a brilliant Business Analyst? This BA could translate business requirements into technical instructions or outcomes. What if they worked tirelessly to help user acceptance testing and training? The margin of success (as a probability) begins to widen.
The above image looks at increasing the likelihood of technical delivery success. The success factors can be broken out by scope, team, timing/pace and “stickiness”. Many of the points against each factor are fundamental concepts Project Manager already know. Yet, some of the concepts (and the “stickiness” factor) relate directly to organisational change management.
After all, don’t you want your change to be “sticky” and adopted by users in the long term? As an aside, project teams are incentivised to deliver the technical part of the change and then roll off the project. Yet the longer-term measure of success may be how many people make a habit of engaging in the future state. This is where I have added a concept for behavioural compliance. Can we measure the number of users who have made a regular habit of adjusting to your new way of working?
Delivering the technical change is one part of the success. But as the saying goes:
“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.”
It just isn’t true. If this was true, superior products in the marketplace would sell themselves. No need for advertising informed pricing, or clever and convenient distribution! The same can be said for system implementations. How many systems have been foisted upon an organisation and are ignored or rejected outright?
When looking at increasing the likelihood of change success, take a good look at the brothers and sisters standing beside you. If you have some strong doers in your team, this can make a huge difference. Adapting to different characters in your team is fun and tricky. As long as each of you is striving for the same goal, Vive la difference.
Does your team composition have at least one soldier who can help you get things done and work with time-consuming and fiddly tasks? An extra pair of hands is incredibly important around the busiest times of your project. If your change involves several geographic locations which are hard to get to, on-site support is incredibly valuable.
Advocates can include change champions. Advocates are also found in support teams and project governance. An advocate is any team or person who removes obstacles from your change.
A good tester is someone who is objective and can draft plain English use cases and test scripts. One outstanding tester I had the pleasure of working with recently also took the initiative to construct and measure behavioural compliance issues. I have to say: this initiative knocked me off my perch. They were able to capture the ways that people didn’t correctly use the future state. This initiative avoided some nasty surprises a few months after go-live, where we would have found out massive data integrity issues. We also would have been scratching our heads wondering why people weren’t using the future state at all.
Experts can be both the future state vendor and also people in the organisation who are accountable for being the subject matter expert. Experts usually have “skin in the game”. This accountability gives them extra motivation. They are incentivised to be on top of the future state and what it means to the average employee.
What about support from operational teams ultimately “owning” the change? Again, success likelihood increases.
Much research and change leader opinion focuses on the role of the sponsor. An active sponsor is indeed an asset to the likelihood of a successful change. Yet, what are the active ingredients of active sponsorship? If sponsors commit funds to resource a change initiative, is this the leading active ingredient to unlocking a greater likelihood of success? Or is it their hands-on involvement throughout the project life-cycle that contributes to change success?
A good data analyst, be it a Business Analyst or someone looking at pure number crunching / heavy-duty thinking work is invaluable across each team role. They serve as great soldiers, advocates, testers and also work closely with experts.
Perhaps the size and maturity of an organisation have something to do with change success likelihood. In mature organisations, your project is likely to be slotted into an organisation-wide change “pipeline”. This pipeline is architected by a team charged with project oversight. Your organisation’s Project Management Office (PMO) play this invaluable part in “directing traffic”.
With this in mind, is your project part of a single view of the change in mature organisations?
How responsive is the vendor to providing a tangible non-government on the future state? Excellent software vendors might place their energy on mitigating potential break/fix issues. Their focus on training system administrators and other back-end technical experts is valuable. They train in the more complicated aspects of the future state. Their efforts may seem counter-intuitive; why don’t they train the masses instead?
Their efforts are well-directed. Training a small number of people in break/fix is often far better than having vendors train the average end-user. A decent change or training professional can pick up the more intuitive and basic functions of the future state. The change or training professional can then run “train the trainer” sessions. In these sessions, change or training professionals can focus on a consistent script. This script uses the organisation’s terminology and covers a brief reason for the change.
Vendors can also provide an excellent prototype or working example of the future state. Demonstrating this prototype can be in and of itself a powerful change intervention. How could a tangible state increase the likelihood that people will adjust to the change?
Put it this way: how much mental energy do you need to expand when provided with an abstract concept, or where do you have to use your imagination?
Yet, how much mental energy do you need to expand when provided a tangible and working prototype instead? This tangibility may quell anxiety and anxiety reduction is an important part of introducing change, wouldn’t you agree?
It’s a shame I haven’t found a way to quantify the contribution of each of these factors to change success. These questions and frameworks act as a lens to observe your team’s composition and the strengths of each team member. This is quite an unscientific way to talk about the factors contributing to change success. Yet I hope you find it helpful as a general guide or framework for your career.
My book — The Change Manager’s Companion — is available now. You can also check out my online course on Change Management.