Want a quick and easy way to learn the ups and downs of project life as an organisational change manager? The following project example is roughly based on real-world experience.
Meet Jane Cambio. Jane is an intrepid Organisational Change Manager. She has started working in a new organisation that uses an old legacy system called “System A”.
In the first of eleven videos, we introduce Jane and her project team. They are responsible for rolling out a new system in their organisation. “System B” is the new system, replacing “System A”. Very imaginative labels, I know!
Jane uses a particular model for her organisational change communications work. This model is called the MINIATURES model.
Jane starts with the first letter of the MINIATURES model. ‘M’ stands for ‘main point’. She researches employees impacted by “System B” — what do they need to know, think and do?
‘I’ is the next letter in the model, representing ‘imagination’. In Jane’s case, her imagination helps her put herself in her stakeholder’s shoes. Her imagination can also help bring her change communications to life. She used this aspect of the MINIATURES model to research employee perceptions of pains and gains. These pains and gains are related to the old system and the new one.
’N’ stands for ‘no waste’. How could Jane maximise her meagre resources to gain the most impact on her effort? As a change professional, she used this aspect of MINIATURES to consider the habits and focus to achieve a maximum return on her effort.
Sticking with her organisation’s font, colours and logos helped her avoid her work being unnecessarily critiqued. She also sought to balance creativity with her organisation’s tolerance for ‘out of the box’ thinking. Her unconventionality, especially in designing brief videos for ‘System B’ helped her. Her videos cut through the clutter of other messages employees read daily.
During the stresses of the ‘System B’ rollout, Jane would eventually start to feel the strain. Her stakeholders were increasingly demanding and sometimes hostile. Self-care is important for Jane’s ongoing well-being and balance. She deliberately chose the right habits for three important facets of her work. These habits were self-care, meeting stakeholders and drafting her change communications.
Jane was also happy that her change communications work was a team sport. She sought her team’s input on her change communications campaign. Each message was carefully scrutinised and approved. Her stakeholders enjoyed a sense of control over the ‘System B’ rollout. This was partly thanks to Jane ensuring they were involved in each message.
Disaster struck the ‘System B’ rollout later in the project. Yet Jane and her team rolled with stakeholder disappointment.
Jane found rewriting her change communications to be exhausting. Yet she remained calm and balanced, knowing that each draft was an investment. Rewrites are often needed to pivot to the unexpected, which was the case for the ‘System B’ team.
Plain English is a concept that change professionals should embrace. We may already have a familiarity with writing professional change messages. Yet embracing the principles from Plain English means many things for your stakeholders. They may breathe a sigh of relief from easily-understood messages. Your effort in wielding words with care can also result in concise messaging.
More ‘System B’ challenges close to go-live provided many opportunities for Jane’s team. Failure and challenges were great ways for her team to be humble and adaptable.
Jane always thought about her ‘System B’ change communications with the end in mind. She thought about the ultimate success her team would have. Even if it was a long time away when she first started. This long-term thinking meant she had crafted a useful change readiness survey early on. She also thought about keeping her change communications as short as possible. Less is indeed more.
As ‘System B’ went from being a project to ‘business as usual’, Jane and her team began to wind down. Another project success and a notch in Jane’s belt career-wise.
Want to learn more about change management and how to apply this knowledge to your work? Our book — The Change Manager’s Companion — is available now. You can also check out our online course on Change Management.
Our second book is on the way :)