Ten ways to prevent change project failure

Here are my top ten reasons for change project failure.

These are in no particular order.

I hope that you will recognise some of these in your own organisations. If not, try asking your colleagues to take a look at this list and ask them which of these they see within the organisation.

You never know, the debate that follows may lead you to some improvements in how you implement change.

Here they are:

1. Top down business system design – CEO’s cannot understand why their organisations do not wholeheartedly embrace their change ideas.
2. Constantly changing priorities – Ideas driven senior managers giving their teams so many things to think about that none of the previous (good) ideas find time to be implemented.
3. Dogged adherence to a rigid and over specified plan – i.e. Three years plans specified in step by step detail from the outset. Halfway through the project we notice that business needs have moved on.
4. Hierarchical command and control structures. – Failure to recognise that middle managers are the ones getting stuff done. Give them time, trust and space.
5. Strategic IT objectives led by technology availability instead of customer needs. – We bought a new software package, now what can we do with it?
6. Inadequate levels of training, confidence and systems knowledge among operations staff – Not knowing what the existing system is capable of is not really a good excuse for buying a new one.
7. Automation of existing (and inadequate) business processes, overlooking the opportunity to change them before / during the project. – i.e. Taking a paper based process and forcing it into a case management system – anyone remember online PDF forms?
8. Fragmented systems for common functions across different departments and hierarchies. – It starts with CEO’s who are given a superior back office support service compared to the everyday member of staff. It results in an inability to produce meaningful or complete management information across the organisation.
9.  Failure to look for obvious efficiency gains. This is about Old Ways of Working v’s New ways of Working. – Have you explored flexible working, shift patterns, incentive programmes and performance management as options before you change the fundamental systems you use?
10. Outsourced suppliers with overly complex and rigidly applied SLA’s. – Short term cost savings at the start of a contract lull us into a false sense of security about the future. Failure to negotiate flexibility into the later years of a contract comes back to haunt us.

My feelings about this list have changed over time, some items come and others go, but this set is always at the core of the list.

Have a great week.

Adam.


About the Author: Adam Blackie is a professional Interim Manager who leads service delivery teams through their change programmes. He works with CEO’s and their Boards in the UK to change the way technology is used by staff and their customers.

How to choose between a Change Manager and a Project Manager

Project Management and Change Management are often used interchangeably. The confusion is interesting because getting the Project and Change teams to work well with each other pays off significantly.

Making the decision about which of these approaches to take at the earliest opportunity will save us a lot of time and effort later on. The choice is all about how easy it is for people to understand what has to be done.

• Change Management is an additional level of discipline based on the complexity of the activity being undertaken.
• Project management is used if the tasks or changes are simple and commonly understood. When the changes become more complex, the need for increased discipline with respect to Change Management becomes important.

In short, Change Management serves as another layer of discipline over Project Management in complex transformations.

The most frequent practical difference is in the level of communication needed.

Leaders who initiate real change spend time communicating the change before it gets rolled out. This is the key to minimising resistance. The temptation to speed through the communication; or to assume that others already know what needs to happen, is often what seems to get things derailed. This is entirely understandable because senior staff have spent much time thinking about change before they try to implement, and it is very easy to assume others know as much as us at this stage.

Change Management allows for a greater degree of communication, involvement and participation in the process. It also demonstrates flexibility and patience when there appears to be initial resistance. In this way success is much more likely.

Project Managers are more like scientists and Change Managers are more like artists.
Have a great week.

Adam.


About the Author: Adam Blackie is a professional Interim Manager who leads service delivery teams through their change programmes. He works with CEO’s and their Boards in the UK to change the way technology is used by staff and their customers.

Chaos as a change Agent.

No Way Back

There are times in any change project when we have to decide how to migrate from the status quo to a new way of working.

Most projects try to migrate smoothly, one step at a time, from A to B, but sometimes there is pressure to do things more quickly.

There may be a wolf at the door, and to hesitate will guarantee failure.

This where the idea of catastrophe theory is useful.

It goes something like this.

If we want to change quickly, really change, we have to stop doing the things that we used to do and only do the new thing. However, some people like the old ways so much that they keep going back to them. Even when they have learned to do new things.

To prevent this we need to cut off the route to the old ways and only allow the new ones. With no way back we can only operate in the new ways.

So here is what we need to do when rapid change is needed.

When the team is ready, i.e. it has learned the new ways, we permanently cut off the old ways. For example, close down the old system, throw away the old furniture, lock the doors in the old office, shut down and archive the old website, etc.

If you leave any return route open, people will work hard to find and use it. They will plead the case for audit, for learning from old ways, for recycling useful stuff etc. Resist these where you can, they are the foundations for wholesale reversion to old ways and your opportunity to implement change a second time around may never happen.

Have a great week.

Adam.

About the Author: Adam Blackie is a professional Interim Manager who leads service delivery teams through their change programmes. He works with CEO’s and their Boards in the UK to change the way technology is used by staff and their customers.