Change Management - Quay Consulting...QUAY CONSULTING | Key Principles of Change | Page 4 Change management is oft-touted as part of the business case for successful transformation,

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The Key Principles of Successful Change

Change

Management

QUAY CONSULTING | Key Principles of Change

The Key Principles of Successful ChangeIn a time of rapid and freuqent change, leadership is critical.

However, all too often, the change mandate isn’t clear or meets significant resistance from the people it is likely to impact.

So how do we as leaders support effective change in our organisations? In this compilation, we look at the principles that will enable champions of change to succeed:

• The value of having the business case to implement change

• Designing change based on insight from past success and failure

• The fundamentals of delivering successful change

• Knowing how to identify the gaps and meet resistance

• Understanding the relationship between change and uncertainty.

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ContentsThe Complexity of Change Management: Implementing the Business Case 4-5

Designing Change: An Opportunity for Insight 6-7

5 Fundamentals for Delivering Successful Change 8-9

The Change Gap: Why Planning for Resistance is Critical for Project Success 10-11

Surfing Change: We’re All Equal Before the Wave 12-13

QUAY CONSULTING | Key Principles of Change | Page 3


Change management is oft-touted as part of the business case for successful transformation, however, it is in the implementation that many organisations come un-stuck.As long-term advocates of strong change management as an enabler of success, Quay has worked with clients to help them understand that business case benefits are not all delivered at once.

More often than not, the benefits are not fully realised for between one and three years after a project has been delivered and the program/project team has been disbanded.

Yet it is so often the case that the change management effort post-implementation is what will ultimately determine the success or otherwise of the project and, by default, the realisation of the benefits.

Given the role that change management can play, how can an organisation ensure that it is adequately recognised when the business case is first established?

The Challenge of Successfully Delivering ChangeGood, sustained change management will always improve a project’s odds of success and the opportunity to realise its benefits. That said, there are often barriers to that success.

So why is the change management component of a project so hard to get right?

We put the question to a group of change leaders in a recent Quay Collaborate Change Management session and they identified the following challenges to delivering successful change:

• Disconnects often exist between the problem the business wants to solve and what IT thinks the solution needs to be;

• A lack of focus on the real success criteria for the project;

• A focus on delivering a new system, not on how to use the system to realise the benefits;

• Middle management change capability – Many organisations understand what change management is but not how to make the change;

• The business is not held accountable for realising the benefits;

WORDS BRAD KANE

The Complexity of Change Management: Implementing the Business Case

• The business is not supported to deliver benefits with change management;

• Benefits are poorly tracked;

• No funding within the budget cycle to conduct analysis on benefits tracking and realisation;

• Duration of deliver dilutes the ability to achieve the benefits.

The question then is: what does work to facilitate change management and the delivery of benefits?

What Works: Change Management is a People Problem and SolutionThe group recognised that there is complexity in realising business case benefits, as shown in the above challenges, with some being rather obvious but not easily resolved.

What is clear is that benefits are not realised by software alone. People need to be involved and the owners, leaders and managers of the people involved need to be accountable for achieving the intended benefits.

It is executive and organisational change leadership that, when implemented, can significantly enhance the chances of successful benefits realisation.

The group also agreed that a strong governance structure that is fit-for-purpose with executive buy-in and accountability is imperative and that accountability from the business at all levels is essential.

Enabling OwnershipThe group also had some tips for helping organisations to achieve the business ownership of change:

• Program (system delivery), benefits realisation and change management reporting to the same executive sponsor;

• Ensure members of the Executive and key general managers are clear on their role as Change Sponsors and Leaders;

• Gain agreement from the group

on what key behaviours they were going to hold each other to account against as the change programs continue;

• Ensure that there was absolute alignment between the change approach, the program structure and the related benefits realisation approach.

Maintaining the MomentumTo the original proposition: once a system is delivered, this is where the real work of owning the change begins.

Some critical insights and lessons learnt from the group during this phase included:

• Create the right level of accountability and ownership with clear expectation from the leadership team: Link individual KPIs with benefit realisation; link benefit to the P&L for true financial benefit;

• The role of the business sponsor may change post-implementation and this needs to be acknowledged and understood by all parties;

• Track the benefits through the right information and KPIs;

• Remembering at all times it’s not the system but people and process that drive the system that matter;

• Maintain and effectively use the steering committee post system delivery to keep driving the benefit realisation.

Don’t Share the Blame; Own the ChangeWe see it all too often within programs: technologists point the finger at the business and vice versa when it comes to benefits realisation.

Change management is the glue and the enabler of successful benefits delivery.

When it is properly incorporated into all phases of the project, change focuses the business on the ‘how’, which in turn help them to deliver the ‘what’.

The ‘what’ is the benefits that were

originally called out in the business case and the reason the project was established in the first place.



How can you deliver change when the final outcomes for your projects are unknown? The answer is in how you design for it.When you’re running a project, it’s simply not possible to do everything at once. There is a natural order of events that are driven by dependencies intended to bring change into the business.

There is usually a final set of technical and process activities that centre around the final delivery of the project’s solution and benefits, be it to the business or the customers, and it is at this point that change management becomes critical because it’s often the last chance to influence the change in a positive way.

The goal is usually to promote wide-spread acceptance and take-up of a new set of systems and processes by users and customers.

However, as all experienced project professionals know, you also have only one opportunity to get it right. First impressions count.

Given the criticality of change to the success of any new solution and that – by and large –

most of the important change activities tend to be corralled toward the backend of the project during go-live, is there anything the project team can do earlier in the delivery cycle to de-risk the change?

Not All Projects Present the Same Change Challenge While the specifics of most projects are generally quite unique, they can generally be grouped into categories of complexity based on the size and nature of the change challenge, for example, the paint-by-numbers types where outcomes are known up front and therefore the change impacts are somewhat predictable and plannable.

Sometimes the speed of change can present a significant challenge, particularly when an Agile delivery approach means that there is a continuous lifecycle of requirements, design, and delivery.

Then there are other projects that are more a journey of discovery with an oftentimes vague outcome and a one-line scope item in a two-page project brief.

Destination Unknown: Delivering Change It’s the latter project type that presents the biggest change challenge. Often complex and

WORDS ROD ADAMS

Designing Change: An Opportunity for Insight

full of ambition, these projects can start out as a walk in the fog. What will be ultimately delivered is far harder to predict and will reveal itself later in the project cycle as the technical complexities (be they system, people or process) are discovered, understood, and gradually unpacked.

Not surprisingly, the less that is known of a project’s outcome, the greater the challenge there is in planning and developing a fit-for-purpose change approach.

The ‘walk in the fog’ projects carry the most risk and therefore need the most change attention and effort.

So what can the project team do to ensure that change has the optimal chance for success if you don’t know what you’re planning for?

Adapt to The Conditions, but Come Prepared Change strategy comes into its own in the final stages of project delivery, but it’s the effort during the initial design phase that facilitates greater success.

It’s the point at which it is critical for the change team to engage the wider project technical team and be as inclusive as possible because it’s during the shaping and design phase, that the complexities of the solutions will start to show themselves (as well as impacts on systems, people, and process).

If the change team is continuously engaged early in the process and change strategy is played back iteratively against the overall solution design as it takes shape, the fog will start to lift and early insights will start to filter through about likely change challenges ahead.

It’s these insights that enable the change team to help the business navigate through resistance and give the project its best opportunity to be successful.

Early warning systems are designed to enable teams to plan and the more considered the planning time with the right information, the better the likely project outcomes will be.

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If continuous disruption has become the ‘steady state’, then the opportunity to deliver successful change should be grounded in effective change management fundamentals. As technology continues to drive innovation, companies are striving for that competitive edge – and that typically means doing things better, faster and cheaper. If continuous disruption has become the so-called ‘steady state’, then organisations need to change or transform the way they do business, how they deliver change, and the way they operate day-to-day. The impact is significant to all levels of the business, from the executive through to the individuals on the operational front line. Failure in major transformations is high due to management behaviour not supporting change and employee resistance to change Let’s explore the fundamentals for delivering successful change.

MethodologiesThere are many methodologies that offer frameworks for change, all of which are applicable and provide valuable tools. Some of

the better known methodologies include:

• ADKAR

• William Bridge – 3 Phase Transition

• Kotter’s 8 Steps

• Lewins Unfrees, Change Freeze Model

• McKinsey’s 7 S Model

• McKinsey’s 4 Conditions for Changing Mindsets

So which one is right for your organisation? As always, Quay recommends tailoring a framework to ensure it is fit-for-purpose, because it is probable that no one methodology will be a perfect fit, but rather that some parts of each will be right for your organisation’s needs.

How to Determine Which Approach Will Work Best?When assessing what will work for the planned change, the best place is to start with the size of the change. Is it:

• Transformational: This type of change affects a large number of people across the organisation where the change is critical and fundamentally impacts how people do their everyday jobs.

• Operational: Not as wide-spread as transformational change, but it does affect how people do their jobs and

WORDS BRAD KANE

5 Fundamentals for Delivering Successful Change

www.quayit.com.auQUAY CONSULTING | Key Principles of Change | Page 9

reworking of processes are usually required.

• Transactional: Limited to a single department with a small number of users.

When the size of the change is clear, the next step is to measure the breadth, depth, level of impact and criticality. For example, a transactional change may not be broad, but it could be deep, have high impact on the users involved, and be critical to the business’s future success. Each level of change has one thing in common: Individuals are key.

The Individual is CriticalWhether it is a discreet project changing the way a single department operates or a complete organisational transformation, people have to change the way they work. McKinsey has studied the causes of failure in major transformation and found that:

• 33% was due to management behaviour not supporting change

• 39% was due to employee resistance to change

It may seem obvious, but as we are changing more often, it’s necessary to ensure that the change is delivered effectively. In the diagram above, adoption rates over time at each level of an organisation clearly display that end-users are the last to adopt change. Importantly, success is only achieved when these end-users have adopted change.

5 Fundamentals For Setting Change Up For SuccessGiven the assumption that the adoption of change by the individuals – i.e. end users – is critical to success, how can you support them to adjust their mindset and actively change? This requires an answer to a very typical response to change: the WIIFM factor – What’s in it for me?

McKinsey has explored this in its 4 Conditions for Changing Mindsets, which says that “… employees will alter their mindsets only if they see the

point of the change and agree with it – at least enough to give it a try.” Successful adoption and commitment of end users rely on four conditions being in place:

• A Purpose To Believe In: Each employee must understand and recognise the point of the change sufficiently to ‘give it a try’. People must understand the role and effect of their actions in the company’s future success and believe that it is worthwhile for them to play a part. A critical part of achieving this is to ensure that the strategy is clear and that information flows upstream as well as down at every level.

• Reinforcement Systems: The surrounding structures (e.g. reward and recognition systems) must be tuned with new behaviour. How? Align performance measures with the real goal of the business and the required behaviours at each level e.g. Coaching junior staff is recognised in performance reviews.

• The Skills Required for Change: Management must have the skills to do what it requires, which means alignment at the top and the ability to lead the change, measure and assess the capability, and train and coach employees to fill the gaps. The 70:20:10 rule also needs to apply: People learn best when they experience the change and can put it into action.

• Consistent Role Models: End users must see people they respect modelling change in an active way, which is also referred to as change leadership. In any workplace,

people model their behaviour on ‘significant others’ such as those they see in positions of influence. This requires alignment at the top and consistent demonstrations of good change behaviours. Character and integrity make big impacts when leading change.

The Fifth Fundamental: TimeWhile these four conditions are fundamental, Quay believes there is a fifth condition: Time. Timely change needs to happen at a pace that achieves the outcomes in the required time frame, yet allows sufficient time for people to adjust and experience consistent progress. Change is rarely quick, but persistence and belief in the outcome is imperative as is transparency on progress, hitting agreed milestones, and a consistently two-way street on communication.

Change Leadership is EssentialChange is never easy and it is near impossible without the buy-in of the people who are instrumental in fulfilling a new way of working. These individuals are key and each level of the business has a critical role to play.

Change leadership is also imperative and it’s a skill set we see is evolving in the marketplace. Putting in place a structure that fits the organisation, size, and impact of the transformation initiatives is critical to success. Being good at change will make a major difference to the success of any organisation.

Source: The Secret to a Successful SAS® Implementation, Gregory S. Nelson, ThotWave Technologies.


If we were to look into almost any successful change scenario, project success would be based on how well you anticipate and deliver change.By their very nature, projects are often conceived, planned for, and executed in a bubble, with small cohorts of senior business people and project professionals committed to driving outcomes.

Often driven by the twin themes of time and cost, the successful project teams aim to create momentum early on and seek to sustain it for the duration of the project.

It’s often this momentum focuses more so on the project outcomes, like the mechanics of the system or process changes being implemented, not the change readiness.

So there’s a balancing act between project momentum – best achieved by a small, focused group of people – and overall project acceptance, which can require wide-scale and often time-consuming business engagement.

All too often the pursuit of momentum overshadows the change complexity and challenge, which can be missed or understated.

So what can be done to ensure projects do not fall into the category of ‘eloquent implementation’ but poor business acceptance and take up’?

Anticipation is Key One of the core reasons that successful change is so difficult to achieve is that it is far less a linear pursuit when compared to the basic mechanics of project delivery (i.e. requirements, design, build, test, implement and so on), which is focused on changes to systems and processes.

These system and process changes can be, with the right amount of analysis, easily quantified and controlled in terms of effort, risk, and complexity. But the reality is that change also involves people. And the ways that people react to change are not always linear.

Change – and its impacts – is complex and difficult to predict. And what is difficult to predict is difficult to successfully plan for. So if the change challenge is difficult to quantify, what should a project team do to remove the uncertainty?

What steps can it take to anticipate what the change challenges will look like? The starting point is to gather information on two fronts:

• What is the size and impact of the change?

• What is the nature and personalities of

WORDS ROD ADAMS

The Change Gap: Why Planning for Resistance is Critical for Project Success


the cohort that will be required to accept the change?

The first data point of understanding the quantum of the change and the impacts is necessary to provide context, but not where the real challenge lies. The change certainly needs to be understood, but the potential critical blocker to success is the second point: What is the cohort the project team is dealing with and, importantly, what are their views on change?

Know Thy Enemy If it is established that the project will be impacting the business, then it’s at this point that a project needs to execute some basic data gathering so it can anticipate what the likely uptake – or resistance – to the project changes is likely to be.

This allows the project to at least have an idea of the change challenge it will face and plan accordingly.

We always recommend that the information gathering process is kept simple, particularly at the early stage when it’s possible you won’t have a 100% understanding of the change impacts. This can be done by a very straightforward tick-cross-neutral exercise within the key business areas that the impact will be felt, as below:

• Tick – These people are always open to change, champion new systems and processes, and want to get onboard to help be a positive agent of change. They are also potential change advocates

• Neutral – These people neither support or reject change, however will fall into line with whatever the prevailing feeling is to change (be it positive or negative)

• Cross – These people are highly change resistant – no matter the

change – and like the world as it is.

Anticipate and Plan Accordingly This is a simple stakeholder analysis that a project team can start with to

get to grips with the size of the change challenge in front of them.

It provides enough information to understand the change risk profile for the project and begin to plan the change execution accordingly, even if only at a high level.

The approach is straightforward:

• How does the project harness the ‘ticks’ to help them be positive change advocates and help to deliver change?

• How does the project move the ‘neutrals’ into the positive range – or at least keep them from slipping into negative territory?

• How does the project neutralise or sideline the ‘crosses’ so that they do not have an adverse impact on the change – or alternately, how can these people be moved up into the neutral category?

Accept That ‘Change is Challenging’ is a Starting Point Change is the most difficult discipline of all of the project disciplines. It’s important to ensure that, at the start of a project, the delivery team doesn’t fall into the trap of thinking “It’s new technology; the users will love it!”. Because often the truth is that they may not.

Understand that no matter how much it will improve the overall operations of the organisation, the changes may not improve their working day and/or it may threaten what is, for them, a very comfortable and known way of working.

Being able to anticipate who the key users are and how these users are likely to accept the change means you can plan for it.

It is better that this is done as soon as possible via basic stakeholder analysis than waiting to find out that the user base is highly resistant, no matter how good the system or process changes are.

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Experienced change leaders know that successful delivery is a bit like riding a wave: They understand the constant state of flux and will adapt to the challenge, assess the risk, and embrace the uncertainty of the ride.Pro-surfer Laird Hamilton got it right when he said that we’re all equal before the wave: In a time of rapid change, there is a common theme that leaders of change need to embrace in the face of unpredictable environments: Uncertainty.

Project sponsors need to get comfortable with the concepts and realities of uncertainty. It throws up the same questions repeatedly: How will change be accepted; what is the optimal approach; and will change succeed in delivering its promise?

Leaders taking on new projects that are designed to deliver change into the business – be it people, process, or systems – know that this kind of uncertainty never really goes away.

But it can be managed and the really good

project sponsors and business managers learn how to deal with this uncertainty through their years of experience.

So, what are the ‘qualities’ that experienced project sponsors have that helps them evaluate the challenge, risks, and unexpected shifts that goes into successfully delivering change? What are the traits that keep them calm and focused when faced with a rising tide of uncertainty and unexpected events that can show up on a daily basis in project-land?

Trust Your Instincts Experience is an amazing teacher when its lessons are learned and it helps to inform one of the key elements of good project sponsors: Your ‘gut’ is rarely wrong.

Project sponsors often have an elevated view of a project’s aims and experience will often nudge your instincts at key decision points.

It’s a useful tool to avoid being dragged down into the depths of project minutiae and maintain a certain level of detachment from the day-to-day which enables a good project sponsor to see ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’ from different angles.

This type of instinct based decision-making is usually more than a hunch: It’s a well-informed perspective formed from gathering information and observation that essentially validates a point of view. Allowing your gut to have a say will lead to better decision making

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Surfing Change: We’re All Equal Before the Wave


Manage Risks in Real Time One of the advantages of staying above the fray is that it provides perspective and the ability to stay one step ahead of the unexpected. It’s all about the project’s risk profile:

What the risks may be, how big they are, and the possible/potential impacts. It’s not enough to gather the project risks at the beginning of the project to satisfy the PMO requirement. These tend to just gather dust.

Experienced sponsors know that that risk management is a real-time pursuit: As the project moves through various phases, risks will ebb and flow in terms of their importance and likelihood.

Staying ahead of the wave of uncertainty is about active risk reviews and having contingency plans in place (and up-to-date) where appropriate to guard against an unpleasant surprise.

Plan, Then Plan Some More Pure and simple: You can never plan too much – especially at the macro level where small decisions can have large impacts downstream. Good sponsors are open to regular planning sessions and not just about driving out a schedule or critical path.

It’s a higher-level pursuit, whereby

the overarching approach and assumptions made around projects are regularly reviewed and assessed for weaknesses, risks (old and new), and a better way to do things. It’s this level of planning engagement that will ensure that the unexpected is always front of mind.

It also gives projects sponsors the ability to counter any negative effects.

Hire Good People Sounds simple. A project has never suffered from the sponsor hiring people that are smarter than they are.

Staying ahead of the wave means having top-notch project delivery people who can signal the unexpected is ahead. Good hires mean people with good insights, which in turn ensures that the project sponsor has the right information to make the best decisions.

Own Your Mistakes It is not always easy for senior people to accept their mistakes, but the best sponsors are not afraid to put their hand up when an individual or collective decision is wrong.

Trial and error are consistent teachers that help project sponsors learn and recognise the wrong calls and then process what and why it went wrong.

Without acknowledgement or self-

reflection, as opposed to a witch hunt to find someone to blame, it’s not possible to get to the bottom of an issue. Getting to the core of what caused a

project to come unstuck enables good project sponsors to immediately negate the unexpected. A head-in-the-sand approach – or worse, a “nothing to see here” one – will, quite frankly, leave both the project sponsor and the project exposed and more vulnerable to future unexpected surprises.

Accept That no Change is Easy Projects are always a challenge and ultimately no change is easy. Also whether we like it or not no single person has all of the answers when embarking on a project.

It’s how the project’s leaders deal with the unexpected that is very often the difference between its success or failure.

And the very best leaders, like the best surfers, are never phased by uncertain or changing conditions.

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Want to talk to us about Project Management fundamentals? Call 02 9098 6300 or email us at [email protected]

AboutQuay Consulting Michael Bolton and Rod Adams established Quay Consulting in

2006 with the firm belief in the power of positive change and a

desire to deliver better project outcomes.

Over the past decade, we’ve built a team of high-performing project professionals who offer a wealth of experience and consulting expertise along with a commitment to high levels of care and quality assurance.

Our consultants bring a high-level consulting and collaborative approach to delivering change via tailored knowledge, professional project management and delivery, and capability uplift in each client engagement.

Quay is deeply committed to sharing the knowledge we’ve gleaned from years of project delivery experience – both the successes and the failures – whether it’s sharing insights via our monthly Quay Bulletin or in lifting the capability of our clients’ teams in day-to-day knowledge transfer.

Quay Consulting was included in the BRW’s Fast 100 growth companies for 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Quay Leadership Team

Quay Consulting Pty Limited | ABN 78 121 109 215 Level 8, 2 Bulletin Place, Sydney NSW 2000 p. +61 2 9098 6300 | e. [email protected]

Quay Clients

uay ConsultingWWW.QUAYCONSULTING.COM.AU

Wayne Keavy Architect Practice Lead

Wayne has been involved in IT for over 30 years and has held senior roles in Enterprise Architecture, IT Management and Systems Delivery.

Rod Adams Co-Founder

Rod has over 15 years’ experience in the Information Technology and Finance sectors. He specialises in Project and Program Management, having delivered large transformational projects and programs of work.

Michael Bolton Co-Founder/Managing Director Michael has held senior management roles in International IT companies including International Vice President of Finance and International Managing Director for Global Distributors BI solutions.

Mike Kaye Principal

Mike Kaye is recognised internationally for his ability to synthesise strategic thinking, innovation and complex project delivery to reinvigorate growth and inspire change.

Orla Kassis Sales Director

Orla Kassis joined Quay in 2008 as Director of Business Development, bringing with her an extensive background in steering young and growing businesses through rapid growth.

Brad Kane Senior BDM

Brad joined Quay in 2013 and is passionate about working with Quay’s clients to define innovative and sustainable ways of delivering success.

Chris Smith BA Practice Lead

Upon engagement with stakeholders and users alike, Chris endears trust, he creates the ideal situation for people to be open, honest and transparent.

Pramod Goel Test Management Practice Lead

Pramod specialises in delivering critical testing projects, bringing with him over 15 years of testing and quality assurance in a comprehensive span of industries.

Documents

Change Management - Quay Consulting...QUAY CONSULTING | Key Principles of Change | Page 4 Change management is oft-touted as part of the business case for successful transformation,