Change management

What is Change Management?

Folks offered their various perspectives:

• Documentation — changing and updating documentation?
• Need to establish goals?
• Why, how, get buy in, help people get to a place with goals in mind?
• Definitional vs specific context. Can't just "build it and they will come."

Technology projects are people organizing projects

The term "intrapreneur" was offered as a type of way to think about how one needs to act as an entrepreneur within an organization to champion and promote a project.

Speed and Trust

• If too much happens too quickly people may be afraid -- we need to work to introduce change at a pace that people are comfortable with.
• What is in the org's "change portfolio" -- is there too much change happening.
• "Moving at the speed of trust" -- being "disruptive" doesn't always work/ have positive outcomes.
• Sometimes introducing change reintroduces bad experiences from the past when similar attempts were made to introduce change. Need to build trust, encourage conversation, ask about past experiences that went well.
• Change is emotional labor + labor
• **Institutional memory** -- orgs typically have poor memory. Change management uncovers (in)tolerance for change in orgs.

Org politics -- Buy In

• There's a political dimension to change. Change can disrupt existing power relationships in an organization.

• Organizational capacity building and continuity is wrapped in change management

• Need to get buy in from both those at the top and those at the bottom. Need to connect project to goals, mission and values of org.

• How do you get buy in?
  • **Discovery process** is critical -- like a first date. Opportunity for both you and client get a sense of each other and whether you are compatible.
  • By making client also do some work, you get to know how your relationship will work out. You're as much as a stakeholder as other people.
  • Love is blind... Marriage (and working with a new client) is with eyes wide open.

Accounting for (and getting paid for) change management

• How to scope projects, and include change management?
  • How do you justify in taking so long?
  • Power analysis -- looking at how relationships in the org actually work
  • Padding estimates to account for horus spent on change analysis

• Is change management a role or part of an existing role?
  • Is this the realm of project or product manager?
  • One can be a "change management consultant"

Resources and References

• Prosci -- prosci.com more from for-profit business perspective, pioneer in research into change management.
  • ADKAR: * Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement*

• Success spectrum Eugene Eric Kim-- fasterthan20.com
  • Results, process, relationships. How do we define success? Need to pre-scope -- is it from the right perspectives, with goal in mind?

• *Switch -- How to change things when change is hard* Chip and Dan Heath

• Asana Academy