Change Management “To Do” List

As you look ahead to the priority projects in your company’s pipeline, it is a good time for a brief refresher on organizational change success factors. Implement the recommendations below as you start-up (or continuing) your strategic business initiatives and you will be well on your way to success. Remember, the “soft stuff” (i.e., people and change) is the hard stuff.

Your change management “to do” list…

Align leadership behind a clear vision to demonstrate sponsorship and commitment

• Enroll leaders as sponsors
• Clarify the vision with a compelling argument
• Engage leadership in collectively owning the “how” – the ways we will bring this to life in the business
• Use formal and informal recognition to reward high performance, clarified upfront by the CEO

Integrate change management into program management

• Design the project team/PMO to promote effective project management, governance, and decision-making processes
• Use a “stages and gates” approach to ensure leadership is aligned upfront and enforces compliance throughout
• Manage global changes from the PMO; equip process teams with tools to drive change at local levels

Drive ownership and accountability throughout the organization by local teams at the local level

• Assign clear accountabilities for discrete initiatives – leaders first, then cascade
• Set clear and ambitious targets/metrics, track and reward performance
• Reinforce expected behaviors through management routines and performance management processes
• Identify cultural barriers and resistance; develop mitigation strategies and build into plans

Promote sustainable results and measure against business outcomes

• Balance accelerated change against impact to outcomes – set reasonable timelines to ensure quality of results
• Track progress against outcomes; reinforce results over effort
• Align processes and systems (e.g., performance management, HR, IT tools)