You can't forget to deal with the human side of technology-driven change
The budget's been approved for your big IT project. To be successful, it will take much more than getting the requirements right, or getting the programming right, or delivering on time.
It will also take readying the people who will be emotionally impacted by the changes imposed by new system (for example, changing job descriptions, changing compensation package, etc.). If the system isn't embraced by its users in the way it was intended, you'll have a failure on your hands. It's not only much less costly to catch the resistance to the rollout early in the process than later, but it's also more likely to lead to project success.
One CIO told me that his organization was implementing a "simple" change. This change was so simple that no programming would be required. In fact, they were only going to change one field in one data base. No big deal! Turns out, the one field they were changing was "number of weeks per paycheck", and the number was going up from one to two. This meant that thousands of employees who planned their personal budgets around weekly paychecks were now going to get bi-weekly paychecks. This affected everyone in the company. From a programming standpoint, this was a minor change. From an organizational change standpoint, this was a major change!
Who Needs Change Management?
Every IT organization could benefit from change management training. To engage the larger group so that it is prepared and accepts your project when it rolls out, you need group buy-in early in the process. In her workshop for IT leaders, Cutter Senior Consultant Sheila Q. Cox equips IT leaders with the insight, perspective, and tools to help users deal with the human side of IT-driven change.
What Does this Workshop Look Like?
This workshop can be customized to be from one- to three-days, though two or three days are recommended to allow time for participants to practice on their own projects.
Sample Curriculum
- Overview of Managing Organizational Change
- Understanding Business Case for Change
- Vector Analysis
- Past Experience with Organizational Changes
- Implementation History Assessment
- Implications for Future Change Implementation
- Measuring Successful Change Implementation
- Balanced Business Scorecard
- Roles in Change
- Sponsor/Champion/Agent/Target
- Role Relationships
- Linear/Triangle/Square
- Role Mapping
- Sponsor Effectiveness Assessment
- Sponsorship Best Practices
- Stages of Commitment
- Agent Effectiveness Assessment
- Agent Best Practices
- Agent Skills
- Role of Advocate/Champion
- Individual Response to Change
- Change Readiness Assessment
- Target Constituencies
Day Three
- Motivation
- By role, by level, by personality
- Effective communication
- Culture
- Organizational Culture Assessment
- Level of Consistency between Current Culture and Desired Organizational Change
- Subcultures by Constituency
- Resistance to Change
- Positive Response
- Negative Response
- How to Manage Resistance
- Motivation/Communication
- Sponsors/Agents/Champions/Saboteurs
- Frame of Reference
- Communication
- Change Communication by Style
- Communication Matrix
- Reinforcing Change