How To Better Manage A Change Portfolio?Posted by The Change Compass on August 29th, 2018 1. Set Up A Simple, Business-Led Change Governance Instead of a myriad of project-based governance bodies, establish a divisional business body focused on managing change impacts on people and customers. This may be embedded into an existing monthly divisional leadership meeting. In this governance meeting, the focus is on:
This is not to say that project-based governance is not required. Business involvement is critical in project governance. However, a key focus should be placed on understanding the overall picture first and what the business is going to go through. From this clarity it will then be easier to see how each initiative fits into the overall picture and if there are roll out considerations. With clear change impact data, discussions will also be more swift, focused on more strategic conversations vs. gut feel and individual preferences. In this way, change is also being positioned as much more rigorous, data-driven, and scientific, versus fluffy, undefined or worse, unimportant. 2. Embed Change Impact Management Into The Operating Rhythm One way to improve change capability in an organization is to focus operations on change and implementation, versus viewing portfolio change management as a separate piece of work done by Change Managers. This involves:
3. Quantify Change Impacts One of the core problems faced by companies is how to quantify change impacts and make them more tangible, easier to visualize, measure and to manage. Change impacts may be quantified in the following way:
From the information provided, analysis may then be undertaken, looking at the loading of change, whether there is any potential change clash from a timing perspective, whether there is behavior consistency across initiatives rolled out, and whether the initiatives overall are driving the organization’s strategy forward. Moreover, with sufficient historical data, the company may then be able to correlate the impact of the ‘amount’ of change on business performance. From this, the change impact data may then be used to even ‘predict’ future business performance. Such is the power of quantifying change impact. 4. Clarify Customer Impacts To Manage Customer Experience A significant number of companies are now jumping on the bandwagon of focusing on customer experience. This is because other value levers such as cost and efficiency are almost maxed out and there little additional efficiencies that can be achieved there. To truly manage customer experience one needs to start by understanding the total picture of what the company is planning to change for a particular group of customers. This includes:
After collecting these data, a customer’s experience may then be mapped out from the perspective of change impacts on their experience. Is there a number of legislative initiatives that will create negative customer experience? Is there too much change planned? What would be the optimal ‘change loading’ for customers? The customer impact data enables valuable discussions and decisions 5. Leverage Technology Solutions For smaller organizations managing change initiatives, spreadsheets may suffice. However, for large organizations managing a large portfolio of changes, spreadsheets may not be sufficient. Technology solutions now enable both drivers and receivers of the change to access impact information anytime and anywhere. This promotes collaboration and effective conversations. Companies will not need to rely on an army of analysts to constantly collect and verify the data, since the data is coming straight from ‘the source’. Reporting efforts are also optimized by having standard, automated reporting, generated any time required. Technology solutions are also great for agile-focused organizations where there is always a series of constant and iterative changes, and where change impact information could change rapidly from week to week. Access to accurate and timely data is even more critical. Stakeholders across the company are also able to see, in real time, the change impacts being planned. From this, meaning conversations may be had in terms of the level and nature of change impacts from different stakeholder perspectives. For example, does the business share the same agreement of change impact as the program? This creates transparency and shared accountability in the ownership of change outcomes. 6. Use Data-Based Feedback To Improve Change Capability In implementing a data-based model of managing change impacts organizations will experience an uplift in change capability. How? After a division reviews the feedback from stakeholders after initiatives get rolled out, referencing indicated ‘amount’ of change planned, this reference ‘amount’ then becomes a yardstick for answering ‘how much is too much change’. Moreover, with regular routines and reviews over time, the yardstick of change loading can then aid future decision making on 1) the optimal change impact loading for the business, 2) readiness activities required to better manage across changes, 3) prioritization required and 4) potential for synchronization across initiatives (e.g. communication or training efforts). In this way, the business division learns to determine how best to utilize change impact data to prepare for changes, to avoid change fatigue and to maximize adoption. The outcome of this is testing with ‘tactics’ of managing the change load, and improved business performance. With open data sharing, there is also opportunity for cross-divisional learning to pick up tips from each other on how to manage multiple changes and still deliver operational performance. For more details about effective portfolio management visit our website: https://www.thechangecompass.com/ Like it? Share it!More by this author |