Whether you are embarking on a major change initiative such as restructuring an organization or location, implementing a Safety Program, or making smaller changes like process improvement or other activities, there are six keys for aligning important factors to make the change successful. And if you’re missing just one piece, you may be undermining your success.
Align around purpose, scope, and goals.
Make sure everyone is on the same page related to purpose, scope, goals, outcomes, etc. before the project starts. Often, change initiatives cascade down the hierarchy from corporate offices. In these cases, it’s quite common for corporate leaders to envision one interpretation of project scope, with location leadership holding another view, even when the project scope document seems fairly clear. This lack of alignment nearly always results in a pause to regroup soon after the project team gets going, undermining project efficiency and team morale.
Include key stakeholders and end-user groups.
In planning the project, assess the areas, functions, or processes that will be impacted by the change you plan to make. Get input from people in these areas. We’ve all seen projects executed by a project team resulting in tasks that really don’t work for day-to-day activities; this is preventable. Be sure to identify and include key stakeholders. Your project may involve improving a cross-functional process, program, or structure. Every function is a stakeholder and needs to contribute to understanding the issues and providing input into planning. The Leadership team is a likely stakeholder, depending upon the scope of the change. Even external customers or suppliers may be stakeholders. Not only are these people valuable at the inception of the project, but there should also be regular two-way communication with them throughout.
Provide needed resources—time, people, and dollars.
Projects and teams cannot be spoken into existence. I am surprised at how often this is still an opportunity for improvement in organizations. Planning should involve identifying needed people, both as core project teams members and subject matter experts who can support the team’s work but not necessarily participate in each project interaction. In some industries, having the right people on a project team may mean that you provide coverage for jobs and pay overtime for meetings, resulting in increased investment. Also, teams need time to for as a team. Invest time up front in a team process for members to agree on mission, goals, and ground rules. It’s awfully tempting to put a project team in place and expect overnight results. One organization voiced frustration that a team had not made measurable improvements after only one meeting! This is not realistic, regardless of how urgent the improvement opportunity is, and skipping the necessary time to form the team will cost more lost time later in the project.
Clarify empowerment parameters.
As you evaluate past major change initiatives in your organization, did each project team understand what they were expected to do to accomplish the objectives? Often, I not only work with Leadership to develop the project scope, purpose, goals, etc. for project teams but also to generate an “expected activities” document before a team is launched so that both Leadership and the team understand what kinds of activities are expected as well as any parameters related to decision making. The team usually has latitude to negotiate on the expected activities, as the team may have a better idea of strengths and weaknesses of the organization than leadership does. But communicating some expected activities to a new project team provides a template that allows teams to get off the ground more quickly. Leaders can also help projects by defining expectations related to dollars and decision-making. At what dollar amounts can the team expect to make decisions related to the project? As an example: if the project needs a resource and it costs less than $5000, may the team make the decision? If the resource costs more than $5000, will an outside sponsor make the final decision? In one generic pharmaceutical company, each cross-functional new product development team was also provided with an anticipated project timeline template; however, each team could negotiate to shorten the timeline, and there were feedback loops for any delays. Clarifying expectations in these ways can help a project tremendously.
Understand how training fits in.
There are three ways in which training may fit into implementing change. First, if the project is large or complex, the Leadership Team envisioning the project may need training. In one company, before restructuring R&D into cross-functional teams, leadership went through workshops to understand how cross-functional teams would impact the organization, what teams need to function well, what changes in supervision and decision-making would be needed, what cultural aspects would need to be redefined, etc. Second. the project team itself may need training in key concepts, team skills, or technologies. Third, the project will often result in new ways of doing things. How will people across the organization be trained? Additionally, what feedback and accountability practices will need to be put in place to make the training “stick”?
Build in feedback loops and checkpoints.
Once a team is up and running, it’s tempting to overlook continuing communications with key leaders, internal customers, end users, and stakeholders. Be sure to build a two-way communication plan that follows the project. One team started perfectly well but as time went by, communication with internal customers and stakeholders diminished. As the team neared the end of the project, it realized it had gone so far away from the expectations that had evolved with stakeholders, the project recovered but almost derailed. Also, evaluate the best ways for these feedback loops and checkpoints to continue after implementation to track progress or measure improvement over time? Once a change is in place, what measures can help you keep it in place?
With these six, key alignment practices, your organizational changes should go more smoothly. There is much more that can be discussed on this topic. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or message me in LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/transformingorganizations/.