The Need for Portfolio-Level Change Management

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Change Management   Organizational Project Management   Portfolio Management  

There are very few industries or organizations today that can remain stable for an extended period of time. In fact, there aren’t many that can remain stable for any period of time. Organizations are shifting from periodic, large-scale, disruptive change initiatives to continuous evolution of how they operate. That in turn is requiring them to rethink how change is implemented into operational areas.

As project professionals, you see that all the time. Projects are becoming smaller and more numerous, with a focus on delivering solutions (and the benefits that come from them) as quickly as possible. It’s recognized that individual enhancements will be small. But as part of a continuous series of improvements, the impact on effectiveness and efficiency becomes significant over time—especially as projects can build on what has gone before rather than being a fundamental reimagining of how work gets done.

With that shift in approach to how changes are implemented, there has also been a shift in how organizations prepare for that change. This has always been an area where the amount of time and effort invested has varied significantly from one organization to the next, or even one project to the next. I have been involved in rolling out some pretty significant internal computer systems where the only training provided was a user guide. I have also been …

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