The Psychology of Change

Adriana Beal has spent the last 15 years helping Fortune 100 companies, innovation companies and startups build better software that solves the right problem and aligns with business strategy. Her current focus of work is customer development and product strategy for tech startups.

  Change Management   ProjectsAtWork  

Understanding the psychological aspects of change is a critical skill for project leaders and business analysts. It includes playing to motivational drivers, gaining traction at the group level, and finding ways to make the invisible visible.

Anyone who spends time managing a project or performing business analysis knows that these activities require more than knowledge about methodologies, tools and techniques. Being a good project manager or business analyst also involves developing a long list of soft skills, including the ability to resolve conflicts and manage change. Yet, it’s rare to see a training program for PMs or BAs that addresses the all-important psychological aspects of change management.

Being able to drive positive change in people’s minds, attitudes and behaviors is a crucial capability for any professional implementing process and technology changes. Successfully completing a project often requires overcoming resistance and aligning groups with different agendas to the solution that is being implemented. One thing most PMs and BAs will quickly learn on the job is that verbal persuasion isn’t going to offer much help. Telling team members that they need to speak up when they sense they won’t be able to meet a deadline, or asking employees to stop using local spreadsheets to store data that should be going into the new corporate …

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