Getting Over Change

Kenneth has 14 years of healthcare experience in government and private industry. Over eight years of experience managing healthcare IT projects, operations, contracts, and personnel. His work experience includes project management, contracts and procurements, data analysis, claims adjudication, business writing, and business process modeling. Kenneth was certified in 2006 as a Project Management Professional.

  Risk Management  

Change is never easy, but it always happens. In the professional world, change is the constant that can destroy projects and tear apart teams. Project managers especially need to make sure they can deal with change in an effective and positive manner. The team will not deal well with change if they see their leaders coming apart at the seams when change happens on a project.

Telling someone just to get over the change and keep moving forward may seem like the obvious thing to do, but that is much easier to say than it is to do--and everybody from the bottom to the top can be impacted by change. How can the project manager deal with change and also help the team deal with it?

Work Ahead of the Curve
Change is handled best if everybody is ready for it. This means working ahead of the curve. There are times when change seems to come out of nowhere, but that is a rare occurrence. There is a very good chance that somebody, somewhere knew about the change before it got pushed down the line to the project team.

The key for the project manager is to get out and search for the possible agents of change that exist in the organization (or the client’s organization). Being proactive can help the entire project team deal with the change before they are blindsided by it. In addition to getting out and just talking to people, the project could track risks related to …

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