Project Managers as Change Agents

 

By Lynda Bourne

The start of a new year always brings a focus on change and opportunity. So with 2015 now underway, it’s timely to ask: What are the responsibilities of the project manager when it comes to dealing with change?

        The answer depends on what aspect of change you’re dealing with and what stage of the project you’re in.

All projects are initiated to instigate change — to create a new product, service or result. If the project is to realize its intended value, the change has to meet a need within the stakeholder community.

Determining this need is primarily the responsibility of the project sponsor and the change manager. The only responsibility of project managers at this stage of the project life cycle is to understand exactly what they are being asked to deliver and to highlight any omissions or issues to the sponsor.

        The next step is traditional change management, which involves preparing the affected stakeholders for the new product, service or process, fostering a desire to use it once delivered and supporting the transition from the old way of working to the new way so the intended benefits can be realized on a sustained basis.

This step will be the responsibility of the change manager; organizational change management requires a separate set of skills to project management and on anything other than a relatively small change initiative involves a significant commitment of time. If the project manager is expected to fulfil the change management role, the project charter and resourcing need to allow for this additional work. More often, the change manager is part of an overall program of work, or may work for the sponsor.

In my experience it is very unusual for the project manager to work for a change manager or a change manager to work for a project manager. However, if the organization is going to realize the maximum benefits from the project, the change manager and project manager need to be highly supportive of each other’s work and their responsibility for benefits management and realisation need to be clearly understood.

The responsibility of the project manager through the life of the project is to be aware of the needs of the change manager and adapt the work of the project to maximize the opportunity to realize benefits.

While many aspects of change management are outside of the project manager’s responsibilities, project change control is not.The project manager typically does not have the authority to approve most changes, but managing the project change control process is his or her job.

        The project manager, supported by the project team, is responsible for the following:

1. Identifying that a change is required, requested or has already occurred (or is occurring)
2. Scoping the change and understanding its effect on project objectives
3. Preparing recommendations regarding the change
4. Identifying the appropriate person with authority to approve the change. For internal changes, this may be the project manager. For all other changes it is usually the sponsor, a change control board, the customer or the designated customer’s representative (e.g., a superintending engineer).
5. Cooperating with and supporting the change authority in its decision-making
6. Managing the consequences of the change by implementing approved changes and ensuring rejected changes are not implemented

The connection between change management and change control is that every change that is managed through project change control processes affects some aspect of the project’s outputs. Therefore each change should be considered from the perspective of stakeholder needs and the overall realization of benefits through the organization’s change management processes and ultimate use of the project’s deliverables.

        Managing the project life cycle from idea creation to benefits realization is increasingly being referred to as “the management of projects.” The difficult bit in the middle of actually creating the project deliverables is “project management.”

To successfully implement change and maximize value realized by the organization, both “the management of projects” and “project management” need to be synchronized.