Thoughts on Project Management

Every project launched is a change project. It may be a simple project or a complex, cross-functional project – regardless, it is change.

If project managers take a change view of every project they lead, they will do a better job engaging the stakeholders in the project and reaching a successful conclusion. That is because when a project manager keeps in mind that the project she is leading is change for someone, she can approach the project from the perspective of the individuals and how they will need to change. Let’s look at a brief example.

Carmella is leading an initiative to refine processes within accounts payable. While the goal of the process improvement project is to reduce the time for processing payment through the use of new technology, Carmella is aware of three key factors:

1. The individuals who utilize the current processes have been doing so for over five years.
2. Two of the individuals created the original process that is still in use today.
3. There is likely to be concerns around what skills and knowledge will be required to use the new process and associated technology.

With this information, Carmella meets with the stakeholders impacted by the project. She shares with them the goal of the process improvement project – to reduce time for processing payment through the use of new technology and thereby enabling stakeholders to be more efficient in their roles and reduce their manual workload. She further tells them that training will be provided before full implementation of the technology so that they are comfortable. And, she invites them to see a demo of the technology. Additionally, she schedule another meeting with them to discuss their current processes with a focus on where they think improvements exist.

Carmella is engaging these stakeholders in the project. Regardless of Carmella’s perception of the change, she understanding that the stakeholders need to be comfortable with the change if they are to embrace it. If they are not comfortable, they are likely to resist, which will cause the project to fail. Additionally, concerns among the stakeholders regarding the project and its impact on them personally may impact productivity in the group.

When project managers recognize and accept that every project they undertake represents a change for someone in the organization, they will better be able to engage stakeholders in the project. This is done by acknowledging the (potential) impact and addressing early on in the communications and throughout the project the concerns and needs of stakeholders.

Change is essential for organizational growth. And continuous change is desired, provided it is not chaotic. Continuous does not mean chaotic; although unfortunately it often ends up being that way.

Change efforts become chaotic when…
…we launch a complex change with limited thought and pre-planning.
…we neglect to break down a complex change initiative into smaller, more digestible, change bites.
…we launch change that does not make sense and keep trying to make sense of it rather than end it.
…we launch a change initiative that is in direct conflict with another change initiative already in progress.

These are just a few reasons why change becomes chaotic.

When this happens, change fatigue sets in and/or the fear of change takes hold. The organization stops changing because employees won’t accept change. Change is chaotic. Change is frightening. Change always fails. Eventually the organization cannot thrive and compete and does not survive.

Rather, leadership’s goal is to enable for, encourage and support continuous, but not chaotic, change.

To enable for continuous change, think about planning for change as part of your strategic planning process. Change is aligned to achieving a combination of short-term and long-term goals. What better time to think about change that is needed than when you are doing your strategic planning? Have a business problem to be solved as part of achieving a goal, what changes need to be made to solve the problem? Have goals focused on development of new products or services? What changes need to be made to support the development and implementation of those new products or services?

When thinking about change that needs to happen, think about…
…what else is going on in the organization that may impact that change?
…are there internal resources available to implement the change?
…are current systems able to support the change?

If we consider change along with everything else getting done in the organization, we’ll make better decision as to whether it is the right time to launch the change. Maybe we need to hold off, or maybe we can break the change down into smaller components and begin slowly. A good change, launched at the wrong time, risks failure.

Better thought and planning around change overall enables for change to be launched that is not chaotic. Employees aren’t stressed and frustrated. Regularly incorporate change planning into your strategic planning efforts and you’ll soon find regular, continuous change is a common occurrence in the organization.

Maybe the better question is, is anyone ever ready for change? We experiencing change in our lives regularly – whether it is work-related change or change in our personal life. Some change we drive ourselves and therefore we are ready. Other change may not be by our choice or may happen sooner than we prefer it to. In these cases, we may not be ready and, rather, may balk against that change.

People who are ready for change, or better prepared for change when they are faced with the prospect of it, have these characteristics:

• Passion. They are engaged in what they are involved in and strive for improvement. They believe much is possible.
• Optimism. They see opportunities rather than problems. They have a positive outlook overall.
• Love challenges. Challenges are exciting! They are something to conquer rather than something to run from. They will take calculated risks to find a better way.
• Resiliency. They can adapt and will bounce back from adversity. They expect that mistakes will happen and make corrections and move on. They have a goal and they are going to achieve it.
• Confidence. They are confident in their skills and knowledge and their ability to learn new things. They see a problem and are confident they can resolve it.

How about you? Are you ready for change? If you aren’t immersed in it now; it’s coming! We can always count on change.

One of Abudi Consulting Group's client’s wanted to engage their employees in change. This mini case study shares that story.

For this brief story, I’ll use the exhibit below.

The client is a retail organization that had changed leadership at the top. The new CEO and other newly-hired top executives had experience engaging employees in change and knew the value in doing so. Once the original vision of the change that was being proposed was shared with employees, Abudi Consulting Group, working in collaboration with the CEO and his team, requested the employees’ feedback. Given the complexity of the change, we allowed for three weeks in having conversations about the change in order to get feedback from employees. We provided employees with a variety of options to provide feedback, including via:

• Focus group meetings
• Department meeting
• All staff face-to face meetings (part of a change “road show”)
• Virtual sessions
• An internal web site specifically launched to support the change
• Directly to anyone on the leadership team via the group’s “open door” policy
• Via an online survey to all employees

With so many channels to share their ideas, concerns, thoughts and suggestions, we got more feedback than we could have imagined! Employees shared information about the change proposed as well as the vision for the change. Through the employees’ insights and contributions, Abudi Consulting worked with the executive leadership team to reframe the change initiative. We incorporated many of the ideas of the employees as well as addressed the concerns that they had.

The end result was a change initiative that was, effectively, shaped by the employees.

This is just one client story Gina shares in her book. Want to learn more? Purchase Gina’s book, Implementing Positive Organizational Change: A Strategic Project Management Approach, J Ross Publishing, 2017.

Changing the Minds of Employees in Finance

I was working with a mid-size professional services firm that was implementing a new financial system.  The CFO asked me to work with him to help him manage this project with his team, with a focus on managing communications and change. He had a project manager who would be managing the day-to-day of the project.

In initial conversations with the CFO, I learned the following:

• He was fairly new to the organization, only being with the firm for 9 months.
• The current financial system was outdated and did not support the firm as well as it had in the past.
• The finance and payroll team had longevity with the firm and, in fact, 4 of the staff members in finance and payroll actually helped to select and implement the current financial system a number of years ago.
• The CEO and others on the executive team supported this project and were excited that a new financial system was being put in place.

The CFO realized that simply because the executive team supported the project and were ready to change financial systems, it was not sufficient. He needed to buy-in from the financial and payroll team in order to ensure the move to the new system was a successful one. He also noted that the project was officially kicking off within a few months and he wanted to be sure that a good number of the finance/payroll team were on board – even if not all of them were.

Further conversations with the CFO revealed the following:

• While a decision had been made on a particular financial system, no decision had been made yet on specific components/features of the system.
• The CFO wanted his staff involved in determining changes to processes and procedures to increase efficiencies within the group.
• The CFO had discuss the upcoming financial system project at a department meeting and, while people didn’t actively resist, he noticed that staff, including his leadership team, were not entirely pleased with the idea.

Initial Meetings

We scheduled an initial department meeting with finance/payroll.  Our goal was to share initial information about the project with a focus on benefits to both the organization in implementing a new financial system and to the individuals in finance/payroll. We needed the group to understand what was impacting this change and how their support was needed to ensure the initiative was successful.  We also held a product demo so that the department members could see the new system “in action.”

The initial meeting went well; feedback was positive overall. The group understood the issues faced (the problem we were solving for) and seemed interested in the demo they saw. Some great questions came from the group!

We asked the group to spend some time digesting what they saw and heard in the meeting and that we would be setting up a subsequent meeting to talk further about the project and how we would like them to be involved. We asked them to put together any questions about the initiative that we could address at the next meeting.

The Second Meeting

The second meeting with the group was well attended, everyone made time on their calendar and attended the meeting. This was a good sign! We knew we still had a few resisters, but we also knew that they were interested enough to show up!

We took the first hour of the meeting to answer questions about the product being selected which had been submitted to us after the first meeting. We also knew there would be other questions that would arise. We had the vendor in attendance so that we could be sure to provide answers to all questions at that time and need no, or little, follow up. We knew that the quicker we could get people what they needed, the sooner we could increase their comfort level and move forward on the project.

After the demo at the first meeting, it was apparent that individuals in the room were excited about the possibilities of the new financial system. Certainly it would make their job easier and that was apparent to everyone. Even the individuals who implemented the system being replaced seemed excited, though we still knew we had to win them over.

Once all questions were answered, we focused our conversation on the need for participation on the project in a number of areas:

• Helping to determine exactly how the system will work for the organization (what features and functionality would be needed)
• Providing data necessary throughout the project
• Assisting in refining processes and procedures within the finance and payroll function
• Assisting in the design of the system and testing the functionality
• Helping to roll out the system and train end users

Everyone wanted to participate in some way; although we knew that some simply wanted to participate to maintain a feeling of control. That was fine with us. As long as we could get them to participate, we knew that we could eventually get them to come along and support the project. By participating on the project, they would feel that they had some control over what was happening rather than idly sitting by and waiting for the project to be rolled out.

We set up a preliminary resource grid as follows (shows key responsibilities):

Other members of the payroll and finance functions would also be involved in the project, participating as needed in meetings and workshops related to the new system rollout and supporting the core project team members. The individuals in the table above, however, would be actively involved in the project and participating on a day-to-day basis – they were members of the core project team. They represented a variety of backgrounds, experiences and longevity with the company.

In summary – our introductory meeting with these individuals enabled of us to begin to establish a working relationship with them and get them engaged in the project. This second meeting enabled for continuing that relationship building and getting members of finance and payroll involved in the day-to-day work of the project, thereby increasing their commitment to the project. We knew that as they began to work on the project, their commitment would continue to increase and they would become our project champions – engaging others in their functions in the project and pushing to its success.