Project Management at the Life Cycle Institute
Project management is an approach to managing work within the constraints of time, cost and business objectives.1 Whether you are using Six Sigma, DMAIC or Lean, there are techniques and tools project teams can apply to plan, control and monitor results.
Change management can and should follow a similar structured process. Prosci, whose change management methodology is one of the most widely used and recognized approaches for managing the people side of change, includes a set of assessments to help you identify risk and address assumptions you may have made in planning for the project. At each gate or phase of your project, Prosci defines specific plans to help execute and manage the change to ensure you not only meet your business objectives, but new processes are adopted and sustained.
While project management handles the technical side of the project, change management facilitates the acceptance of the initiative taking place.
Project Management Change Management
Integrating Project Management and Change Management to Achieve Desired Results
Change management and project management are complementary disciplines with a common objective. When applied using proven steps and tools, you greatly increase your probability of success.
How dependent are your project outcomes on people changing the way they do their work? No matter how well you follow your project plan, if people do not change the way they do their job, you will not achieve the desired business results.
Change is individual. The change has zero value unless individuals adopt it!
Watch this Video on Integrating Project Management & Change Management
Myths about Change Management
According to Prosci’s 2009 Best Practices in Change Management benchmarking report2, there is a direct correlation between how effective you are in change management and meeting your cost, schedule and business objectives.
Myth #1: If I follow my project plan exactly, my project will be successful.
Truth #1: People have a natural tendency to resist change. No matter how flawlessly executed, the project will not meet its objectives if no one follows the new process, uses the new technology or changes the way they work.
Myth #2: Change management will slow down my project.
Truth #2: Effective change management ensures faster speed of adoption, increased proficiency and higher utilization.
Myth #3: Change management will make my project more expensive.
Truth #3: The more effective your change management plan, the more likely your project is to finish on or under budget.
How Much Can I Save by Integrating Change Management into my Project Plan?
You may be thinking that you haven’t used change management on past projects and there weren’t any additional costs. Maybe you didn’t see any tangible costs, but what about the cost of your people not doing what they are supposed to, when they are supposed to?
Consider this scenario: A team of 100 people now have to file expense reports a different way. No one told them why they have to do it differently. Their boss doesn’t understand it either. Everyone is talking about it. Every day, they sit around for about an hour talking about how they “don’t get it.” In one week’s time this group has wasted 500 hours of productivity. If each person’s time is worth an average of $20 per hour, this is costing a staggering $10,000 per week in lost productivity!3
Productivity Loss Calculator
Calculate how much money you can save your company if you execute effective change management.
Does My Project Need Change Management…If So, How Much?
Every project that involves people changing the way they do their job should incorporate change management. The amount of change management to deploy is determined by the level of disturbance in an individuals' daily activities. The level of disturbance can range from incremental to transformational.
- For incremental changes in a change-ready organization, only minimal change management is needed. This could simply mean factoring resistance setbacks into your schedule, budget and risk analysis.
- A transformational change would require its own change management project with dedicated resources.
What’s In It For Me?
Recent studies have shown an increasing expectation by stockholders and Boards of Directors for executives to be effective at managing organizational change. In fact, a Leadership IQ study showed that the number one reason for CEO dismissals was not the commonly accepted reasons of poor financial performance or stagnant growth, but mismanaging change.4 Most changes do not fail due to bad strategy or uncontrollable events; most changes fail due to predictable and avoidable reasons. Further, the vast majority of these failed changes are not due to a lack of desire or ability – they are due to a lack of knowledge about the change process.
When Should I Incorporate Change Management Into My Project Management Plan?
As early as possible! It is much easier to mitigate risks when you know about them earlier. While risks may be more difficult to identify early in the process, waiting until resistance is apparent or adoption is slow could have detrimental results for your project.
What Is the Likelihood of Success For Your Next Project?
Let us conduct a free project risk assessment!
Increase Your Competency in Change Management
Schedule a Change Management Certification class at your organization!
Check out our other change management programs, designed by Prosci.
1 Definition from www.businessdictionary.com
2 Prosci’s 2009 Best Practices in Change Management benchmarking report
3 Galpin, Timothy J., and Mark Herndon. The Complete Guide to Mergers and Acquisitions: Process Tools to Support M & A Integration at Every Level. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Wiley/Jossey-Bass, 2007. Print.
4 Why CEOS Get Fired
For More Information on Change Management
843.744.7110 | changemgmt@LCE.com
