New Quick Guides launched

I get so many questions about how to get started, either by those asked to manage a project for the first time, or those that have been given a change management assignment and are looking for clues about what to do first that I have created a couple of Quick Guides - http://www.maventraining.co.uk/quick-guides/

These guides are simple slide presentations that explain the basics, the most common mistakes and some solutions for avoiding the mistakes - I hope you find them useful, but as ever, I would love to hear your comments.

Today all the excitement in the office is about launching our new free briefing – “How effective is our approach to change management?” http://www.maventraining.co.uk/course-detail/_/free-briefing-how-effective-is-our-change-management/72/

It has been designed for people who want to find out:
-How to baseline your organisations readiness for change
-How to create a change management framework and apply it across your organisation
-What actions you can take now to improve how change is implemented in your organisation

For an informative session on effectively managing change, come and see us at 1.30pm on the 26th May at the Maven Centre, 8th Floor, Aldermary House, 10-15 Queen Street, London EC4N 1TX.

Creating a compelling change story

At Maven we have a reputation for continually growing and changing and the number of new products and services that we create for our customers is high.

As we get ready to roll out a new accredited course in Management of Portfolios (MoP) I have been thinking how we ensure that all parts of the company hear the same message about this latest change.

Its my job as the sponsor for the MoP project to make sure everyone is excited and engaged with each launch that we do, and so this is the check list of points I use when creating a ‘change story’. I hope you find it useful, as ever, I welcome your comments:

Sense of urgency – why this change is needed now
 Describe the problems that the change will fix
 Explain the opportunities that can be exploited as a result of making the change
 Outline the risks if the change is not successfully implemented

Desirable outcomes – positive description of the result of the change
 How it feels to work for the organisation
 What type of work the organisation does
 How it is viewed by customers and suppliers
 The reputation it has with regulators and media

Impact – an acknowledgement of the scale of change
 List the biggest changes
 Identify those who will be impacted the most

Call to action – how employees can participate
 Brief description of key actions that senior management are taking
 Options for activities that employees can become involved in

Using change management to scope my project

I continue to write the new book on how project management needs to take the lead in managing change if projects are ever to realise their benefits. This week I am putting together a series of Mini Workshop Guides to help project managers address the key issues of change management including:

1. Understanding the context for the change i.e. seeing the bigger picture by asking how the change will contribute to strategic objectives, who is driving the change that the project will support, who are the likely winners and losers from these changes, how time sensitive is the delivery of the benefits from the change

2. Understanding the detailed changes that the project is supposed to bring about including changes to information used for a process, the process itself, the outputs including information used for the next process, the decisions that need to be taken, the reports that are produced etc, changes in the size and make up of the teams involved in the process, changes in the level of authority and reporting line for each team member

3. Understanding the communication that is required to ensure everyone is informed about the proposed changes and has a chance to comment on them and engage with them prior to the changes taking place

I am interested in how these 3 areas fit with the scoping and the requirements gathering that project managers are responsible for at the start of the programme, but also how this information needs to be reviewed and updated as the project progresses and how this can lead to requests for change.

What are the most important questions you ask before getting started on a project – do you ask about the bigger picture, do you get to know the winners and the likely losers before you plan the project? As ever, all comments and emails welcome.

How do I implement change?

Maven is getting ready to change its booking system over to a new learning management system. We have piloted it with a few of our courses, but we are now planning the full launch. As a company that trains change management courses I feel the pressure to get this change right, which I think means that no-one outside of the company notices any differences and it feels just like business as usual.

One guide I use when planning any change is the warning I was given by one of my first managers “people don’t leave their jobs, they leave their managers”. Although it’s the managers at Maven who have identified the need for the new system, decided the high level functionality and selected the supplier, everyone in the company will be using it. Failure by the management team to involve, engage and inspire people will lead to failure in the adoption of the system.

That’s why this week we are busy putting up posters with quotes from staff about why they think the system is going to make things easier, and why we are putting up a chart showing our progress through each of the baby steps we are taking between now and Easter to get the system up and running. Every time we achieve one of these tasks we cross it off this ‘journey planner’ as a visual guide to how close we are to success.

We are using the information we gained from a survey (http://www.maventraining.co.uk/change-management-knowledge-centre/) we did last week that asked everyone in the office to rate from low to high their level of annoyance with the current system, their level of excitement for the new system and their level of confidence with our ability to move to the new system. This generated lots of points from people which were very relevant to their jobs but which had not been fully appreciated by the project team – we will do this survey again before we go live so we can check out any more comments, concerns and ideas.

What do you do to make change feel real and exciting and in your office – as ever let me know your thoughts.