The perils of not dealing wth the soft stuff - an IT perspective

John-Paul Kamath writing for Computer Weekly has laid down various opinions on the importance in managing stakeholders from an IT viewpoint.


I've blogged on this before, but the bottom line in the article is that if you fail to get people behind your development it will fail. There isn't a huge amount of further insight that anyone can give.

Neglecting to manage change..a poignant article

Dr Andrew M Jones of Lancaster University has published an interesting article in this month's Consulting Times entitled 'Neglect cultural issues at your peril'. Paraphrasing hugely, the article talks about the need to map cultural change aspects to changes in strategy, and indeed that shareholder value is often destroyed where people issues are not dealt with up front.

It surprises me somewhat that there is a need for this type of article in the professional press, and that the enlightenment is still only drifting through amongst leaders of large organisations (see previous posts). Dr Jones quotes Merck's CEO, Dick Clark

“The fact is culture eats strategy for lunch. You can have a good strategy in place, but if you don’t have the culture and enabling systems that allow you to successfully implement that strategy, the culture of theorganisation will defeat the strategy,”

I summarise this a 'people stop change'. You can have a great strategy, all the technology and cash that you could ever wish for, but if you don't manage your stakeholders you are setting yourself up to fail.

Let's think about a mythical organisation that has a new strategy for world domination. What could go wrong? Here's a short list;

• top managers don't understand the strategy, or indeed buy into it - they carry on working as before;
• clerical people didn't understand the previous strategy (any of them?), and don't understand this one or care - they carry on working as before;
• middle managers (the 'nougat' layer) don't worry about strategy, they just need to maintain their bonuses by turning out widgets - they carry on working as before;
• and so on.

People stop change - you cannot avoid addressing these people issues as a fundamental part of whatever your strategic change is - otherwise there is a real risk that nothing will change, or if it does it won't endure. Culture is a difficult thing to change overnight of course, and a huge amount of planning and execution effort needs to be applied, starting at the same point that the consultants come in to help you map out your change plans.

Project Management and Change Management

There is a debate going on in another forum about the use of structured project management methodologies (eg; Prince 2) versus the management of change. We need to be clear that project management is not the same as change management - managing the project is part of managing the change, but it is a relatively mechanistic process, providing the assurance of technical delivery and to some extent the delivery of the benefits. Change management is about delivering the behavioural change that ensures that the benefits endure, that the technical changes are accepted, and that the expected outcomes are achieved.

Another way of looking at this is that there are many more people involved in delivering the change (the sponsor, Board, managers etc), whereas the project processes can be delivered by the Project Manager (who, if they are enlightened/experienced will be focussed on delivering the change as well as the technical delivery).

One thing that annoys me is where some third party suppliers/partners (in IT particularly) tend to come along after winning a contract and expect that they can simply implement their bit of technology and it will work and be accepted - they often get a shock and then cost overruns etc, and consequently relationships start to fail between supplier and customer....the real world is difficult!

Here's a link to a basic project/change role comparison from the change management learning center if you're interested.

The real world

I received the joke below in an email today - one of those things that go around at Christmas time. You can read the joke if you wish, but the sense of it is that the real world has changed so much that saying 'Happy Christmas' might upset someone. This is political correctness gone mad in my opinion, although there was an article in a national paper a few days ago that said managers are fearful of putting decorations up. Amazing. At the other extreme there are offices where you might see decorations for Diwali, Chinese New Year etc as well as Christmas of course, recognising a social and community approach to life.

The key point here for me is that in our professional lives we are impacted by whatever is happening in the real world, and it is sometimes difficult to separate the substance of an event or activity and the interpretation of the same. Any action will mean different things to different people, and will impact them in a variety of ways. We are all different, and will vary our mood and interpretation on different days. This is key in change management and transformation of business.

THE JOKE

I wanted to send out some sort of holiday greeting to my friends, but it
is so difficult in today's world to know exactly what to say without
offending someone. So I met with my lawyer yesterday, and on his advice
I wish to say the following:-

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes
for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress,
non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice
holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious
persuasions or secular practices of your choice with respect for the
religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their
choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.
I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and
medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally
accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the
calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society
have helped make the world a great place (not to imply that any country
is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the
race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual
preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:
This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely
transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no
promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for
her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is
revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted
to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for
a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday
greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement
of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the
wisher.

Disclaimer: no trees were harmed in the sending of this message however,
a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

Accelerating change

I had an email today about a global company that needed someone to help the finish a programme that had been running for two years - it sounded as if it had faltered and they need change consulting effort to move it to its conclusion.

Two years into the programme and they start worrying about the people impacts!! This reminded me of a great book I've read a couple of times - 'Five frogs on a log' by Mark L Feldman and Michael F Spratt. The book is about acceleration of change, particularly in an post-mergers and acquisitions situation. The title comes from the story about five frogs sitting on a log, one says 'shall we jump', and all agree that they should - of course they don't actually jump because saying you'll do something is differrent to actually doing it.

Back to the point, Feldman and Spratt use a great analogy for change - they liken it to removal of a sticking plaster; remove the plaster slowly and the pain lasts longer than pulling it off quickly - 'rip, sting, gone'.

Not all projects can be completed quickly, but you need to move those affected to an 'acceptance' position as quickly as possible. This is a measured process - in some situations you may not be able to talk to people as soon as you would like (eg; redundancy) - but that doesn't prevent detailed analysis and planning.

Why change fails...People Stop Change

I thought (I know it is dangerous) that I would let you have a version of the article that I have published in the Association of Project Managers Yearbook. I figure that if this blog is going to be helpful to us all, I need to make it a bit of a magnum opus of change stuff, without the pithy slogans and ra-ra. This is real world stuff, that affects the professional and personal lives of real people. Anyway, enjoy...

Our business lives have become more pressured over recent years – computing and telecommunications have a lot to answer for in that the mobile phone has led to instantaneous communications wherever you are in the world, and email has lead to more interpersonal communications than ever. Computing power and complex software has lead to more questions being asked that would never have either mattered before or have been capable of being answered. A little test;

Rank the following 5 statements in the order that they apply to you;

1. I need more emails
2. I always have my mobile phone switched on
3. I prefer to send emails rather than pick up the phone
4. I’m being asked for ever more complex analyses
5. I work longer than ever hours

Depending on your role, 2-4 will be in the middle in any order, 5 will be at the top and 1 at the bottom. No empirical data of course, but we all know the realities. Whether this is right or wrong is the subject of a whole different essay!

Given all of this increasing pressure, managers are required to continuously improve productivity, grow or contract their operations, outsource or insource, new system here, manage the legacy system there, acquire and dispose. The working environment is continually changing inside organizations, and for our customers it isn’t any easier.

There isn’t always a willingness to accept the reality of change inside organizations, but since it’s a reality why do we always make it as hard as possible for ourselves. The key is that although we communicate more than ever, we aren’t good at managing the people-impacts of change. Picture the scene – you’ve been having sleepless nights since your boss asked you to install a new system. You’re no IT guru, but you know you are going to have to get new hardware, software, and train people. You’ll need consulting help to get it all done on time, select the software, implement, test, and make sure all the processes work.

Well, your sleepless nights are set to continue. Where did you think about the people affected? What do they think, feel? You recognize that you will have to train them, but have you thought about what they’ll be worrying about, how they make the current systems work with undocumented workarounds, how they’ll feel with a new flat screen monitor where their fluffy toys will fall off of the top! The people will be worrying about the ‘business case’ – new system = greater productivity = fewer jobs is the normal way these projects are justified isn’t it?

I could go on. Managers tend to think about processes, and good managers tend to think about people. There’s middle ground somewhere, but when you wonder during a sleepless night why your project is failing you’ll come to the following conclusions;

• The people are worrying about the business case, productivity has plummeted, and coffee consumption has increased.

• The people hate the new system, because the consultants you used didn’t ask them what they think (nor did you), how they use the current system and so on. Productivity has plummeted.

• The system doesn’t work – the old world has prevailed, the workarounds don’t work any more. Productivity has plummeted.

• Testing is inadequate, training is inadequate – no real consideration of the journey from current state to future state was given. Productivity has plummeted.

• Your peers are taking the opportunity to sneer and jibe – your productivity has plummeted.

• Your boss isn’t pleased…your productivity is ceasing…

Although the people think you don’t care, at least the flat screens leave more room for fluffy toys on the desk. Result!

People stop change. Systems are inanimate, buildings couldn’t care who occupies them, processes will operate if the right inputs are delivered….but people are a whole different matter. ‘Command and control’ regimes are not de rigueur and will not work in the modern business, so its no good expecting to ‘tell’ people what to do. They’ve got brains, personalities, and egos and all need nurturing.

People stop change. So what are you going to do about preventing them stopping your change programme? Talk, communicate, email – this is where we came in – use the technologies that you have available, involve people-affected in the decision processes, ask them what they think and believe.

Back to your sleepless night. If only I’d;

• Explained the business case up front. There will be job losses, but we’re going to transition people to new roles. The purpose of the system is to solve a long-standing MI problem, hence we’ll need more people doing more interesting jobs. There will be job losses, but this is what we’re doing to make it as easy as possible. If only you had explained this.

• Asked people what they do – what does and doesn’t work in the current state, what will make their working lives easier and more fulfilling in the future state.

• Been more visible – showed sponsorship and got the team behind me.

• Involved some of the key people in choosing the replacement system, building the revised processes, establishing the testing and training.

• Got my peers to buy-in and support the approach I was taking, involved them in the project, helped steer progress and maximize the benefits.

• Managed my boss better, and had them involved and visible in supporting me.

You need people to go through the whole process of shock and anger, denial, understanding, challenging and (eventually sometimes) commitment to the change, whether it’s a new system, location, process, PC or business acquisition. Getting over the questions of ‘what does the change mean to me’ or often ‘what’s in it for me?’ is often time consuming and painful, but getting it right is always worthwhile.

There’s huge debate amongst project management professionals about whether its rigorous project management practice and procedures that deliver successful projects, or whether its ‘change management’ that delivers success. People stop change, make change happen, deliver successful projects, and provide you with business results, so focusing your management effort here is likely to derive most value. It won’t always be easy.

So you want an easier life…focus on the people aspects of change – it will pay dividends in both your sanity and business results terms.