Change Management, the key to business evolution.
Managing ‘Change’ within your business is something that can be both risky and complex but is vital to a business’s growth and future. While the change is likely to be key to your growth, fully understanding your current and future processes is critical and the potential impact on a business can be huge and potentially catastrophic if executed inappropriately or poorly.
Why is project initiation so vital for successful change management?
Change management is, at its core, the identification and delivery of change projects that improve the efficiency and service of your business.
Before commencing any change project, it is vital to ensure you understand what the end goal is and that you will achieve the expected return for your time and effort. However, one of the hardest aspects of any change project is making sure that it is correctly defined from the word go, ensuring you have the right people involved at the right time.
As part of initiating any change project, as a minimum, you need to consider the following aspects:
Do you know what your end goal is?
It may sound obvious, but no journey should be started unless you know where you are heading, and everybody agrees with this. Too often projects fail or overrun because there was no clear direction at the start.
Who needs to be involved?
Think about who will make the decisions about your project (the project sponsor and steering group)
Who will manage it and make sure that day to day activities are being completed as required? Who will make the changes happen?
Can you continue to run your business, while some of your key people are involved in the project?
You will probably want to involve some of the best people on your change project. It is vital that they have sufficient time to spend on the project to make it successful, so it may not be possible for them to also continue to do their day job alongside this. This may be an opportunity to give others the chance to ‘step up’ or you may need to think about bringing in external resources to help out.
Do you have the budget?
It is important to have a realistic view on how much it will cost to deliver your project and ensure that you have the necessary funds available before you commence. You may also need to consider the impact of this project on other projects or changes you are considering.
Do you know what the boundaries of your project are?
There can be a danger that additional changes get pulled into a project during its lifetime. This can lead to increased spend and a delay in delivering the original change required for your business.
Do you have the skills?
It may be necessary to consider employing temporary expertise or engaging with a third party to deliver some aspects of your project.
Change management can be difficult to get right. Inherently, it is human nature to resist change. At DoubleFelix, we work with clients to manage the project, report to key stakeholders and mentor appropriate teams and functions throughout the change process. Bringing in an external partner removes the emotional attachment your teams may have to the process and allows a fresh, pragmatic insight into the function and purpose of the change.
If you are looking for help with managing change within your organisation, we would be excited to talk you through what we can bring to the process. Please Call 01342 325 720 or Contact us on info@doublefelix.co.uk to arrange a no-obligation conversation regarding how best to manage organisation change.