{"id":311,"date":"2024-03-03T17:40:34","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T01:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/?p=311"},"modified":"2024-03-03T17:42:23","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T01:42:23","slug":"change-management-in-project-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/change-management-in-project-management\/","title":{"rendered":"Change Management in Project Management"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Work<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Image attributed to: Articulate Content Library<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading this unit\u2019s articles and books about Project Management brought me back to several projects I\u2019ve been part of as a learning professional. I was able to relate to a lot of the challenges, obstacles, and successes described in the approaches and models described, and even that projects will sometimes fail due to either time, cost, scope, or quality management (Knolskape, 2013, 2:40 – 3:42<\/a>). In their book entirely on the topic of Project Management, Adrienne Watt<\/a> describes that more projects fail (24%) or are challenged (44% as late, over-budget, not completed) than are successful (32%), but strong Project Management skills can help to mitigate these risks (2014, p. 13 – 14<\/a>). One of these risk-mitigation strategies I didn\u2019t see mentioned too often in our unit\u2019s readings, but which I believe in greatly, is a strong focus on Change Management. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my experience, Change Management in corporate environments involves applying many of the same strategies we\u2019ve learned about in Project Management, as well as highlighting the importance of employee training on the change. In their article Successful Change Management<\/em>, Oakland and Tanner (2007) <\/a>define Change Management as involving strategies which support both \u201creadiness for change and implementing change\u201d (p. 1<\/a>). In one particular software implementation project I led our organization\u2019s training initiatives for in 2018 I had the opportunity to work with a professional Change Manager we had hired to help our change succeed. In order to prepare for the readiness for change, I observed this individual aligning with many of the best practices outlined by Oakland and Tanner<\/a>\u2019s article. She was able to identify who in the organization was a \u201cproject champion\u201d who could loudly endorse the project (p. 3<\/a>), as well as those who were change resistors; She then recommended the resistors become involved with UAT (user acceptance testing) so that they gain advance notice of the change and have the chance to change their resistance. This Change Manager also sought \u201cmanagement commitment\u201d (p. 3<\/a>) by involving our CEO in our communication campaign socializing the change to the entire organization (we had him hold a sign reading \u201cI [heart] [system name]\u201d and included an endorsement statement at the beginning of our training sessions). She also ran the communication strategy, ensuring employees were aware of the upcoming change and the benefits to our employees, our business, and our customers. Finally, she supported our organization by specifically supporting the training department, helping us address barriers we were encountering to completing development of training material, and sometimes running interference with the external consultants who were acting as project managers and not always open to answering our questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, this software implementation was completed but it was not successful and was eventually reversed during the pilot period. Although the project fell into the 24% statistic above of projects that fail, I think ultimately it was a good thing<\/em> that this particular project failed. In their article Conway et al. (2017)<\/a> describe how projects can sometimes face constraints when an organization isn\u2019t ready for the innovation being proposed, or because it requires too many other complementary changes (p. 13<\/a>), and that is exactly what happened in our context. The software we were implementing was missing some key features which were required for our particular business location, and it would have required many other cost-added changes to our business operations which didn\u2019t make sense. The Change Manager we worked with through the project helped us identify these risks by listening to the end-users in the pilot working with the software every day and quantify the employee and customer costs of the defects. Although my organization hasn\u2019t hired a full-time Change Manager for other projects, I find that I have learned tremendously from this individual and implement many of the same strategies she had used in my ongoing training projects with much success.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you think about the role of a Change Manager? Could you see your organization or context benefiting from this specialty role as complementary to Project Management? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conway, R., Masters, J., & Thorold, J. (2017). From design thinking to systems change: How to invest in innovation for social impact<\/em>. Royal Society of Arts, Action and Research Centre. https:\/\/www.thersa.org\/globalassets\/pdfs\/reports\/rsa_from-design-thinking-to-system-change-report.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

KNOLSKAPE. (2013, June 18). Introduction to Project Management<\/em>. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BOU1YP5NZVA<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oakland, J. S., & Tanner, S. (2007). Successful Change Management. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence<\/em>, 18<\/em>(1\u20132), 1\u201319. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/14783360601042890<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watt, A. (2014). Project Management – 2nd Edition<\/em>. BCcampus. https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/projectmanagement\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image attributed to: Articulate Content Library Reading this unit\u2019s articles and books about Project Management brought me back to several projects I\u2019ve been part of as a learning professional. I was able to relate to a lot of the challenges, obstacles, and successes described in the approaches and models described, and even that projects will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":316,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0277\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}