What is the change resource problem? Two items came across my consciousness recently which are not difficult to link. The first is a set of lessons learned from projects in an organisation. An outstanding item of the lessons is the complaint that not enough people resources were available, or the people allocated already had a …
Category archives: Change Management
Selling a change
How useful are selling skills for Stakeholder Engagement? Stakeholder engagement is frequently difficult. The change team need to get stakeholders engaged and often positively involved in a change for success. Since the power in the relationship often lies with the stakeholder it seems to me this is a similar situation to a salesman-customer interaction. There …
Knowledge or Competence?
What do employers want from their employees: knowledge or competence? I visited a client recently who told me they were re-orienting their training because they needed people who can do things, they distinguished between “know how and know what”. Know how is knowledge, often raw and not contexualised, classically this knowledge is gained in a …
Is assurance the next big thing?
The next big thing I propose that assurance is the next big topic in programme and project management. I am reading more about it, customers are asking about it (though not yet for it!), and we have just finshed a new qualification for people doing project and programme assurance with our partner Aspire. The catalyst …
The failure dilemma for change management
The Dilemma What about the mythical 70% failure rate for change in organisations? This has been searched for quite dilligently in the literature by Mark Hughes; who concluded that although well reported by very respected reporters, there was very little substantial measurement data to support the reports. Hence it becomes an urban myth. The dilemma …
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Keeping change strategic
Strategic focus and effective communication Corporate business consultants are discovering that effective management requires a continuous focus on the strategic objectives of the organisation.
Decision architecture
Creating a framework for good decisions Good decisions in delivering change has been a theme in this blog. A recent paper on the HBR website has introduced the psychological (or culture) context for good decisions. This paper suggests how to overcome inherent biases in the way our brain works to make better decisions.
Change Saturation
Too Much Change Many people in organisations are reporting that they are doing “too much change”. Which usually means they feel they are not able to cope with the changes they are being asked to carry out. To understand what this means we need to look at three forces going on in an organisation: The …
Better training outcomes
Aim higher, be better As an experienced trainer I am often frustrated by the poor (or most likely non-existent) post training activity of the candidates which should be consolidating their learning during the course. Why would any manager invest in training their staff if their organisation is not going to benefit from it? Well it …
Where projects end and change begins
Change adds value to projects In a recent Prosci article the author provides useful questions to elicit the value of doing people change on top of a delivery project. I also find that many people in the project world just don’t get the ‘change’ bit. A large multinational company I have talked to wants to …