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Change Leadership for Project Management

by David Roitman, Ph.D., Senior Consultant

Introduction

Phase 3: Solution Development

This phase typically includes the following activities:

		Develop detailed system requirements
		Design solution architecture
		Design, develop and test prototypes
		Scale-up prototype design to system level

Some principles that are useful in leading change during system development are the following:

Principle #6 : Provide an environment that fosters creativity. The conditions that foster creativity are different from those that support analysis, and in many organizations creativity is counter-cultural. Leaders all too often greet creative ideas with messages like “that’s not logical;” “be practical;” and “to make a mistake is wrong.” Effective change leaders are able to help people relax, focus, and follow new insights to develop creative solutions.

Key Action Steps : Spend some time every week with the people responsible for solution development. Find out if they have what they need to be creative, and if not, work to provide it, even if that means rethinking rules or procedures.

Principle #7: Integrate management infrastructure elements to support the solution. Management infrastructure elements like reporting relationships, workflows, job descriptions, performance measures and reward systems can reinforce each other in synergy or work against each other. For example, new IT or process solutions often require workflows and jobs to change. If performance measures are not adjusted, people may continue to perform work just as they used to. As another example, changing some reporting relationships so that work can stay within departments instead of crossing them can make or break a work process redesign.

Key Action Steps: For each infrastructure element, ask, “How much impact will the solution have on this element?” (This often works well if done by a group that includes the managers and employees who are impacted by the solution.) For those elements that are impacted significantly, consider what changes to infrastructure would create synergy and improve performance.

Phase 4: Solution Implementation

This phase typically includes the following types of activities:

		Develop implementation plan
		Secure implementation resources
		Provide training
		If appropriate, conduct pilot tests
		Scale-up pilot to system-level implementation
		Evaluate performance

Some principles that support leading change during implementation are the following:

Principle #8 : Allow people to work through their feelings so they can accept the change. Many people in business settings are uncomfortable dealing with feelings. Yet many projects produce significant organizational changes, which inevitably bring about feelings such as confusion, stress, anger, and loss. If people are supported in dealing with their feelings, they can work through them relatively quickly during implementation. Otherwise, the business results expected from the change may be delayed and in some cases not achieved at all.

Key Action Steps : Provide training for leaders in skills needed to facilitate transition, and take this training yourself if you haven’t already. These skills include active listening, recognizing behaviors that mark different stages of personal transition, expressing empathy, acknowledging loss, and being able to express one’s own feelings in ways that are appropriate to the business environment.

Principle #9 : Support organizational learning with structured reviews. A great deal of learning in organizations takes place spontaneously, due to employees’ innate curiosity and desire to learn. However, many projects don’t live up to their potential for providing learning due to a lack of appropriate planning. For example, although many projects use pilots and scripted walkthroughs during implementation stage, few projects set expectations and allocate adequate time for learning, or use structured evaluations to identify and document lessons learned.

Key Action Steps : Plan periodic, structured debriefs or reviews during walkthroughs and pilots. Use data-gathering forms that make it easy to capture lessons learned, and end debriefs with commitments to take action based on new lessons learned.

Demystifying Change Leadership

Our intention in this article has been to provide examples of practical principles that can help you make the most of change. We hope that these examples have triggered principles that you have discovered for yourself based on your own experiences. We believe that the concepts of change leadership are fairly straightforward, although the actions required often take a certain amount of inspiration and courage to initiate. Making genuine change happen always involves some risk as well as potential reward. That is why it calls for leadership, not just management.

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