Change Management is a core discipline in IT organisations today for two reasons:

1. IT organisations are changing faster and faster and the need for more “flexible” organisations is becoming more apparent. Change Management is a core requirement to ensure the stability of the people environment and to ensure that Change Leadership is a competence across all levels of management.
2. IT application roll-outs are impacting more and more people in organizations as work processes change. Change Management is now critical for the success of IT application roll-outs and needs to be included in all phases of IT projects. (see are article below)

Developing Change Management, as a new organizational discipline, requires a number of actions. Without these required actions, change management may continue to be basically an ad hoc exercise occasionally aided by anecdotal experience.

• Top management must come to agreement on the definition of the Change Management discipline as it will apply in the organization.
• The organization’s leadership must formally implement Change Management as a required capability in the organization. Change Management must be used while the organization goes about its day-to-day task of “Running the Business”.

There are three primary Tools in the Change Management Discipline that, if understood and used appropriately, will help insure that a change initiative will succeed.

• Change Management Method. Obviously, an organization needs a Change Management Method that gives detailed steps on how to make organizational change happen in a controlled and predictable way. A Change Management Method gives detailed guidance on how to employ the “means of change” (i.e., process alteration, employee performance change, etc.) to alter the “means of doing business” (i.e., how the company delivers its products and services to customers, etc.).
• Project Management Method. Next there is a Project Management Method that gives the capability to bring concrete results to a given initiative in a defined time period. The Project Management Method should provide detailed guidance on how to manage a specific change project (using steps from the Change Management Method as the key activities to be managed).
• Program Management Method. Employing a Program Management Method allows the organization to effectively manage multi-year multiple-initiatives of strategic value (“cost reduction”, “ERP roll-out”, etc.). Program Management provides the facility to manage multiple organizational changes (including multiple Change Projects) simultaneously — while the organization is continuing to “Run the Business”.

These tools, together, form the primary mechanism for disciplined and effective Change Management, and are an absolute requirement to complement the organization’s existing tools for “Running the Business” in today’s dynamic business environment.

TalentAlign‘s Change Management tools have been designed around Change Management in an IT organisation and provide good information and processes for effective Change Management.

If you are looking at Human Capital projects that need a Change Management process, give us a call, we’d love the opportunity to work with you.

There are a number of articles on Change Management in our IT/HR KnowledgeBase. They are freely available by you do need to be logged in to read these articles