Organizational projects: not your traditional management!

Are your transformations slow in coming and your managers seem unable to make the change happen?

In the accelerated pace of change within business lines, one observation is gaining in popularity: the nature of organizational projects differs significantly from projects with a strong technological connotation. We notice that managers who succeed in this type of project have certain characteristics. But what are these significant differences?

Traditional projects

Change projects related to the introduction of technologies nowadays adopt a management approach mainly focused on controlling the production of content according to a fixed delivery schedule. The change management of such projects focuses primarily on the communication, support and training needs of future “users”. Success is determined by customer appreciation and respect for deadlines and costs.

Organizational projects

When organizational and human aspects predominate, relational, political and behavioral issues far outweigh technical ones. Leadership, executive sponsorship and coaching become essential to success. The organizational climate, the capacity for change and the obstacles to the appropriation of new ways of doing things condition the pace of change. Respecting deadlines becomes less of a priority.

Other significant features include:

• The process to be followed to achieve the change is rarely predefined. It must be defined each time according to the context and the nature of the change to be deployed;
• One must know how to live with ambiguity and uncertainty, omnipresent and persistent.
• We are often confronted with hierarchical, territorial and protocol-based management armed with deep-rooted controls. However, success requires a synergistic, contributory and transversal behavior, outside the pre-established decision framework;
• The cyclical nature of business line activities dictates priorities that are difficult to reconcile with a delivery philosophy. Contributors are uncomfortable with having to come up with new ideas, commit to deadlines, and be accountable outside their line of authority;
• Contributors are usually distributed transversally and solicited for several priority initiatives at the same time. In many cases, these contributors also remain accountable for the continuity of business activities, which are themselves targeted by the change: their buy-in must be ensured before they can influence the rest of the organization.

Important success factors

• Approach your transformation as a program. You have to deliver the change!
• Legitimize change through strong, mobilizing and continuous executive sponsorship, especially if you aim to change values and behaviors. Also tie the networks of influence to your governance;
• Involve influential, peer-recognized contributors to build credibility for your solutions. Formally and continuously manage expectations, concerns, questions and issues;
• Foster a climate of mutual trust and respect. Focus on highly collaborative, iterative and rapidly adaptable approaches. Risk management should be paramount;
• Demand the essential, the necessary and sufficient. Aim for 80/20 and deploy in action: validate and enrich by putting into practice.

The reflection must continue in order to better develop and supervise the managers at the heart of these major projects.

 

This article was originally written for the E3 Services Conseils Winter 2012 Newsletter.