I had a brief conversation yesterday about how to improve change maturity in an organisation, and it got me thinking about how to structure the uplift.
If you're in a Change role in such an organisation, you should make it a priority, along with all of your other priorities, to raise the maturity as much as you can. It's good for the company, and it will end up making your life easier. And as with everything else in life, there's a process you can follow.
Where are we starting from?
You need to know your starting point. A simple assessment of current maturity will identify the most desperate areas, needing immediate attention.
Regular (quarterly) assessments will keep you on track. This isn't an overnight thing. It's going to take some time, and you're going to have to influence some people to come along on the journey.
Depending on the existing change maturity, you could allow a year to get there, but it will be worth it. You can break it into three phases...
Stabilise (First 3 months)
Obviously, first run your current maturity assessment and identify any low hanging fruit. Are stakeholders being ignored? Get them involved with the change. Have a coffee with change sponsors and identify what their expectations are for the project. Talk a lot, listen even more.
Provide the project team(s) with some basic tools like impact assessments and communication plans.
All of this while delivering change on the current projects, capturing quick wins and conducting "lessons learned" sessions after the fact.
Prove and Embed (Next 3 months)
A three-way relationship NEEDS to exist between the Change Manager, Project Management and the project Sponsor. Introduce to them, and then the broader project office, a change framework that aligns with the PMO delivery standards.
Along your journey, identify those people in the organisation who are "change champions" -- people you are the early adopter type, who embrace change as good.
Set up and run some basic change training sessions. These are meant to uplift general change capability throughout the organisation.
Run the maturity assessment again and identify where the uplift is lagging (and focus on those areas next).
Integrate Change (Final 6 months)
By now you should have a library of change artefacts, both templates, and those built for specific projects. Create a central library where anybody in the organisation can access them (read only unless part of the change team).
Working with your project director, make sure that impact assessments are ALWAYS done before deployments, and that they are addressed with the impacted stakeholders.
Add yourself to the Sprint planning and review meetings. If at all possible, align your change activities with the project plan, and make sure those activities are included in project progress reporting (say that five time fast).
A Starter Pack
Build a quick 'Change Impact Assessment' sheet, identifying impacted stakeholder cohorts, the relative sizes of the cohorts, what skills or knowledge gaps they may have, and if they need to change processes or tools as part of the change.
Build a stakeholder map and a change RACI (whether stakeholders are Responsible, Accountable, Consulted or Informed about the change activities. Include the influence level they may have and how they should be engaged in the changes. This will help focus engagement efforts.
Create and maintain a Change Readiness checklist. Has training been created and delivered? Have processes been updated to reflect the new systems? Has go-live and post-launch support been set up?
Create a centralised communications channel (A Teams Channel, a Slack group, or something similar) where regular updates are provided and frequently asked questions can be addresses.
Final Thoughts
There's a saying that the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, and the second best time is now.
Uplifting change maturity in a company is not an overnight process. It will take months of consistent messaging, a lot of stakeholder engagement and careful listening.
But it's worth it. A company with a mature outlook on change is one filled with employees who will be able to weather whatever changes come their way.
So dive in and start. It won't happen until you do.