Start OCM Planning early, or else!

I am a fan of two curves:

The Project management pear curve ( or whale or elephant) and the FRAM filter “curve”The pear curve reflects an understanding that the intention, scope and objectives of any project need to be understood early to minimize cost, effort and frustration over the longer term.

The FRAM filter “curve” reflects on taking care of your organization ( engine) early with the proper techniques and tools or pay more money later to repair the damaged engine. Fram

Organizational Change Management(OCM) covers strategic tactical and operational decisions and actions over the span of a program and beyond.

One can argue that OCM’s critical stages lies at the beginning and levels of risk increase if the start is delayed from:

Concept stage Þ Business case Þ Program planning Þ Program implementation

OCM is less about providing courses and issuing nice memos or filling in stakeholder forms.

It is about engaging your entire organization (people, process, governance, performance) to enable program success and sustainability.

It is about maximizing equality, justice, fairness, and involvement

It is about meeting business strategy objectives over the long term

It is about applying key learnings from past change projects.

It is about leadership and stewardship.

With all of this sensitivity, why do decision-makers delay starting OCM?

Some reasons include:

· Lack of understanding of OCM and risk

· They think they know the cultures and climates of their organization, its simple, so everything is foreseeable & their people will follow like sheep

· They forget their change history

· They are afraid of their people and/or their ability to lead OR are afraid of what they perceive as “resistance to change”

· They minimize the change impact on their people

· They believe they are time or budget constrained

All of these traps are cause for greater program risk and delay. All of these traps can be avoided or mitigated.

The responsible and accountable team is the triumvirate of Owner/sponsor, Program manager and CEO and possibly a fourth, the HR executive.

Ask the tough questions, have a fierce dialogue if need be, and be self-aware early on, lest you want to be part of the 60% failure rate in change projects. And that number measures a multi-million dollar loss of organizational productivity, effectiveness and a negative impact on long term organizational health and sustainability.

Some Starter questions:

What are the clear and detailed change objectives, expectations and impacts, internally and externally

Do we have fully available resources ( e.g. People, money, time)

What other changes are we doing in the organization?

Is the timing right?

How do we engage the organization?

What assumptions are we making that may raise our risk profile?

All I ask is that you start early and have a dynamic dialogue.

Or you can pay for it later!