Guest post by Ronn Faigen
Ronn Faigen is the General Manager for APMG-US, part of APMG International, a global accreditation and qualifications organization. In this capacity, Ronn is responsible for increasing the awareness and adoption of internationally recognized best practices, among them PRINCE2®, Managing Successful Programs (MSP™) Portfolio, Program and Project Offices (P3O®) and ITIL®. Prior to joining APMG-US, Ronn held a number of executive management positions in technology companies involved in digital imaging, educational software, and high availability clustered computing. Ronn began his career with IBM, where he spent fourteen years in a variety of customer-facing roles.
Here is a shocking statistic. It is from a 2000 Harvard Business Review article and it stated that 70% of change initiatives fail. Before you consider that twelve year old factoid outdated, this week I read on the homepage of a Change Management consulting company that only 25-30% of all business changes achieve benefit realization, and that the greatest risk is posed by human and cultural factors. Assuming these statements are close to accurate, not much has changed. Change can be difficult for individuals and organizations to absorb. Even a minor change can cause discomfort. Full disclosure: When my wife decides to rearrange the furniture, my resistance to change is palpable. Imagine the impact of bigger changes at home or at work!
The concept of Change Management is by no means new. There are books and methodologies and courses a plenty, available to any interested professional who seeks to develop skills in this area. But are enough people, or the right people, taking advantage of the knowledge and applying it as a part of their jobs?
My thinking immediately centers on Program and Project Managers. Is there a larger group of professionals who are the instigators of so much change? Usually the very reason a program or project is undertaken is to facilitate change, whether that be in products or processes. In MSPÒ (Managing Successful Programs), the widely used program management methodology, programs are all about transformational change. It would follow that Program and Project Managers understand the critical importance of Change Management and are trained to implement elements of this in the course of their work.
But is this case? I have seen a number of blog responses from project managers attesting to the need for more “soft skills” training, particularly in Change Management. While I have never read the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) cover to cover, a quick look in the index lists two entries for change management, but these are both concerned with how to handle changes to project requirements rather than how to help users adapt to the impact of change caused by the project. This is not the reference on Change Management needed by project managers.
Clearly the concept of Change Management extends far beyond project management. A corporate merger or change in business model would cause immense organizational changes, requiring companies to focus on how these are accepted by their employees or stakeholders. Yet a project can cause disruptive change to a population whose acceptance or rejection can impact whether the project succeeds or fails. Coming in on time and under budget cannot save a project whose deliverable is spurned by its users.
My question to project managers is whether you have accompanied your training and skills in project management with a parallel set of skills in Change Management? Is this important to the project manager, or should it be left for others to contend with?
I would be very interested in your thoughts.
