How to Manage Multiple Change Initiatives

There is now a tone of research and articles on change management out there. However, most of these are focused on driving a singular change. How many organisations can you think of that is just driving one singular change initiative? Exactly.

Particularly when an organization is adopting agile ways of working, managing multiple change initiatives becomes even more critical. If everyone is working towards one big initiative launch it is much easier to plan for. It is more complex with lots of initiatives all launching a series of changes throughout the year. However, in agile organizations this is the norm. Managing the impact of changes on the frontline in this case becomes more complicated with significant coordination and planning involved.

To effectively manage multiple change initiatives one needs to establish the following:

• Oversight of the totality of what is changing

To manage multiple change initiatives one needs to be able to see what is changing. This sounds simple but yet one of the hardest things to accomplish for large organisations where there are often more than a hundred or hundreds of change initiatives at any one time.

To achieve this, one needs to be able to capture the data on the change impact software and how they impact different parts of the organization. This can then be used to better plan for initiatives.

Most organisations still struggle with spreadsheets to try and create some view of what is changing, however still not able to effectively capture the totality of what is changing since this involves a view of not just ‘projects’, but also BAU initiatives. To move with the times, organisations need to be able to leverage digital means of understanding what is changing and what this means from a planning perspective.

• Effective governance and decision making

Most organisations are good at ensuring that there is a structured way of allocating the dollars to the right priorities when it comes to funding projects. However, the same may not be said for effective governance in orchestrating and planning for how change initiatives are implemented and embedded into BAU.

An effective operations governance process is required, leveraging from a clear view of the totality of what is changing, and through this effectively sequence, package, integrate or priorities the change impact analysis tools on the organization.

The governance body needs to be able to establish clear decision making and escalation process and articulate this to initiative drivers.

• Clear and effective business engagement channels

With significant changes happening concurrently, it is vital to establish clear and scalable business engagement channels to ensure that stakeholder groups feel like they are a part of designing the changes (vs. being a victim of them). This includes regular business forums such as weekly, monthly or quarterly meetings and stand-ups. Other communication channels would also include intranet, email, Yammer or audio-visual outlets

It is through well-oiled engagement channels that initiative owners can quickly and frequently implement changes rapidly and concurrently.

To learn more about how to manage multiple change initiatives please attend our webinar where we will cover detailed best practice examples of how large companies such as banks currently manage multiple changes. This includes tips, stories, templates and frameworks. We will also go through a recent study that outlines how change practitioners currently manage multiple change initiatives.


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Keywords: Change Impact Software, Change Impact Analysis Tools, Change Management Heat Map

By: The Change Compass

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