Tag: Change Management

Keeping Stakeholders Connected During Uncertain Times

Written by Christina Tan on January 20, 2021. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Keeping Stakeholders Connected During Uncertain Times

As I started the process of winding down and reflecting upon this highly unusual year, it felt strange to have felt that my year had been lived with purpose whilst living in a world of physical separation…

and organisational transformation like millions of others.

According to employee recognition provider Achievers, up to a third of all British workers have felt disconnected from their respective workplaces during the course of the year. As a programme delivery professional, the sudden absence of ‘chance encounters’ with my stakeholders in the office earlier this year meant that I didn’t have the opportunity to have conversations with them and gain informal insights on wider issues or topics. However, the availability and proliferation of virtual collaboration tools had helped a majority of us to navigate around this landscape of the ‘new normal’. So, how far have we come with mastering the etiquette of virtual working, and are we regaining this sense of connectivity as we adapted over the course of the year? According to employee recognition provider Achievers, up to a third of all British workers have felt disconnected from their respective workplaces during the course of the year. As a programme delivery professional, the sudden absence of ‘chance encounters’ with my stakeholders in the office earlier this year meant that I didn’t have the opportunity to have conversations with them and gain informal insights on wider issues or topics. However, the availability and proliferation of virtual collaboration tools had helped a majority of us to navigate around this landscape of the ‘new normal’. So, how far have we come with mastering the etiquette of virtual working, and are we regaining this sense of connectivity as we adapted over the course of the year?

To answer these questions, we need to adopt a combination of principles as listed below.

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⦁ Continue to make stakeholder engagement a priority. ⦁ Continue to make stakeholder engagement a priority. During times of uncertainty, it’s more important than ever to maintain and build relationships. Having those who could champion your cause can be invaluable in change initiatives. For stakeholders who are new within your circle, look for opportunities to check in again following initial meetings in order to build trust and identify additional areas of shared interest.

⦁ Make engagements manageable.⦁ Make engagements manageable.Help your stakeholders say ‘yes’ by keeping your initial ask to an informal, exploratory conversation. If participants treated the initial sessions as learning opportunities and kept engaged throughout the process, they are more willing to learn about the ‘ask’ in later sessions as a result. Lumping an entire work package in one sitting may prove to be overwhelming, prompting them to disconnect as a result.

⦁ Inclusivity doesn’t always make everyone feel connected.⦁ Inclusivity doesn’t always make everyone feel connected.Keeping the wrong stakeholders hostage in a long meeting is more likely to make them feel more disconnected from the project than included, if they are unfamiliar with the topic being discussed. By conducting stakeholder identification, we need to be mindful of our participants’ role and their vested interests in a specific discussion topic, which can be addressed through stakeholder identification and analysis.

⦁ Do not be afraid of reaching out. ⦁ Do not be afraid of reaching out. Are you comfortable just picking up the virtual phone when someone had indicated themselves as available? I found that, even during uncertain times, stakeholders – including many individuals who didn’t already have a working relationship with me previously – were open to talking. To my surprise, a majority of my stakeholders had even expressed an interest in providing further assistance.

Ultimately, keeping stakeholders connected helps to deliver better outcomes, gain their support for future collaboration and boost sustainability practices. The significance of reaching out to others stretches beyond work collaboration. Do you potentially know someone who might be mentally succumbing to the pressures of work and/or life? Reaching out to individuals on a periodic basis helps to keep you close to their unique situations. Even if the other party indicates that they do not have the availability to speak, reaching out still lets them know that you care, and that the door remains open if they would like a listening ear. It is good to let your stakeholder know that, beyond the realms of work, we are all human, and that it’s important to look out for one another (albeit virtually) during these uncertain times.

Keeping Stakeholders Connected During Uncertain Times

Written by Christina Tan on January 18, 2021. Posted in Articles. 6 Comments on Keeping Stakeholders Connected During Uncertain Times

As I started the process of winding down and reflecting upon this highly unusual year,it felt strange to have felt that my year had been lived with purpose whilst living in a world of physical separation and organisational transformation like millions of others.

To answer these questions, we need to adopt a combination of principles as listed below.

Continue to make stakeholder engagement a priority.

During times of uncertainty, it’s more important than ever to maintain and build relationships. Having those who could champion your cause can be invaluable in change initiatives. For stakeholders who are new within your circle, look for opportunities to check in again following initial meetings in order to build trust and identify additional areas of shared interest.

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Inclusivity doesn’t always make everyone feel connected.

Keeping the wrong stakeholders hostage in a long meeting is more likely to make them feel more disconnected from the project than included, if they are unfamiliar with the topic being discussed. By conducting stakeholder identification, we need to be mindful of our participants’ role and their vested interests in a specific discussion topic, which can be addressed through stakeholder identification and analysis

Do not be afraid of reaching out.

Are you comfortable just picking up the virtual phone when someone had indicated themselves as available? I found that, even during uncertain times, stakeholders – including many individuals who didn’t already have a working relationship with me previously – were open to talking. To my surprise, a majority of my stakeholders had even expressed an interest in providing further assistance.

Effective project leadership: ideal project board duties and behaviours

Written by Allan Thomson on December 8, 2020. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Effective project leadership: ideal project board duties and behaviours

How does the leadership of a project – essentially, the project executive, sponsor, senior user and supplier who comprise the project board – operate effectively?

Their roles are admittedly demanding, combining responsibility for business as usual operations with operational improvement and developing new products/services.

To understand how project board members need to face these challenges, there are a number of key questions to be considered:

What should projects expect from the project board?
What should the project board expect from project managers?
How does the project leadership delegate and still retain control?
What kind of decisions are the project leaders expected to make?
What is the composition of an effective project board?

Creating a controlled environment for a project

By establishing an environment which is clear about how a project will be run – including defined roles and responsibilities – this will help ensure the project leadership does not micromanage the project manager.

Creating this controlled environment means that everyone should understand the project management method or framework adopted by the project or organisation as a whole.

As a result, this allows project managers to make decisions by providing a mechanism for this to happen. It also determines the tolerance levels exercised by the project board – in other words “managing by exception”, one of the principles of the PRINCE2 framework.

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Understanding your method and applying it to project leadership

The project framework or method should be clear about the role of senior management and the project board. Above all, that should incorporate the specific duties and preferred behaviours of senior leadership throughout a project. They include:

Accepting that you, the project executive and board member, are ultimately accountable for project success – supporting, directing and steering the project to completion
Assigning a project manager but not, thereafter, relinquishing responsibility and effectively “disappearing” for the duration of the project
Organizing and endorsing an integrated, cross-functional approach typical of many project team structures
Ensuring there is ongoing user involvement and commitment to the proposed change
Employing the continuous business justification concept (or adding value in Agile approaches) to ensure the business case remains valid and therefore the project is viable, deliverable and desirable. If so, senior management will be responsible for authorising each subsequent stage of the project
Ensuring there aren’t too many projects running in parallel to maximise success
Providing unified direction, communication and being an effective leader for the project manager in a collaborative and facilitative way; this is essential in Agile project scenarios where transparency and collaboration keeps the project on schedule and de-risked
Ensuring project managers and teams are empowered to make decisions – absence of this is a principal reason for project failure
Escalation: to make sure decisions are made at the right level and avoid “decision latency” – another reason for project failure.
Having regular project board meetings scheduled, but also reviewing their necessity when there are no key decisions to make, such as moving to a next stage or altering project scope
Diagnosing and avoiding problems – where are the weak spots in the plans? What are the risk management and mitigation plans?
Taking responsibility for delivering benefits to the organisation.

Ultimately, the project board cannot – and should not – blame the project manager if these things are lacking during a project.

Improving interaction between project boards and project managers

Hosting project board awareness sessions is one, effective way of improving the overall performance of project boards, interaction with project managers and overall project leadership.

In facilitating these sessions, it helps project boards to fully understand the project management method principles adopted by the project/organisation and ensure they too know how to adhere to the principles.

It’s also an opportunity to discuss the ideal behaviour of senior management in the project, such as accountability, offering unified direction, knowing how to cope with delegation, effective communication and allocation of resources.

Equally, it’s useful to project boards to recognize the importance of building relationships with their project managers. For example, knowing what keeps the project manager awake at night helps project leadership identify when and where to take action to ensure success for the project and organisation.

Awareness of leadership skills at project board level is vital

Having a greater awareness among project board members about the factors that contribute to either project success or failure will help them make the connection to the abilities and skills they need for effective project leadership.

And that might also include gathering facts on the ground in their own organisation about which principles and practices are needed to improve their project board performance.

Developing and being able to deploy a wide variety of project leadership skills is essential throughout the lifecycle of a project and, not least, at the points where project boards are required to make significant decisions. This demands serious understanding and preparation as, at the point of decision, they need all the knowledge and evidence to commit the organisation’s budget and resources with confidence.

From the Sponsor’s Desk – Now We Can See Why a Change Management Mindset Really Matters

Written by Drew Davison on November 17, 2020. Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on From the Sponsor’s Desk – Now We Can See Why a Change Management Mindset Really Matters

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic. – Peter Drucker

I expect most of us are viewing the COVID-19 second wave with some trepidation. When and how will this damn pandemic cease its ravaging ways? When will we be able to return to a somewhat normal life? What will it look like, even if it is a different new normal?

We’ve seen countries around the world try a multitude of approaches to contain the spread of the virus with varying degrees of success. Through those efforts we have acquired some vital lessons learned:

Wearing masks, distancing, hand washing with plain old soap and water, testing, tracing, quarantining work.
Lockdowns, when enforced, work in the short term.
Outdoor gatherings are much safer than indoor gatherings.
Older people are more vulnerable than the young.
Asymptomatic people can infect others.
Ongoing illness after infection, the long haulers or long COVID, may cause a multitude of symptoms affecting the respiratory system, the brain, cardiovascular system and heart, the kidneys, the gut, the liver, the skin, smell and taste.
Most event transmissions have taken place in indoor settings where people were confined together for a prolonged period, including nursing homes, prisons, cruise ships, food processing plants and worker housing as well as weddings, funerals, and religious and family gatherings.
Certain activities, like singing, shouting or heavy breathing during exercise can spread more aerosol particles and droplets leading to virus transmission.
The virus can be air borne, leading to increased rates of infection.
The coronavirus can infect animals like dogs, cats and mink and appears to be able, at least with mink, to jump to human subjects.
Controlling travel and sealing borders, both domestic and international, along with temperature checks, enforced quarantines and regular testing and tracing of visitors are essential steps to limit spread.
Finally, united political and health leadership and consistent messaging across national, provincial/state, municipal and community boundaries, with enforced consequences for violators, are the essential force multipliers.

The novel coronavirus is a massive change involving seven plus billion people and every nation on earth. It’s impacting almost every element of our twenty-first century lives. Our efforts to cope with and conquer the coronavirus will alter the shape of our societies going forward.

There is no question that some progress is being made on the treatment front. A recent article in the New York Times reported that 1.5 percent of diagnosed cases in the US have been fatal in recent weeks, compared to 7 percent during the virus’s initial surge in the early spring. As well, also according to the New York Times, there are 52 vaccines in clinical trials in humans, including 11 in large-scale Phase 3 trials. At this point we don’t know how many will prove effective, what the level of protection will be, how long the protection will last and how many treatments will be required for immunity.

In the meantime, we continue to see a resurgence in COVID-19 cases. Why? People let down their guard. Period! They go back to gathering in existing indoor settings, at home, at work, at restaurants and bars, at weddings, funerals, parties and celebrations, shopping malls, at the gym, sporting events, concerts, theatres, etc. They don’t wear or stop wearing masks. The don’t maintain a safe distance. They don’t avoid indoor gatherings. They don’t wash their hands frequently. If they do test positive, they don’t abide by the quarantine regulations and they can’t remember who they have been in contact with over the last week or two to aid in tracking and tracing. And all too often, there are no enforced consequences for rule violators. Some commentators call this COVID fatigue.

Given our experience to date, the coronavirus will probably be around for quite a while in one mutated form or another. Perhaps people infected with COVID-19 will develop some immunity against reinfection for some period of time. Maybe we’ll get one or more vaccines that work against the current version of the virus, maybe they’ll be available starting in 2021 and perhaps most people will get vaccinated.

Unfortunately, those are some very big probabilities, perhapses and maybes. But what are we going to do in the meantime? Rotating lockdowns? Shoot for herd immunity? Ignore the pandemic and leave it up to individuals to act accordingly? Ask the folks in North Dakota how that’s been working out. A recent article by Rhythm Sachdeva in the Toronto Star, A tale of two COVID quarantines: My strict lockdown experience in Thailand versus a relaxed approach in Canada, effectively sums up the challenge: “For me, the contrast in my quarantine experiences is reflective of a fundamental cultural gap. In most Southeast Asian countries, governments set rules and enforce them, whether in crisis or not. In North America, you have to rely on people and yourself to educate and protect yourself. Is willpower enough to complete a quarantine? Several news stories and studies indicate not.”

There’s another option: aggressively manage the changes so we can more safely coexist with the coronavirus. Yes, that involves millions of changes to address activities of daily living in millions of different settings. It’s not about whether we lockdown or not but about what changes need to take place for us to operate and live safely. To figure that out, jurisdictions need to share, the affected need to be involved, creative solutions need to be considered and the most promising funded, tried, tested and, if viable, implemented on a broader scale.

As a practitioner of organizational change management, it is clear to me that fundamental change management practices have been applied by jurisdictions that have successfully controlled the coronavirus spread. That includes China, South Korea, Vietnam, New Zealand, Australia, Senegal, Iceland, Denmark, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand.

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What are those fundamental change management practices?

A committed sponsor with the organizational, logistical and political skills – these must be the international leaders, presidents, prime ministers and heads of state that need to lead the charge.
A business case and rationale for change – this means articulating the cost of the status quo: lockdowns, illness, death, business failures, job losses and the huge cost of the vaccines for the world’s population.
Engaged key stakeholders – this includes governors, premiers, mayors, councilors, community leaders and business leaders at all levels, educators, medical practitioners, academics and all others in a position to influence outcomes and behaviours.
A change roadmap, whether Kotter, Prosci, ACMP or others to show the way.
Cascading sponsorship from the top to the shop floor.
Value driven decision making – that includes rapid implementation of changes to minimize the risk and maximize the positive impact.
A plan to get there – that is comprehensive, communicated and supported by all segments of the community.
Change targets, the people ultimately affected, fully involved and supported on the path to the planned future state – that means you and me, our family, our neighbours and our colleagues getting with and sticking with the programs.
Fully skilled and staffed change teams – including people who really do understand how to manage change.
A communication plan that addresses the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) question – if our leaders are asking people to change how they live in myriad ways, it is incumbent upon them to articulate the rationale for people’s efforts and sacrifices and it is incumbent upon citizens to react with their fears, issues and concerns and negotiate solutions that everyone can buy in to and bring about .

I would add an eleventh item – Think Big, Start Small, Learn Fast. In a Forbes article, Six Words To Remember in 2019: Think Big, Start Small, Learn Fast, Chunka Mui, a strategy and innovation adviser argues that those six little works are the key to successful innovation. And there is no question. Humankind’s efforts to overcome today’s challenges and get to a new coronavirus normal will require successful innovation on a massive scale.

For the countries that have managed successfully to date, most of the above fundamentals are in place for the short-term challenge. For the jurisdictions that are struggling to contain the spread, the above practices and processes have been minimally leveraged or not applied at all. However, few are targeting beyond the immediate threat. That’s the real opportunity!

How Great Leaders Can Deliver

Daryl Conner, a change management leader and author of a number of books on the subject including Managing at the speed of change often stresses that those involved in and affected by a change will get on board with change management efforts when they realize that the price of the status quo is dramatically higher than the cost of the transition. So, what is the cost of the status quo?

Governments worldwide have allocated billions of dollars during the first COVID-19 wave to subsidize wages, rents and living costs and bail out businesses. But, thousands of businesses are struggling or have failed. Millions of jobs have disappeared and many may not be coming back. How much more money will governments have to spend on the vaccination programs for their citizens, to support lockdowns during the second wave? The third wave? The nth wave? How many businesses will go under? How many people will lose their jobs, their homes, their lives?

Why not redirect some of those massive funds and that expertise to make places of business and government, educational institutions, hospitals and doctors offices, long term care facilities, travel and tourism equipment and facilities, dining places and meeting places coronavirus resistant or coronavirus free. Let’s experiment with improvements in layout, physical plant, HVAC and filtration systems and the introduction of new practices and technologies to filter, wash and cleanse the air and surrounding surfaces. Let’s invest in more accessible and more comfortable personal protective equipment.

I don’t have the specific solutions, and that’s the point. The remedies need to come from the people who are intimately involved, to shape ideas into realities at the local level. Leaders need to stop talking at people and start engaging with people. This can not be a one-size-fits-all exercise. It has to be a smart, fleet, value driven, local practice, exercised on a multitude of fronts to work.

Many businesses, organizations, communities and individuals have responded to the coronavirus challenges to address their unique circumstances. More power to them. But it has often been one off solutions, in isolation. Here are a couple of examples that may offer wide ranging applicability and long term value:

Long term care for seniors: According to an article in the Washington Post, Nontraditional nursing homes have almost no coronavirus cases. Why aren’t they more widespread? , “At ‘Green House’ homes, the best-known nontraditional model, residents are one-fifth as likely to get the coronavirus as those who live in typical nursing homes — and one-twentieth as likely to die of the disease it causes.” Approximately 80% of COVID-19 deaths in Canada have been in long term care homes. I expect the numbers are similar in other nations. Aren’t the ‘Green House’ or similar models worth exploring?
Cruise ships: This Reuters article, S. CDC issues framework for resumption of cruise ship operations, summarizes the work the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has done to help the cruise industry get back on the water. Why not similar initiatives for other travel and tourism domains, hotels, auto and equipment rental agencies of all kinds?
Entertainment: Professional sports leagues around the world have tackled the coronavirus challenge with a variety of approaches and varying degrees of success. This article from the World Economic Forum, This is how COVID-19 is affecting the world of sports, summarizes the impacts and challenges. What were the aggregate lessons learned? Could these be applied to other forms of athletic competition to improve the experience for athletes and spectators? Can they benefit amateur and youth sports? Could the learnings be applied to other forms of entertainment?
Dining: This Toronto Star article, Designer domes and pandemic friendly patios: cities and restaurants get creative to extend outdoor dining through the winter, presents a number of initiatives by restauranteurs to recover some of the business lost due to lockdowns and extend and embellish the dining experience. What worked? What didn’t? How can our leaders organize to help local restaurants survive and thrive using learnings from theses innovators?
Indoor gatherings: A CBC article, How businesses and schools are dealing with airborne COVID-19 and preparing for a winter indoors, features a gym and a private Toronto boys school that have taken steps to improve the quality and safety of indoor air. Are these steps effective in reducing the transmission of the virus? Can the changes be applied to other indoor settings, like long term care homes, cruise ships, arenas and stadiums, theatres, shopping malls, restaurants, bars, and office buildings? Let’s find out.

So, who is going to make all this happen? To work, this needs unstinting, cascading leadership both broad and deep, and committed and supported followers across the board. It starts with our leaders. They really do need to start driving the changes to minimize the novel coronavirus’s long term impact on daily living. They need to learn from those nations that have been successful. They need to apply management of change principles and practices. They need to encourage Think Big, Start Small, Learn Fast. They need to involve municipal leaders and health authorities, business owners, educators, academics, customers, neighbours, innovators, manufacturers, competitors and change managers in the process of understanding the current state, identifying and vetting future opportunities and selecting ones to implement. They need lead the charge and to help with the finances – to try the promising approaches and measure their effectiveness. For the successes, communicate and fund far and wide. Figure out how to replicate at the speed of light. Use the army, the unemployed, students, retirees, volunteers, whomever and whatever is necessary. They need to help marshal the incremental resources and talents to draw on – health, government, legal, financial, business, engineering, manufacturing, construction, education, consumer, neighbourhoods and others – to optimize and accelerate solution delivery? And they have to engage fully with their citizens. This really is an opportunity of a lifetime!

But it also starts with us, everyday people who have thoughts and ideas of how to make a better tomorrow, communicating and collaborating with our leaders, helping to shape the future. That’s called embracing a change management mindset. Let’s be smart and rise to this challenge. We have nothing to lose.

4 Ways Project Managers Can Embrace Digital Transformation

Written by Charles Seybold on November 11, 2020. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on 4 Ways Project Managers Can Embrace Digital Transformation

Today more than ever, digital tools, innovations, and workflows play a vital role in an organization’s work methods.

Although new technology pathways can help prevent employee burnout, decrease the frequency of human error, and inform your decisions with data-driven results, the journey to full digital integrations is often not an easy one. As the need for proper implementation has become more apparent, digital transformation (DX), or the process of transferring your out-of-date work processes to digitally proficient ones, has gained more buy-in from businesses of all kinds.

When changing the entire organizational approach to any system, it can be overwhelming to decide what first step to take. This is partly because organizations rarely ever define their desired outcomes before embarking on digital migrations. Some of the top drivers for DX efforts are growth opportunities in new markets, shifting customer behaviors, an increase in competition, and changes in industry standards and compliance; focusing on more than one of these objectives will prove too large of a scale to properly execute DX.

That’s where a spotlight on digital transformation specifically for project management comes into play. Despite its challenges, DX provides a number of benefits for project teams who implement it correctly. The right combination of technologies can help your team deliver projects on time, avoid pitfalls or navigate unforeseeable obstacles as they present themselves, along with plenty of other valuable benefits. From the initial stages of research to the finalized execution, we’ve outlined a step-by-step plan for implementing your digitally driven project methodology.

1. Identify your project pain points

If your organization struggles to complete projects on time, on budget, and within scope, you’re in good company — only 2.5 percent of businesses complete all of their projects successfully, and only 64 percent of projects accomplish the goals they set out to achieve. When it comes to project management, businesses have plenty of room to grow and optimize their project efforts.

Consider your own project mapping: what specific areas show the weakest performance? Are there certain sections that cause the most delays? Are some segments more inclined to errors and inconsistencies than others? These are the components of your project plan that will most benefit from digital transformation.

The first step in any thorough project DX is identifying the project pain points — or areas of your project execution that are most likely to cause backslides in your deliverables. Narrowing your focus to a few steps in your workflow is the best way to set a feasible scope for digital transformation and create clear goals that outline precise outcomes for your efforts. Each goal should correspond with a pain point you want to ameliorate, and its success should be gauged by how much these inefficiencies are improved.

Once you’ve defined both your pain points and your goals, you’re ready to begin the process of migrating to digital.

2. Future-proof with research

Your digital transformation’s success hinges on its ability to remain relevant beyond the present moment. With new advancements and trends making their way onto the market with each passing day, building a digital foundation that can support and acclimate to a rapidly shifting tech market is critical for longevity and continued value. Before you make your first purchase, dedicate some time to research with the concept of future-proofing in mind. A future-proofed digital transformation means that despite any changes to digital strategies in the upcoming months or years, your business will be able to leverage your existing technology stacks to minimize the reverberations of these changes.

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To find the most future-proof solutions available, you should ask the following questions during your research:

Will this tool easily scale to meet the demands of my growing business?
How widely dispersible is this tool?
Can this tool be updated at a company-wide level without difficulty?
Does this tool offer integration capabilities with the other technology our project team uses?

With these questions in mind, you can begin looking for specific types of tools and solutions that help address your project pain points. Some specific tech sectors to consider researching include:

For reducing human error,explore opportunities with artificial intelligence. Defined as a technology that helps software systems learn workflows and respond similarly to humans, AI has been rolled out to project teams to help them automate a number of project tasks, such as sending reminder emails to team members, predicting upcoming roadblocks based on previous data, and replacing human labor completely in repetitive tasks.
For fostering team collaboration, investigate how the right project management softwarecan optimize each contributors execution of deliverables, and coordinate communication among team members. For deliverables, breaking a strategy down into digestible quadrants helps team members determine priorities and create a sense of ownership with assigned tasks. Communicating on these tasks and deliverables within the project management software itself (as opposed to via email, messaging, etc.) gives everyone a central “source of truth” for current status.
For developing more comprehensive insights, look into data management softwareintegrations and how they can further inform your project efforts. Because it is intended to house both your organization’s data and aggregate historical information, project managers can use DMS platforms to make more informed decisions on the direction of both their digital transformation strategies and the greater project management discipline.

3. Update from analog

Another challenge many project teams quickly face in their digital transformation efforts is the process of taking their updated systems and transitioning them to digital alternatives. Years’ worth of physical documentation, legacy computer systems, and technology that doesn’t integrate across every department all stand in the way of you and proper DX.

Despite the amount of time and resources it will take, updating your manual workflows will prove immensely beneficial in the long run. By some estimates, locating a single lost paper document will cost a business $122 on average. Add that to your other paper-based expenses — including printers, ink, filing storage, and the cost of paper itself — and the migration to digital doesn’t seem so outlandish.

Similar to the process of identifying pain points, updating your analog systems begins with the tools you need specifically for your project plan. For projects that require signatures to move from step to step, opting for an electronic signature system can speed up the approval process, as the intended parties can instantly access the documentation that requires authentication. And teams that struggle to track down their pending paper invoices can migrate to a project management solution to better track both billable and non-billable expenses.

4. Communicate company-wide

Few project teams fully grasp the impact that digital transformation can have on a human level. Depending on which study you are looking at, structural changes to your business can take anywhere from 66 to 254 days to fully acclimate. Digital transformation may yield higher productivity levels and engagement from your workforce eventually, but this new technology may also come with a learning curve that can be challenging for some of your colleagues to overcome.

The best antidote to an extended adjustment to changes caused by DX is proactive communication between your project teams and the rest of the organization. This requires open paths of dialogue before, during, and after a DX change has been implemented. Your team members have a right to know why you are making the change, how this new technology will affect their day-to-day work, and how you anticipate your digital transformation will enhance your existing methods for getting work done.

Communication does not have to stop there, however. For particularly complex migrations, consider hosting overview presentations, open to the entire company, that explore some of your new tech investment’s most interesting features, its user interface, as well as its integration capabilities with other software. Great communication also requires listening — actively seeking feedback from the people most affected by your project DX initiatives, both positive and negative. Gathering a sense of your organization’s perception around this new technology is vital to continue improving the project digitization process and discovering new opportunities to test the digital transformation waters.