Tag: Change Management

From the Sponsor’s Desk – 10 Project Manager Resume Best Practices

Written by Drew Davison on August 2, 2017. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on From the Sponsor’s Desk – 10 Project Manager Resume Best Practices

Project managers live a life of change, from project to project, from stakeholder to stakeholder, from team to team, from technology to technology.

That means periodic searches for new opportunities to stay employed, leverage your talents and build your skills and capabilities. It doesn’t matter whether you’re going from company to company as a contractor or getting your assignments within a company or organization. Personal contacts and a solid professional reputation are essential in the search process. But the bedrock is the resume. Having a comprehensive, robust portfolio and a targeted resume to secure that next ideal assignment can be the game changer.

I have a colleague who has been a highly successful contract project manager for over two decades. His projects are always successful. Always. They’re not always on budget and schedule. They don’t always deliver the originally planned functionality. But his key stakeholders love him. His biggest challenge is leaving. They just don’t want him to go even though he charges a sizeable premium for his services. He is also amazingly successful at securing the kinds of assignments that will build his skills and capabilities going forward. In addition to the usual employment history and education, here are the ten project manager resume best practices he uses to differentiate himself from the competition.

1. Match the opportunity

The resume should always be targeted at the opportunity. Do your research. If you know someone in the organization you’re seeking to join, have a chat. Find out about the mission, vision, culture and core competencies. Learn about recent successes and failures, market performance, competitors, internal practices, processes and technologies. Get any information you can about the key stakeholders, their careers and aspirations. Always keep the hiring manager’s needs in mind. Shape your resume to that information base to show off a hiring manager’s dream candidate – you. Customizing shows you care enough to learn about the organization and helps the decision makers arrive at the right hiring decision.

2. Focus on your successes

The whole purpose of your resume is to get an interview and the job offer so you can decide if you want to take on the challenge they’re offering. Don’t include problem or failed projects, even if you think they were someone else’s fault. Include your best work and demonstrate how that can help your prospective future employer.

3. Cultivate Brevity

My colleague uses a two page rule of thumb but has gone to five pages on occasion because the situations dictated a fuller response. The key is to keep the material absolutely relevant, legible and succinct. Use charts, graphs, pictograms and other graphics as appropriate to make your point and attract the reader’s attention. Remember that old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”? It can be especially true in your resume.

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4. Demonstrate Currency

Even though the prospective assignment may only require knowledge of and experience with conventional practices and technologies, include your exposure to new and emerging developments. The hiring manager might see these capabilities as an opportunity for the organization which can strengthen your case.

5. Lessons learned

For each assignment you cover in your resume, include lessons learned and applied along the way. Show how they contributed to a successful outcome. Lessons learned demonstrate your commitment to finding better ways and your ability to collaborate and deliver change. Don’t cover post project reviews or audit unless they were emphatically positive.

6. Be a professional

It’s one thing to do the work. It’s another matter to demonstrate that you take professionalism seriously. Include your certifications, like PMP, CAPM, CSM, Prince2, GOAM/APM, etc. Also include any related certifications, including change management, Lean/Six Sigma, ITIL, quality management, etc. Certifications alone won’t get you the job but, more and more, they are a necessary pre-requisite.

Also include memberships in project management and related organizations like PMI, IPMA, ACMP and CMI and your level of involvement – member, contributor, board member, etc. Finally, cover any related publishing activity, including books published, blog posts, podcasts, articles, speaking engagements, any commentaries you have contributed and any industry accolades you have received in the recent past.

7. Recognize your networks – stakeholders, teams, clients

Project management is all about leadership, with your clients, stakeholders and team members. Resumes that feature the “I” word will be quickly discarded. Taking credit for the work and success of others will usually earn your resume a speedy reject. Use your successes with the diverse set of players involved in projects to demonstrate your leadership agility and capability.

8. Be a storyteller

Bullet points are nice and succinct but not very compelling. Sometimes a short story can gain a reader’s attention where a bulleted list will fail. An article, How to Tell a Great Story by Carolyn O’Hara in the Harvard Business Review quotes Nick Morgan, author of Power Cues and president and founder of Public Words, a communications consulting firm: “Facts and figures and all the rational things that we think are important in the business world actually don’t stick in our minds at all”. The article goes on to suggest that stories create “sticky” memories by attaching emotions to things that happen. So create some sticky memories in the minds of hiring managers by telling a few compelling stories.

9. Seek feedback

No project manager is an island. PM’s work with all sorts of people within and outside an organization. Take advantage of that. Get feedback from stakeholders, team mates, clients, peers, even your current boss, depending on the circumstances and relationship of course. You’ll be amazed at the feedback you get. It’s almost like a 360 degree performance appraisal, intimidating at first but immensely illuminating in the longer term. Reflect that feedback in your resume. It will be a much better product as a result.

10. Show your personal brand

This is your resume. Structure the content, format and media to reinforce who you are and what you offer. It doesn’t have to be on letter size or A4 paper. It doesn’t have to be on paper at all or only minimally. A web site, podcast, blog posts, Youtube video? How about a resume in Twitter tweets? Experiment. Get feedback. Revise and try again. Check out Elon Musk’s resume to get an idea of the possible.

There you have it – my colleague’s 10 project manager resume best practices. Try them out and let us know how they worked for you. If you have your own resume best practices, please leave a comment below so others can benefit. And remember, review Project Pre-Check’s three building blocks covering the key stakeholder group, the decision management process and Decision Framework best practices to ensure you cover everything of significance in your new, compelling resume.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has willingly shared their experiences for presentation in this blog. Everyone benefits. First time contributors get a copy of one of my books. Readers get insights they can apply to their own unique circumstances. So, if you have a project experience, a favorite best practice, or an interesting insight that can make a PM’s life easier, send me the details and we’ll chat. I’ll write it up and, when you’re happy with the results, Project Times will post it so others can learn from your insights. Thanks

OUTSIDE THE BOX Forum: Project Managers are Morphing into Change Managers

Written by Robert Wysocki on July 24, 2017. Posted in Articles. 5 Comments on OUTSIDE THE BOX Forum: Project Managers are Morphing into Change Managers

As complex projects become more the norm than the exception scope changes become more frequent.

In fact, these projects expect change requests and cannot succeed without it. It is just part of the learning and discovery process and an essential ingredient of successful complex projects. Maybe project managers have always been change managers but we didn’t recognize them as such. Or perhaps this morphing may be more the result of our taking a more sophisticated approach to managing complex projects. The recognition of complex projects as the real project ushers in an approach tailored to the nuances presented by projects whose goal and or solutions cannot be completely known at the outset but can only be discovered through iteration.

So as a newly recognized change manager, what should the project manager have as tools and how should they be used.

The Role of the Project Manager as a Change Manager

The Change Manager’s objective is to take the organization from where it is to where it wants to be. Sounds simple, but is it? One of the biggest obstacles is to establish and sustain meaningful client involvement. Their representatives on the project team is the best thing the project manager must an expert. But that expertise will be lost if there isn’t meaningful participation. The tools described below are critical to establishing that meaningful involvement.

“To act as an agent of change, managers must have good communication and interpersonal skills so that they can explain the benefits and implications of change”, says Ian Linton of Chron. Strong communication and interpersonal skills of the project manager build a stronger relationship with the client that creates stronger meaningful participation.

William Sheats agrees, “Effective communication throughout the lifecycle of the change initiative is required to enable and achieve a successful organizational change. Communication is the foundation for transferring the knowledge and creating the understanding associated with the specifics of the change.”

There are two tools that may be new to the Project Manager acting as a Change Manager.

1. Bundled Change Management Process

Every complex project should expect frequent change requests. These are the fuel of a successful project. Without these changes, the project is likely to fail. They are the result of the learning and discovery that drive each iteration. With that in mind the project manager and the team must do everything they can to facilitate change requests. That is the good news. The bad news is that someone on the project team must receive these changes, analyze them, decide if and how to implement them and finally adjust the schedule to accommodate them. The human resource requirements can be substantial. These are resources that are no longer available to do project work.

The traditional one at a time process is very inefficient. With that in mind the project manager and the project team must do everything they can to make the change request process simple and efficient.

Jane Suchan PMP from Microsoft agrees with simplicity in the change process, “One challenge for project managers is balancing the need to control project change while avoiding undue bureaucracy. The question is: Where is the tipping point? Because every project is unique, the point at which change control stops adding value and turns into red tape will vary from project to project.”

Simplicity in change management process points to a bundled change management process. Bundling means that the analysis and decisions are made at specific times during the project. That points to the time between iterations when review of the just completed iteration and planning for the next iteration is done.

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The process we have designed is called the Bundled Change Management Process (Figure 1). It is a process that works particularly well in complex project situations where change is frequent.

Figure 1: Bundled Change Management Process

The lifeblood of a successful complex project is change. The purpose of each iteration is to learn and discover the specifics of the goal and/or solution. Without change an incomplete solution will never evolve to an acceptable complete solution. The first principle to learn is that every change is a significant change.

What that means is that the change process must be open, simple, lean and as painless as possible to the client for that is where the bulk of the changes will originate.

Note that when the Change Request is received that it is review and if accepted without change is added to the Scope Bank. Only when the stage is complete will the change request be analyzed and further action taken. If the change is approved it could be available for work as early as the next stage.

Change requests can arise at any time and can come from any one of several sources. Furthermore, the request can be well thought out or just a statement like: What would it be like if we could …? Both extremes must be accommodated by the request form that formally enters the idea into the project. The request process begins with a statement from the individual making the request. It is designed to allow the requestor to provide as much detail as is available. The last thing would be to have a requirement that creates an obstacle to suggesting a change. Rather, you would rather have a request form that encourages ideas.

2. Management Reserve

For high change projects, a contingency time budget is a good idea. It works just like a contingency budget of money. If you need it, you spend it.

“Contingency reserve need not refer exclusively to monetary terms. It can also refer to a specific quantity of time in man hours that must be allocated above and beyond the previously determined quantity of hours required to assure that any overtime or other unexpected hours of work required can be properly compensated for”, says Project Management Knowledge.

When you spend from the Management Reserve, it moves the project completion date out by the amount of time expended. The first step is to get the sponsor and executive management to buy into the idea and agree to support it and follow its dictates. Typical reserves are from 5-15% of the total estimated duration of all the tasks in the project. In complex projects, much of that duration is not known up front. In fact, many of the tasks may not even be known. Even if tasks are not known and hence schedules not known the project usually has a time and cost budget. The time budget is enough to set up the Management

Reserve budget. More uncertainty results in the higher allocations and higher variance of the estimates however.

The most difficult part of Management Reserve is what do you do when the contingency time budget runs out and another change request arises? The process is simple to describe but difficult to implement. Suppose the new change request requires X hours to implement. The sponsor must find some future requirement in the schedule not yet integrated that can be canceled or reduced and replaced with the new change.

Getting the sponsor and senior management buy-in is the most challenging part of implementing Management Reserve.

5 Reasons You Don’t Want to Manage the New Project

Written by Brad Egeland on July 18, 2017. Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on 5 Reasons You Don’t Want to Manage the New Project

Manage or not to manage. Now that’s a heck of a question. A new project just came your way.

Sometimes you have a choice, and sometimes you don’t. Probably most of the time you don’t. If you do have any say in being assigned a project it is most likely that you are an independent consultant, your PMO director likes you, or you have seniority. You may want to consider some of these reasons for avoiding that next project that gets handed to you on a silver platter. Not all projects are created equal, and certainly, some projects are to be avoided if you don’t want your next year filled with headaches with one of those ugly “failed project” tags hanging on one of your engagement masterpieces.Manage or not to manage. Now that’s a heck of a question. A new project just came your way. Sometimes you have a choice, and sometimes you don’t. Probably most of the time you don’t. If you do have any say in being assigned a project it is most likely that you are an independent consultant, your PMO director likes you, or you have seniority. You may want to consider some of these reasons for avoiding that next project that gets handed to you on a silver platter. Not all projects are created equal, and certainly, some projects are to be avoided if you don’t want your next year filled with headaches with one of those ugly “failed project” tags hanging on one of your engagement masterpieces.

I present my list five reasons based on my personal experiences. I included my observations of Project Manager colleagues and also share their experiences and thoughts. As you read through the list of five reasons, please consider your own experiences for sharing and discussions.

1. Only Partial Upfront Funding in Place.

Discovering your project is not fully funded can leave you in an interesting situation. Partial funding can be a tough pill to swallow when starting a project. As a Project Manager, you want to be in it for the long haul. Seeing a project from beginning to end is a rewarding thing. You have to consider that the client may be telling you that they want you to run the project, but they are looking only to have you do the upfront planning portion. Later the client is expecting to take the project’s actual design and development of the solution back in-house.

That can create a massive hole in your planned work for the next year or more. I don’t know how you find this out in advance of taking the project. It has happened to me once. It usually comes to light when you try to bill for a certain expected piece of labor, effort, or deliverable early on only to have the client reject it and began having this type of discussion with you. If there is a way for you to find out and avoid this type of a project from the outset, my advice is to do so.

Set the expectations with the client by asking questions upfront on the project approach or timelines. Ask if you will be working on all the project’s phases or just some of them. Ask if the funding will cover any potential increases in work

2. No Customer Side Project Team

When there is no customer side of the project team, that can be a red flag of lack of commitment on the customer’s part. You need involvement from the project client to get information, requirements clarification, decisions made, tasks completed, and meetings attended. If all you have is the sponsor and no backup representation, then it likely that their involvement in the project will at times be sporadic as they are busy with other tasks. An unavailable project client can create problems for you – difficult problems that hard to overcome. Their participation is critical. This individual representation can be a critical red flag indicating a successful project will be difficult.

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3. New Territory for Your Organization

New territory isn’t a bad thing. For the individual Project Manager, it can be a great way to add to your resume, but it can be a bit concerning when it is completely new territory for your entire organization. New territory can mean it’s just you and your team without any support when you run into project roadblocks.

A situation like this happened to me on a project servicing a major airline. An industry that my organization had never dabbled in. It involved some serious considerations for the software we were configuring for the implementation of the solution. These were considerations that the organization had never encountered. Every industry comes with their regulations, measures, considerations, and processes. It was all new to my team and the organization. There were no experts to help us choose the right path or overcome any obstacles.

We were pioneers blazing a new path. It’s not as fun as it sounds when you are up against nearly impossible deadlines, cost overrun concerns, and frequent change orders because this was never a solution implemented within this industry.

4. Unfamiliar Technology

I’m not saying exploring new technology and gaining new experiences for your resume is a bad thing. However, if it is something that you fear is too far out of reach for your organization additional consideration is advised. Lack of knowledgeable resources to develop and support this type of new technology throughout the project will certainly impact the project’s ability to build the solution. Unfamiliar technology should be a concern for any Project Manager before taking on a new project.

5. Risk and Cyber Security Are a Major Concern Beyond What You Or Your Organization Are Comfortable With

Everything can be hacked. If your new project involves some data risks or cyber security risks that you as the project manager have experience with it may be a project you want to avoid. I’m not saying you should run from a challenge and looking at project challenges as “dares” to get better, acquire new skills and experience as a Project Manager.

Security and risks are real. They can come with liability that can leave you the Project Manager in a dangerous spot should everything go south. I would be less concerned as a full-time employee of the organization but as an independent consultant (as I am right now) it can become a bit more concerning as any legal action is directed only toward the Consultant Project Manager.

Summary / Call for Input

I am sure there are several other red flags we can include. I can already think of a few more. These top 5 are a good gauge of some reasons to reject a project that comes up. I am of course making the assumption you have that luxury of passing on a project engagement.

Readers – what are your thoughts? Do you agree with this list? Do you have your own? Please share your thoughts and discuss.

The Evolution of Six Sigma: Continuous Improvement Using Network Analysis

Written by Erich Kreidler on June 21, 2017. Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on The Evolution of Six Sigma: Continuous Improvement Using Network Analysis

Traditional process improvement techniques like Six Sigma, Lean and Kaizen have enabled the successful transformation of innumerable companies over the last few decades.

Even though they are based on a scientific approach to improve processes and increase the quality of the output, their relevance has decreased considerably. In fact, as effective as they were in the past, they are critically flawed for delivering the same impactful change moving forward without additional, new solutions.

The Need for Faster and More Integrated

Our world has changed radically since the beginning of the century. All elements of the modern enterprise are highly dynamic, complex and require high speed. Companies nowadays rely on elaborate processes, driven by global networks that provide resources, skills, and inputs to satisfy the demand of audiences dispersed around the globe. Take for instance, bringing to market a smartphone. For a smartphone to meet minimum consumer standards, the solution must have a tight integration between its operating system, hardware, software, user communities, etc. Each of these components is created by distributed networks, who must find a way to integrate seamlessly in the eyes of the customer. It is no longer feasible to consider each area independently and expect a major improvement in overall performance if changed.

In contrast, conventional process improvement techniques typically work well when things are relatively stable and are localized (say a manufacturing plant), but react very slowly in more dynamic environments (say integrating Uber Eats’ supply chain). Each technique – control charts, process mappings, etc. – was designed to analyze a specific, localized area and maximize its efficiency. So, if you have a product that interfaces with the market, the implementation of concurrent, independent process improvements may not converge.

An Emerging Science: What is Network-Based Process Analytics?

Network analytics arose from the perspective that organizations work around issues, tasks, and activities – not processes or organizational charts. Thus, the basic building blocks of an organization’s effectiveness are individual, day-to-day interactions between people. These interactions happen within networks of decision and influence, large and small, operating within teams, between departments, and across the entire company, even across partner companies. These networks tend to take on a life of their own – and often they have little to do with the formal organizational structure and, in many cases even the documented processes.

An easy way to understand network analysis is to realize that organizations work just like the human brain. If neurons do not connect effectively, then your brain will spend more effort to perform a given task. Similarly, if people (the organization’s neurons) are not integrated properly, the result is inefficient processes and lower than optimal organizational performance.

A solid Network Analysis methodology provides a structured approach for achieving performance uplift. It should give management visibility to understand fundamental elements in an organization to make meaningful changes:

Communication networks: Examines the flow of information across the organization in the processes under study
Influence networks: How individuals influence decisions and activities within the organization. It provides visibility of the influence level of each stakeholder in the process
Decision networks: Studies the networks that drive core decisions. This proves the misconception that it is the CEO or the Big Boss have the final word in day to day decisions

Rethinking Process Engineering

Process improvement methodologies identify waste (or non-value add) and value add activities. The idea is to stop activities that are a waste and redeploy those resources toward activities that produce value. Thus, to be effective, tools must quickly identify, diagnose, design and synthesize processes in situations with a high order of complexity.

The traditional way to look at a company is through the lens of the organizational chart, with its hierarchies, “dotted lines” and other forms of structure but is this the way people perform their work?

According to Dr. Michael Mann, “An organization that is thought to operate in accordance with its formal org chart – DOESN’T.” This is because enterprises are dynamic and organize around tasks, not charts. Also, when performing tasks people will gravitate toward the path of least resistance, not what is most efficient and productive for the company. Therefore, if we are going to make enterprise-wide improvements, we must recognize that processes, tasks, and people are highly dynamic.

Network Analytics are Organizational MRIs

Network analytics is the equivalent of taking an MRI inside the organization: you need accurate instruments and the ability to interpret their results. Let’s explore a few scenarios to understand how processes can be improved drastically through the aid of such tools. The processes below are examples captured using Argonaut™, a leading organizational network analytics tool. In these examples, the 3D diagrams, lines show actual interactions between people in an organization, their frequency (thickness) and the perceived importance associated with such interactions (color). You will also notice that in several instances, a line leaves a node with a specific thickness and a color, but connects to a different node in a different thickness or color. This is a documented disagreement between stakeholders and therefore a sign of process pathology.

All Interactions	Enterprise processes can be very complex. Interactions between consequential stakeholders vary in frequency, importance and agreement levels. There is organizational noise; deeper analysis is required to understand the opportunities for improvement.
High-Frequency, High-Importance – Disagreed	High Frequency, High Importance disagreements display areas that require attention. High Frequency and Importance typically means that at least one party is spending significant effort to push a task forward. When this is not reciprocated, it yields waste.
High-Frequency, High-Importance – Agreed	High Frequency, High Importance agreements are the tasks that everybody agrees makes the organization move forward. In a restructuring, these are the key areas that must remain undisturbed.
High-Frequency Low-Importance – Agreed	Agreed Low Important interactions are in brief, misallocated efforts. Everybody agrees that such tasks do not add significant value, but are done following an empty process ritual. Stop doing them, especially the ones with High Frequency.
Emergence View™: Identifying influencers and decisions makers	In a network Emergence View, what “emerges” at higher levels are the real decision makers and their degree of influence, regardless of organizational rank. These are the people who get the job done (or not!) as nominated by their peers.

As-Is, Should-Be, As-Of

The application of network analysis should not be a one-time shot. An “As-Is” study performed at the beginning and allows management to understand the current state and therefore gain an order of magnitude estimate for required changes. This should be complemented with a “Should-be” assessment by stakeholders based on their unique perspective in the organization. The target state is a negotiated agreement that takes the As-Is and the Should-Be.

“As-of” analyses provide an objective state of the processes under study as of a given date and allows you to objectively measure progress. As-of’s are performed throughout the life of change process to ensure that the organization is making progress as planned. In addition to being a very effective tool to monitor the pace of change, it allows management to correlate improvements in company processes with the desired outcomes.

Key Benefits of Using Network Analysis in Process Improvement

In a fast-changing business environment, we need to look for new tools to make process improvement effective. Network analysis is becoming a key component of organizational process management in the 21st century as it blends processes, people, and their interrelations. Understanding and addressing such complexities can improve speed to market, innovation and turn monolithic processes into major organizational weapons. As important, it helps to ensure that any network analysis goes beyond the superficial “social network” and connects the true interactions that result in actions taken by company personnel and other decisions regarding resource allocation.

Process improvements will result in the following three areas:

Alignment to the Business. Are processes typically aligned to where the largest payoffs would be? The reality is that most process improvements methods do not even think about creating a repeatable link to creating business value. Network analysis can provide management with continuous visibility to identify where the largest payoffs will be – and monitor their progress. As shown above, management can perform an “MRI” of consequential organizational processes and visually identify the areas that need the most attention. As important, a broader study would also point out if the support systems are performing their function aligned to the key business drivers.
Recognize invisible connections with external processes. Enterprise processes are highly interactive and connected. They are dynamic and have interdependent interfaces. This is, if you make changes to a process, it will have a cascading effect on other processes, typically causing disruptions. Network analysis allows you to look at the system holistically: identify the process you are planning to improve, and it will tell you what the areas in the company that you need change at the same time are. You will get this information FAST without weeks of endless classic process mapping and stakeholder interviews.
Anticipate outcome before all changes are implemented. Network analysis gives you a simple tool to monitor the process of change, and therefore you can make near-time interventions. By identifying the links that need to be created, changed or decommissioned, you can create a specific change plan and monitor how each change affects the outcome. This is a fundamental departure from classic process improvement initiatives. By employing techniques such as As-is, Should-be, and As-of, you monitor the process change, not the end state of change, thereby giving management ample opportunities to make tactical course corrections as needed.

About the Authors

Dr. Mann is the Chairman of Creso Global, an international consulting practice applying the latest insights from neuroscience, behavioral economics, and best-practice project management. He has served as an advisor to corporations and government agencies around the globe, including the United Nations; as the CEO of a diversified high technology company with industrial, commercial, service, and aerospace business units; as the founder of successful engineering, manufacturing, and service arms; as an outside director of both public and closely held high technology and health services companies; as a member of the Board of Examiners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award; and on the Army Science Board, where he chaired the Directed Energy and Ballistic Missile Defense panels. Email: [email protected]

Erich Kreidler, Managing Partner of KRE Consulting, has more than two decades of organizational consulting, management, and leadership experience. Erich, who heads KRE’s Project Management and Operations practice, is recognized for his expertise and experience in integrating complex organizations to generate optimal results; helping organizations scale for rapid growth; and the development of responsible and responsive crisis management processes. Kreidler lectures at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering at the graduate level and has also served as a panelist, moderator and keynote speaker for several industry conferences and summits. Erich is also a founding member and president-emeritus of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, Orange County, California Chapter. Email: [email protected]

From the Sponsor’s Desk – 5 Ways to Sustain a Change

Written by Drew Davison on June 7, 2017. Posted in Articles. 7 Comments on From the Sponsor’s Desk – 5 Ways to Sustain a Change

We work our butts off to implement a successful project. We ensure key stakeholders are actively involved. We keep the needs of our customers front and center.

We apply best practices, as appropriate, to deliver better, faster and more cost-effectively. We collaborate with our teammates and others within and outside our organization on whose skills we rely. We communicate widely. Finally, we celebrate those successful implementations to glowing accolades. In the end, we move on to our next assignment with another experience notch on our belts and pride for a job well done. Then six months or a year later, we hear that pride and joy we helped deliver has come unraveled. Something or, more likely someone, has decided, for whatever reason, that our project was not what the organization needed after all. Things have reverted to the old status quo. Here are five ways to sustain a change so that the new way becomes the best way, well loved by all those affected.

This story is a great example of an unraveling, how a well-conceived and well-executed project delivered great short term results that were undone within eighteen months. It turns out the staff affected by the change complied with the new order of things, but they did not internalize the new behaviors. As soon as an opportunity presented itself to go back to the old way, they took it. The organization that had reaped the benefits of the change gave them all back.

Thanks to Y.T. for the details on this story.

The Situation

This medium sized financial services organization with its head office and forty-seven local offices covering clients in the southeast region was experiencing increased competition on all fronts – mortgages, insurance, banking services and investment offerings. Senior management had seen the challenges escalating over the years and had attempted some programs to improve their competitive position, but nothing changed the results significantly. They decided on a different strategy this time – to leverage the free time of the local office staff to sell the company’s products and services.

The Goal

The local office sales program had three key objectives:

Develop and introduce a local office sales program that would help the company combat the efforts of the competition by engaging with their clients and selling the company’s products.
Increase the number of client meetings in the local offices by 40%.
Develop product campaigns to offer through the local office channel.
Achieve a 20% increase in campaign revenues from the new channel within 12 months.

The Project

The key sponsor for the change, the Vice President of Sales, was highly visible, accessible and consistent in his support for the change. He pulled together the key stakeholders needed to introduce the change and see the program through to completion. That included the corporate sales office which supported both strategic concept development and program delivery, the six region executives, areas that supported sales reporting and analytics and product partners from banking, insurance, mortgages, and investments.

The sponsor also brought in a highly experienced and much-praised contract project manager, Isabel, to lead the development and delivery of the program. Isabel had a background in change management and ten years of experience delivering sales and marketing programs. Over the years she had developed an approach that worked. It included:

Up front target assessments to understand the real culture and core values she had to deal with. She included the key stakeholders as well as the change recipients in her appraisal.
A rapid Conceive->Deliver->Assess->Refine cycle to hit the ground running, gain experience and improve the program as it was rollout out.
Staged delivery an office or group of offices at a time to boost the focus and allow local tailoring. Office cultures and capabilities could differ materially. It was important to the success of each stage of the rollout that those local differences were acknowledged and reflected in the program.
Checking assumptions. The program would affect over 300 people plus their clients. It was vital that every assumption on which the program was based was identified and its veracity confirmed.

Isabel put together a plan for the local office sales program she believed would deliver maximum impact for the company:

Phase 1 – Preparation

Implementation minus 8 weeks: materials and tools development for local staff sales training and communication plan development
Implementation minus 6 weeks: region selection and confirmation at executive level
Implementation minus 4 weeks: region engagement at the local level and the start of corporate, regional and local communications
Implementation minus 2 weeks: region briefing at local leader level

Phase 2 – Iterative Delivery

Event week: 1-day local development and collaborative preparation, 1-day training, 1-day monitored application, 1 day debrief and next steps planning
Weekly region results measurement
Implementation plus 2 weeks: in region follow-up
Implementation plus 4 weeks: region post-launch assessment
Implementation plus 8 weeks: region final launch assessment and transition to local ownership

Phase 3 – Monitoring and Close

Weekly program results measurement and communication
Post Program Implementation: program follow-up
Post Program Implementation: program post-launch assessment
Post Program Implementation: program final launch assessment and close

Isabel reviewed the plan with the VP Sales and other key stakeholders. She received unanimous approval with a couple of minor adjustments, and then the work began.

The target assessments revealed some interesting findings. The VP Sales, the Sales Executive, and the product partners were very entrepreneurial in their outlook. They had an “act now and asked for forgiveness later” mindset. In contrast, the region executives and the local office staff were more inclined to an order-taker mentality – tell me what to do and I will make it happen. Isabel and her team used that information to tailor their program development efforts. They demanded more rigor from the sales and product partners to provide greater specificity for the region executives and local staff. The material seemed to work.

The process of identifying and confirming assumptions uncovered some interesting findings as well. The program they developed assumed the local staff would book meetings with their clients using Outlook, which had been in the offices for some years. They discovered that few local staff knew how to use it to schedule appointments. They also assumed that the staff’s primary client contact times would be late morning through early afternoon and mid to late afternoon. They discovered that those times were also the most active for client drop-ins to carry out their banking activities. These and other findings were used to adjust the program design and materials to accommodate the revised assumptions.

Also, another offshoot of the program was used to support a new local office manager. The original structure was designed primarily to support an existing manager creating a “call to action” or increase in client contact and sales activity. With a new office manager, the tone was adjusted to frame the activity as a “fresh start.” While the basic framework was maintained, the new manager program was given a new title, and the messaging and tone were adjusted to reflect the change in emphasis.

The project largely progressed as planned. Isabel and her team were in frequent contact with the key stakeholders to gauge their levels of comfort and adjust content and plans accordingly. Reception at the local offices was reserved, as expected. The VP Sales, the local region executive and one or more of the product partners were involved in each local office rollout. That certainly helped impress on everyone involved the importance of the program. It was a huge commitment of management time. Moreover, it worked.

The Results

All forty-seven offices were introduced to the new local office sales program over a period of twelve weeks. As planned, local tailoring was done to reflect the market served by each office and the skills and capabilities of the local staff. There was some turnover, mostly in line with what was anticipated. In spite of the recognition programs and the financial incentives offered to all participating staff, some found the increased focus on “sales” and securing “customer meetings” not to their liking. Results also reflected the passion and leadership of the local office managers. Offices with gung-ho managers who worked to create a collaborative team atmosphere, celebrating successes and helping each staff member according to their need were significantly more successful. Remedial help and guidance was provided to the offices that were not performing to plan.

The program was deemed complete after six months, and Isabel departed with accolades for a job well done. At the end of twelve months on the new program, program revenues were up over 30%, well beyond the targeted 20%. The increase in client meetings could not be tracked because there were no baselines to compare.

After eighteen months, the VP of Sales, the program’s original sponsor, departed the company for greener pastures. The new VP of Sales conducted a tour of the local offices shortly after arrival. On one of the visits, he was asked why local staff had to, as the questioner phrased it, “spend all our time selling over the phone and neglecting the clients who come into the branch for assistance?” The new VP of Sales, somewhat startled by the question, asked for more details. On his return to head office, he questioned his staff. A week after that question was asked, he canceled the program, instructing local office managers to discontinue the sales calls. Within six months of that fateful decision, program revenue fell back to pre-program levels. It is unfortunate there was no orientation program for that new VP, to help him understand the culture and practices that were being built by the local sales program.

How a Great Leader Succeeded and the Company Lost

The initiating sponsor, his stakeholder group along with Isabel and her team did some very smart things to achieve the results they did and one thing they missed that was the program’s undoing:

The active involvement of the VP of Sales and the other key stakeholders in all local office rollouts sent a very clear message about the importance of the program.
Isabel’s four-point personal practice was an insightful, professional touch – up front assessments, the rapid development cycle, staged delivery and the continuous assumptions check set the stage for success. The endorsement of the practices by the key stakeholders showed thoughtful leadership.
Including local leaders and staff in the review and customization of the program delivered greater local buy-in and better results.
The program used a few simple metrics to gauge progress and communicated widely about the rollout and the performance of the program.
Unfortunately, the staff did not internalize the new customer service culture. I did a post a while ago called Cultivating Culture, about an organization that was facing rapid growth and wanted to preserve their “whatever it takes” culture. They succeeded wonderfully by helping staff view everything from the client’s perspective. The attitude was internalized by every employee. It was who they were. That message was reinforced at every turn. It is unfortunate that this program’s sponsors did not see the need for and Isabel and her team were not given the opportunity to take that extra step. They delivered compliance, but they did not achieve internalization.

So, be a Great Leader. Put these points on your checklist of things to consider on your next project so you too can achieve great, sustainable results. Remember, use Project Pre-Check’s three building blocks covering the key stakeholder group (including the key stakeholder roles), the decision management process and Decision Framework best practices right up front, so you do not overlook these key success factors.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has willingly shared their experiences for presentation in this blog. Everyone benefits. First-time contributors get a copy of one of my books. Readers get insights they can apply to their unique circumstances. So, if you have a project experience, good, bad and everything in between, send me the details, and we will chat. I will write it up and, when you are happy with the results, Project Times will post it so others can learn from your insights.