Change Management is not fast enough for today’s tech

Change Management alone is struggling to keep up with the pace of cloud services.

The tech world has been changing for many years and at a very fast pace, we all know this, but with the rapid uptake of tech like Microsoft Teams, many larger organisations are finding that they are being presented with two options:

1. Follow a full Change Management programme and introduce an upfront delay

2. Turn it on and clean up after

Change Management is all good stuff (a summary of my professional opinion) but in an age where we have the ability to ‘turn on’ functions, features or apps, for an entire organisation, with no real effort, we need to look at how Change Management fits in to the picture.

One of the main areas that is time consuming and resource intensive is the Sponsor Assessment and Coaching, both important components (assessing the Heads of dept, Line Managers etc) and in a large organisation, this can be hundreds of people. The information that is gathered is very good, but there needs to be a balance between gathering this kind of information and creating a potentially protracted delay in a project starting. We need the new tech to start delivering benefits to the organisation before the next new shiny tech release comes along and we end up with change stack and fatigue.

To keep up with this onslaught on new tech releases, Adoption and Change Management (ACM) needs to be more agile and a blend of services, not just a flat Change Management approach. Organisations should be looking for a mix of the following

1. Change Management

2. Usage data and analysis

3. User specific, targeted and automated training

4. Support mechanisms for Champions and IT Services

5. Technical expertise

This combination enables a faster deployment as the usage data and analysis greatly accelerates the Ability and Reinforcement phases of the Prosci ADKAR model and identification of any Coaching needs. Organisations using this blended ACM approach can deliver at scale, at speed and with confidence that they are still following a structured Change Management programme. Change Management on its own is not enough in today’s tech world.