The Need for Strategic Change Management

Change management is well recognised by most organisations as something that they need to do. A recent survey by audit firm KPMG outlines the challenges facing businesses and how some are able to step up whilst others are still struggling to do so, a fact that is slowing business agility and reducing the effectiveness of business change.

Some of the statistics from the KPMG survey may surprise you:

Only 25% of PMOs are Effective at Supporting Change

A good PMO department is able to magnify the capabilities and other resources within the change function, being effective at this is really the minimum requirement, so it may surprise some people that this is the case. I believe that the reason for this is that PMO departments typically have 2 functions, firstly to support the organisation’s change agenda and secondly to ensure standards and governance are maintained.

I explore the need to maintain a good balance between these functions in my book The CIO Navigator. The ideal will vary between organisations, but a more central position is far more balanced, adaptable and supportive of the change process in a sustainable way.

If you need help in rebalancing your PMO then please don’t hesitate to contact Fifth Step.

Only 56% of Organisations Use a PMO

As discussed earlier the role of a PMO is to support the change function and to ensure that governance is maintained. An organisation that doesn't use a PMO is likely to be pushing more of these duties to their Project Managers, which is generally not considered a good idea> Not only are those people typically busy running the projects, but they are also not the best people to maintain standards and governance.

The outcome of this statistic is that the change function within those organisations without a PMO is likely to be slower, costlier, and more prone to project gridlock.

Only 21% of Projects are Consistently Delivering on their Benefits

I was surprised at how low this number is - certainly lower than we see in customers who are asking Fifth Step to improve their benefits realisation.

The usual reasons for poor benefits realisation are:
• Poorly documented or constructed business case
• Poor project governance
• Poorly implemented change
• Projects delivering change too late

Change is an expensive undertaking for any organisation: it is therefore imperative that it delivers the planned benefits.

Only 31% of Projects Deliver on Time

Project deadlines should not be regarded as lines in the sand. They should be considered what they generally are: deadlines by which the business needs to be able to do something differently that may be related to regulatory change, or in reaction to pure business need. No matter what the requirement, the change team needs to be strong enough, resilient enough and resourceful enough to ensure that projects are on time.

Only 29% of Projects Deliver to Budget

There are many reasons why projects don’t deliver to budget, some of the key ones are:

• Poor planning meaning that the most effective and efficient route to the project objective is not taken
• Poor project management leading to issues not be identified or managed soon enough
• Poorly defined requirements, this leads to both false assumptions and/or the need to update the requirements in the course of the project
• Poor project financial management
• Poor project governance

It goes without saying that projects need to set the financial expectations of project stakeholders appropriately and to be able to deliver on those expectations, with the full collaboration of all members of the project team.

The number of projects increasing, and the complexity of those projects growing. As organisations deal with machine learning and other technological change, the continual challenge of cyber security and its impact on change, as well as the increasing burden of regulatory change, organisations of all sizes need to understand their change agenda and have a strategic approach to change management before it’s too late.

If you need help with changing your organisation’s ability to change then please speak with Fifth Step. You can find out more about us and our current thinking at www.fifthstep.com or by following us on with either Twitter @FifthStep and on LinkedIn.