Businesses today appear to be under almost continuous change. Markets, customers, products, processes, technologies, and organizations now all seem to be shifting on a global basis 24/7. To complete organizations now must embrace change management as a key competency, and understand the factors critical to its success.
There are many factors to consider for successful change. Consider the following developmental factors: what should the change entail, what and who will be impacted by the change, how fast should the change occur, what are the costs of change, how the success of the change will be measured, etc. Developmental factors are all important for success. But none is more critical than personal change factors.
Critical to the success of any change project is that people make the required changes. People involved in projects tend to forget that for the change around them to be successful they must change as well. People managing projects tend to overlook personal change factors and focus on those that are more tangible.
Even though personal change factors typically have higher risks and impacts, have you ever seen a milestone for the date a manager no longer prefers a certain process that has worked for her over the last 10 years, or for the date a staff member agrees that a new assignment is in his best interest?
It may not be practical to add personal change milestones to a project chart. But by managing them in some way, (like other milestones with resource assignments, timing, dependencies, etc.) the risks associated with change management are greatly reduced.
This article is precisely the issue I'm most struggling with at this very moment; I couldn't agree more that the personal change, which is absolutely required, is the most difficult to initiate without some painful external event forcing it upon me.
Posted by: Jeremy Wilson | August 31, 2005 at 01:03 PM