The Love Between OCM and Project Management
Happy Valentine's Day! Here's my Valentine to all the OCM Leads and Project Managers out there!
Contrary to Simon and Garfunkel's popular song lyrics hoping in vain for an existence without pain, no one is a rock or an island. No one can move mountains alone. And the best relationships are built on a foundation of mutual respect, friendship, and fair fighting. The same is true in terms of organizational change.
Organizational Change Management and Project Management are often perceived or portrayed as competing disciplines. They do both focus on the success of initiatives and sometimes are practiced by different people with different focuses and skillsets. However, there are Project Mangers who are very skilled at OCM and OCM Leads who have, at one point, been Project Managers. Many initiatives are managed by one person or a team that shares responsibility for both practices. Much like all relationships these two practices do not need to compete; they are complementary. For a change initiative to be more successful, we need both.
How is OCM similar to Project Management?
Both share a common goal, the successful transition to a future state with as little resistance as possible. Both are competencies that anyone can learn involving meticulous planning and consistent oversight to guide an initiative toward a goal. Both involve identifying and mitigating potential risks to success and both involve defining clear metrics to measure that success. Both OCM and Project Management can be practiced in traditional or agile ways. And both competencies recognize the importance of stakeholder engagement and management for successful outcomes.
While these disciplines are similar, their perspectives differ and sometimes will bring differing agendas or differing opinions about how to accomplish our goal.
How is OCM different from Project Management?
While both are methodologies, they focus on different aspects of an initiative. Whereas project management focuses on the processes and activities needed to complete a project (such as a new software application), change management focuses on the people affected by those projects (or other changes within the organization). While a Project Manager may be more focused on completing the build before the deadline for going live, the OCM Lead may be more focused on the need to begin engaging stakeholders to raise awareness. Sometimes this might feel like an argument about what is the higher priority; but in reality, both are important, and both need attention.
Sometimes these two focuses are the responsibility of one person, sometimes (mostly in larger/higher impact initiatives) there are dedicated roles for both. However, even if the roles are separated on a team, studies have shown that integrating Project Mangement with OCM results in 17% greater project success.
Integration contributes to success by:
Creating a shared objective
Enabling a more proactive approach
Improving sequencing and alignment
Enhancing information exchange
What needs to be integrated?
Team: OCM Lead (if separate from the PM) should be embedded in the team and work collaboratively with the PM.
Process: OCM plan should align with the project plan, and both should be updated iteratively. Milestones should line up and all agree to move forward only when both are ready.
Metrics: Should define success for both OCM and PM.
Why Change Management?
Prosci research consistently shows that organizations with excellent change management achieve greater success with change. Projects are 6 times more likely to achieve results, 5 times more likely to stay on or ahead of schedule, and are 2 times more likely to stay on or under budget.
With excellent change management, employees:
Adopt changes faster, more completely and more proficiently.
Stay engaged in the organization during disruptive change.
Understand why the change is happening.
Have the time and tools to get on board and feel heard and supported.
What is OCM?
Organizational change management is both a process and a competency. Effective change management follows a repeatable process and uses a set of tools to drive successful change. As a process, OCM is a methodology that uses a standardized framework to plan and guide an initiative through an organizational change. The goal of OCM is to ensure that the organization successfully transitions to a future state achieving expected benefits while minimizing perceived negative impacts and risks.
A change can be a set of new beliefs and/or behaviors that is desirable to bring about a positive outcome for the organization.
Changes can be identified in terms of dimensions such as:
Process
Technology
Systems
Reporting structure
Job roles
Attitudes and beliefs
An organizational change or initiative can target any of these or multiple dimensions. Other factors that go into defining and planning for a change could be geography, culture, how many people are impacted, how deeply people will be affected by the change, and the complexity of making the change for the individuals impacted. OCM leaders will also want to consider what other changes might be happening; simultaneous changes can confuse people and many changes in succession can lead to change fatigue.
As a competency, change management is a set of skills that creates a strategic capability for increasing effectiveness and capacity for change. Practicing OCM over time as well as training and education can build one's skill level in enabling change.
Change happens at different levels
Change happens at three levels:
The Individual level
The Initiative level
The Enterprise level
Each level effects the level above it.
Change management enables individual success by supporting each person through their individual change journey. The success of each initiative ultimately depends on each impacted employee doing their work differently.
Change management within initiatives increases successful outcomes and return on investment (ROI) by equipping impacted individuals to adopt and use new solutions. Managing change at this level involves organizing OCM plans and activities into phases during a project. When more initiatives are successful, the entire organization meets its goals and becomes more change capable.
Change management at the organizational level delivers strategic intent, mitigates change saturation, and improves agility by embedding change management into the fabric of the organization. To be successful in an environment of rapid, concurrent and continual change, organizations must grow their change capability.
A mature change capability means:
Change management is the norm on projects and initiatives
Common change management processes and tools are consistently and constantly applied throughout the organization
People from the very top of the organization to the front line know and fulfill their roles in leading change
Project Managers would be wise to improve their OCM skills and learn how to bring this unique and valuable perspective to all of their projects. Teams benefit greatly from having skilled OCM practitioners embedded and supporting their initiatives. Organizational leaders benefit both as individuals and benefit the organizations they serve by improving their change management capabilities. And organizations benefit from having mature change capability.
When these two disciplines are integrated and employed, they become synergized; they are more than the sum of their parts. Projects are more successful, risks are anticipated and mitigated more efficiently and effectively, and people feel more positively about the changes. It's not a competition between the technical and the personal, its a harmonious relationship between both.