Why Change Management?

Change Management. 

You’ve likely heard of it, yet, you’d be forgiven if the concept is a little fuzzy.  How exactly does one ‘manage’ change?

Well, when a business or organization decides to change something, like upgrading a piece of software, or modifying how a task is completed, three things come together: people, process and technology. 

Identifying the problem to be solved and developing the business requirements, is the role of the Business Analyst. 

Scoping the project, identifying potential solutions and making sure the technology is supported/will work is under the umbrella of Project Management. 

Change Management focuses on the People side of change.  This includes the modification of any Processes that subsequently impact the behaviours of People.

The Change Manager may also handle most, if not all, of the project’s Communication.

WHO EXPERIENCES CHANGE?

Change does not happen to an organization, department or team.

It happens to individuals.

To employees, customers and vendors, who will choose to adopt, tolerate or reject your change.

Too often, we underestimate the seismic impact of a proposed change. So, to get our exploration of the topic underway, today we will consider a single process change and how far-reaching the impact could be.

Let’s say your company wants to update how payments are processed. 

As a B2B organization, the bulk of your customer payments are invoiced electronically and yet, most payments are cheques mailed to the finance department.  Payments are processed; cheques and invoices are reconciled and filed for each customer.

Your company now wants to move payments online as well. 

WHO IS AFFECTED BY THIS?

The Finance team is a natural starting point. 

What is the day-to-day impact on the people tasked with processing payments and reconciling accounts?  Will they lose their job?  What is the cost of having more than one system in place – both electronic and paper-based processing? Are these employees for or against the change?  Does this mean they can work from home? What are the regulatory implications of moving to electronic payments in your industry? 

Let’s dig a little deeper. 

Will your IT team be able to support the maintenance of the new service?  What happens when it goes down?  Wait, do you have an in-house IT team? 

What is the impact on other internal departments that are tied to the account status for each customer?  This could include Sales, Customer Management and Logistics. 

What processes do they have in place that could be affected by a change to billing?  How does a customer get flagged for late payment now?  How do you ensure goods are not shipped to delinquent customers or that the goods get released if you have some customers on paper-based and some on electronic processing?

How about your Customers?  Is this a change they want? 

The business of processing payments is surprisingly manual – by design – for many organizations.  They count on the delay between mailing a cheque, its arrival and being posted by your team. 

If they do opt for the new method, who helps them install and learn the new technology and process?  Who do they call when they need help – your finance team? Your IT department? The software vendor?

What could be the impact on your business if say, 10% of your existing customers refuse to switch?  How costly is it to keep them on the old system?  What is the customer mix that is still healthy for your organization?  Can you afford to lose them as customers?

AS YOU CAN SEE, I ASK A LOT OF QUESTIONS.

Some of these answers may be identified by the Project Manager or your Business Analyst. The follow-through with all of the people and processes involved is usually out of their scope – and it may be a lot to add to their existing responsibilities for this project.

That’s where I come in.