Published in PM World Today September 2009 (Vol XI, Issue IX)

PM WORLD TODAY FEATURED PAPER SEPTEMBER 2009

Change Management for IT Project Managers

A Practical Approach

By Eleonore Pieper, PhD

Introduction
Traditionally project managers have been trained to view project success as an open-and-
shut case defined by meeting all agreed-upon scope requirements within an allocated time-
frame and within a pre-determined budget. (Kerzner) However, newer trends in project
management tend to define project success on a broader basis adding such concepts as use,
learning or value; concepts that are prized very highly by project sponsors and users and by
senior executives, and much less so by project managers and project teams (Nelson).

Perhaps our views and our approach as project managers have become too myopic for our
emerging business environment. This would be borne out by some recent statistics that
attest a high failure rate for IT projects, for example in the areas of CRM (Krigsman) or other
technology areas with investment failures as high as 80% (Miller). It is time project
managers took a broader perspective and started owning responsibility for soft success
criteria such as value or use instead of hiding behind schedules and budgets.

The discipline of change management can help project managers add to their project
delivery strategy in a way that breaks down and constructively deals with resistance to the
changes their projects bring about and increases adoption of the project scope by the
organization, thereby enhancing both value and use.

The following approach combines the concept of the Resistance Pyramid developed by
Galpin and Herndon with Jeffrey Hiatts ADKAR model to define five areas of intervention
that can easily be added to any project lifecycle by using a phased and scalable change
management approach. It has successfully been used on large IT implementations as well as
M&A projects and IT outsourcing projects.

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The Change Gap

Managing Change is a core concern for CEOs in the current business environment and it
seems to become more of a challenge as time progresses. A Global CEO study undertaken by
IBM in 2006 showed that 65% of participating CEOs saw significant change in the time
ahead. However, 57% also expressed confidence in being able to meet that change based on
past performance. In 2008, 83% of CEOs expected significant change, and only 61% felt
confident in their ability to face it successfully. What the IBM Study called the change gap
had nearly tripled from 8% to 22% in just two years (IBM).

With organizations increasingly challenged by changes emanating from market factors,

people skills, technology and globalization (IBM), IT projects will face their share of change,
both as change drivers and as competitors for change readiness in increasingly stressed and
overstretched organizations. The better project managers are at managing change,
anticipating it, planning for it, controlling it and implementing it, the more successful their
projects will be, if we take additional success criteria such as value to the organization and
use by the user community into account.

The Challenges of Change

Books on change and change management are legion and in many instances will cover
similar terrain. Change always constitutes a disruption of our familiar surroundings and of
our routines. It is being met by a psychological reaction pattern moving from denial through
resistance to acceptance (Zachary) and may be perceived as positive or as negative,
depending upon the amount of control the individual feels they have over the change
(Conner).

However, in a business environment this dynamic is often exacerbated, because not

everyone is confronted with change at the same time. The reaction to change often is a
staggered one, senior management knows first and reacts, then middle management, finally
front-line employees. Senior managers are already out of their decline in productivity when
the change is announced to the front-line employees and therefore react with impatience or
dont communicate, because for them its over and they have already adopted the change
(Galpin, Herndon). In addition their amount of control over the change was much greater
than it is for the individual employee; therefore their reaction to it was much more positive
to begin with.

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As project managers we have a similar role with regards to the change that our projects
bring into an organization: we know the product we are implementing, we know its
functionality and its value. We have had a great amount of control over the change, whereas
the user community lags behind, both in their exposure to the change as well as in their
amount of control.

As managers we need to take this dynamic into consideration as we face organizational

resistance. Resistance in and of itself is not a bad thing, as long as it is addressed, allowed
out into the open and dealt with constructively.

An organization that doesnt pay attention to resistance may eventually pay a dear price for
its inattentiveness. Inattention or avoidance may slow, impede, compromise or block a
potentially successful implementation effort. Carefully listening to and evaluating the
sources of resistance helps an organization proactively avoid obstacles Inviting resistance
out in the open diffuses it and surfaces invaluable information that is useful for
strengthening the implementation effort. (Zachary)

Analyzing Resistance
So why is resistance often not dealt with constructively, why is it treated as everyones dirty
little secret of change? Part of it may have to do with the fact that financially and in other
areas of planning for a project it has not been taken into account. IT projects are often sold
on increases in efficiency or financial return on investment, and no one factures in the reality
that the organization will face a dip in productivity before the full benefits are realized.
Galpin and Herndon construct a very simply mathematical model for the impact of change.
Their calculations are tied to an M&A project, but one could easily envisage the impact of a
new CRM or ERP system or a new patient data management system:

Here is an easy-to-grasp example. Say that a company acquires a thousand-person asset

from another company. Each of the thousand managers and employees of the acquired
asset talks about the acquisition for just one hour per day instead of doing his or her job At
five days per week, 5,000 hours of productivity are lost each week. At an average of four
hours per month, 20,000 hours of productivity are lost each month. (Galpin, Herndon)

If we go one step further and attach a $20 value to each of these lost hours, we have arrived
at the staggering sum of $400,000 loss in productivity for one month for a project that
impacts 1000 users for an hour per day. I have not seen a single IT provider who would
submit these figures to a client as part of their business case when bidding on an IT project.

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Therefore when resistance and its financial implications happen, they are often dismissed
and ignored.

The other problem with resistance is the fact that it is not a monolithic phenomenon. While
it is often seen as active defiance of a change, it can have many reasons: Galpin and Herndon
propose a staggered model, a resistance pyramid that is first and foremost made up out of
not knowing that the change is coming or what is expected. This is followed by being not
able to conform to the new environment, because skills and abilities may not have been
developed yet. Only at the apex of the pyramid do we find the attitude of being not willing
to adapt to the change, the area of active resistance that so many managers equate with the
phenomenon of resistance overall.

We ourselves developed a consultative approach that expanded this model by one further
component: not believing. In an environment saturated with change we sometimes
encounter change cynicism, where employees have been inundated with change only to find
that eventually everything stayed the same. To introduce change into an environment where
resistance is primarily fueled by not believing is possible the toughest challenge of all.

Overcoming Resistance, the ADKAR Model

If resistance is not a uniform behavior, but is fueled by a host of different factors,
overcoming resistance must also employ a variety of strategies in order to address each and
every one of these factors. Jeffrey Hiatts ADKAR model which originally derived from an
approach to dealing with change in an individuals life can provide an excellent paradigm for
project managers to engineer successful change management interventions in their own
projects.

Before developing a model of 5 interlocking change strategies for IT projects we would like
to briefly explain the ADKAR Model, and how it relates to the expanded change pyramid.

ADKAR stands for the terms awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement. All five
components are needed for an individual and an organization to successfully cope with a
change. More importantly they have to be realized in sequence for the change to be
adopted. In this Hiatts model is not unlike Maslows Hierarchy of Needs, for example.

In the awareness stage an individual understands the nature of the change, why it is
necessary and how they can relate to it whats in it for them.

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During desire the individual now develops the drive to grapple with the change, to
support it and to come to terms with it.
Knowledge furnishes the individual with the information, the training, the education
and skills in order to be successful in the changed environment and to function well.
Ability stands for operationalizing this knowledge where the individual or the group
can implement the change at their required performance level.
And finally reinforcement is needed to sustain a change. It may come through seeing
rewards and earning recognition or through feeling internally satisfied with the
achievements that have come about because of the change. (Hiatt)

It is remarkable how well the ADKAR model allows itself to be modeled against the expanded
resistance pyramid:

Translating ADKAR into 5 Strategies for Overcoming Resistance

If resistance is grounded in not knowing we have to ensure that change targets are aware
of the change, why the change is necessary, sometimes called the burning platform for
change and also how they fit into the change.

If change targets do not believe in the change, because nothing has changed before, the
strategy to overcome this apathy is to make the change desirable, to furnish visible examples
of how it can be lived and implemented in their work lives, how others, who are regarded as
role models, are living the change right now.

Both lack of knowledge and lack of ability will result in resistance from not being able. We
have to address both, a lack of knowledge of the basic skills, processes and behaviors
needed, but also obstacles to implementation, the things that are preventing the individual
to make the transition from theory to practice.

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Finally, in the category of not willing we have to provide reinforcements, both positive and
negative to show the individual that change adoption has advantages and is being
recognized, and that persistent resistance will ultimately have negative consequences. In a
business environment this may ultimately mean that entrenched resisters will face
disciplinary action.

In our own consulting practice we have translated the ADKAR model into a grouping of five
interlocking strategies that each need to be addressed during a successful Change Project:

Communication
On the level of awareness we have to communicate with change targets about the change:
what it is, why it happens, what the risks would be if it did not happen, and what the
individual can expect out of the change for themselves. This kind of communication
transcends traditional project communication which is widely focused on performance
reporting and project documentation. It has aspects of sales and marketing
communication that project managers may feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable with. In our
own consulting practice we have found that involving dedicated communications and even
PR resources can have enormous benefits here, especially for large projects that engender
transformative change.

Sponsorship
On the level of desire sponsorship can be a practical strategy to show the change as
desirable and as something that is at the core of the values and the culture of an
organization. Good sponsorship examples will cut right through the fog of apathy and
disbelief and energize target communities.

Sponsorship should be viewed as the most important success factor. Avoid confusing the
notion of sponsorship with support. The CEO of the company may support your project, but

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that is not the same as sponsoring your initiative. Sponsorship involves active and visible
participation by senior business leaders throughout the process. (Hiatt, Creasey)

Sponsorship examples may involve a corporation reinforcing a project that necessitates the
flattening of hierarchies with refurbishing the C-level suite at their headquarters to look like
the rest of the employee offices or cubicles. It may mean that the CEO of an insurance
company and his direct reports man the customer call center of their insurance agents for
several hours, taking customer calls and afterward commending employees for their hard
work and dedication at a town-hall meeting. We have witnessed each of these examples in
our own consulting practice and they have sent incredibly powerful messages to employees
during critical times of change and have increased peoples willingness to engage in change
and to believe in a successful outcome.

Project managers have to negotiate with leaders and change agents ahead of time to
construct powerful and credible sponsorship interventions.

Re-skilling
Lack of Knowledge, one aspect of the not able component of resistance can be remedied
with training or re-skilling, because quite often to just throw a technical training module at a
user will not be enough. Re-skilling intervenes at a deeper level, including coaching,
mentoring, behavioral training and long-term sustainment of knowledge transfer and
knowledge assessment.

As with communication, devising a robust re-skilling program may expand beyond the skill
level of an IT project manager, who may be comfortable with technical training, but less so
with functional or behavioral training and coaching. Involving dedicated training staff may
be an option for projects that need to plan for a lot of knowledge transfer.

Organizational Design
The other component of not able is being addressed by removing organizational obstacles
to change. While change targets may now possess the desire and the knowledge to make
the change work, organizational obstacles can be powerful sources of frustration that will
ultimately extinguish any enthusiasm for the change.

If a project aimed at a fast turn-around for a process still requires four levels of upper
management to put their seal of approval on the work results, the resulting time-lag may
eventually cause the employee to feel his or her belief in the process erode. The project will

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have to look at the fast turn-around time as well as at ways to flatten the hierarchy of
approvers and push some of the decision-making power down to the change target, who is
being asked to provide faster results.

Form follows function, and once the new function of the changed environment has been
determined, the form and shape of the organization has to be adjusted accordingly. This may
be a tough area for project managers to plan, because suddenly their sponsors and leaders
may find themselves in the unexpected position of change target, asked to make
adjustments and change themselves.

HR Management
To overcome resistance, the area of not willing and to provide reinforcements project
managers will have to look at the current practice the organization uses to provide
incentives and deterrents to employees and to ensure that rewards match exactly the new
behaviors that are prized by the changed organization.

For example, if a project was supposed to make a department take less of a lackadaisical
approach to process and protocol, it would be counterproductive to still pay bonuses to
those managers who ignore processes to the point where they have to start fire-fighting and
then put on a glorious show of working their team over-time and swarming around a
problem that would not have arisen, if everyone had employed the new process and
discipline. Instead, the organization will now have to look at ways to make the fire-fighters
look not like heroes but like arsonists.

Again, this is a difficult area to engage in, because often sponsors and senior management
have not considered these kinds of impacts, they may have financial consequences and they
may also change an organizations culture and values in very visible ways.

Scaling the Model

Devising a Life Cycle

We have pointed out five strategies that project managers can employ to operationalize the
ADKAR model on their projects and to overcome the various components of the resistance
pyramid. In order to align this practice even further with the basic principles of project
management we propose that the employment of the strategies can be undertaken as a

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phased approach and that it can be made scalable to suit the magnitude of change of an
individual project.

Most change management methodologies propose a phased approach not unlike the classic
project management life cycle. Hiatt and Creasey for example advocate a three-step
approach including Phase 1 Prepare for Change, Phase 2 Managing Change and Phase 3
Reinforcing change, which can be aligned alongside the project management process groups
of Initiating, Planning, Executing and Managing and Controlling and Closing (PMBOK).

In our own consulting practice we have adopted a five phase approach that maps against the
PBMOK Process Groups as follows

Adopting any of these mappings will allow a project manager to make change management
into an integrated component of their project management practice.

Analysis typically results in taking a snapshot of the current environment and mapping it
against the vision of the value and use their project is supposed to generate and performing
a gap analysis. It is helpful to always keep the five strategies in mind, i.e. analyzing current
communications, current levels of sponsorship, current incentives, etc., and then assessing
the levels the project manager will need for their project. Designing and planning will result
in translating the gaps into change initiatives within all five strategies that can then be
broken down into schedule activities like any other work package and added to the project
plan. The initiatives are implemented alongside the execution of the standard project
deliverables and their effectiveness is checked and corrected by seeking feedback from
stakeholders, in particular change targets and change agents. As the project is being closed,
the change is anchored and sustaining reinforcement measures are put in place to ensure
the organization does not fall back into old habits.

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Scaling the Effort

Not every project will result in massive change and needs a dedicated change program or
even change resources. We propose three levels of scale that will suit every type of project
with every level of change.

Change management lite: Add a category of people risk to your risk management
plan and risk register. Imagine the scenarios if your change target community is not
knowing, not believing, not able or not willing with regards to the changes brought
about by the project. Use the five strategies to formulate prevention and contingency
strategies. You are simply using the methodology to make your risk management
more robust and to deal with the fall-out from user resistance. Having to deal with
fall-out from resistance is added to the time-line and budget as contingency reserves.
Mid-size change management: After your gap-analysis, treat the five strategies as
project deliverables and add them to your WBS. They are meeting project
requirements to deal with stakeholder resistance and will impact your budget and
your schedule just as any other resourced schedule activity. You may have to ask for
dedicated resources to work on some of the strategies, such as a communications
resource or a training resource.
Large-scale change management: Consider making the change initiative its own
project. It will now be the scope of your project to be scoped, decomposed, planned
and executed with dedicated change resources as your project team. Projects like
these should accompany major transformations as part of an overall transformation
program, for example for ERP or CRM implementations, for M&A projects or for large
IT outsourcing deals. These projects will usually require specialists such as
organizational designers, HR transition managers and PR resources.

Conclusion
Change Management should come as naturally to project managers as checking their
schedules or performing earned value analysis if they wish to move beyond the
mechanistical definition of project success as on time and on budget to a broader
definition of success that assesses whether their project s are making a tangible impact on
their organization by adding value and being adopted by user communities.

Change management does not have to be an esoteric discipline, but can translate into a
simple and scalable model of five strategies that can be added to the project management

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lifecycle in order to prepare an organization to receive the benefits of an IT project when it is

ready to deliver them.

Bibiliography:

Tim Galpin and Mark Herndon: The Complete Guide to Mergers and Acquisitions: Process
Tools to Support M&A Integration at Every Level. 2nd Edition, John Wiley and Sons, 2007.

Jeffrey M. Hiatt, Timothy J. Creasey: Change Management: The People Side of Change. Prosci
, 2003.

Jeffrey M. Hiatt: ADKAR, A Model for Change in Business, Government and Our Community.
Prosci, 2006.

IBM: The Enterprise of the Future. Global CEO Study. IBM Global Business Services, 2008.

Harold Kerzner: Project Management. A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and

Controlling. John Wiley and Sons, 2009

Michael Krigsman. IT Project Failures. Blogs.ZDnet.com, August 11th 2009.

Miller, D. (2002). Successful change leaders: What makes them? What do they do that is
different? Journal of Change Management, 2(4), 359-368.

Nelson, R. (2005). Project Retrospectives: Evaluating Success, Failure, and Everything in

Between, MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 4, Nr. 3, pp. 361 371

Lois J. Zachary: Creating a Mentoring Culture. John Wiley and Sons, 2005.

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 Published in PM World Today September 2009 (Vol XI, Issue IX)

About the Author:

Eleonore Pieper, PhD

Author

Eleonore Pieper works as a consultant specializing in

the areas of Project Management Training, Facilitation,
Organizational Change Management and Program Office
Implementations. She has partnered with Fortune 500,
healthcare, finance, telecommunication, manufacturing, transportation and IT
corporations and worked on government projects for more than 13 years. During this
time she has leveraged her experience as a specialist for methodology development,
Program Office management, project planning and Organizational Change
Management, delivering consulting services and training across the United States,
Europe and India. Her practical People Change Management knowledge supports
people change on both internal organizational process improvements and billion-dollar,
multi-year outsourced contracts. Based on her experience she wrote the People
Change Management methodology and established the People Change Management
practice at a Fortune 500 company. She is also experienced as a versatile and
adaptable facilitator for workshops in a wide variety of settings, including executive
strategic visioning sessions, and scoping, planning and review workshops both
nationally and internationally. Most recently she has successfully delivered project
management training at a 995-bed hospital, built a PMO for a leading Oracle
Configurator solutions provider; and designed, built and taught a PM training module
for a North Texas university whose business school is ranked among the top 20 in the
nation. Dr. Pieper holds a Ph.D. from the University of Muenster, Germany and is an
International Association of Facilitators (IAF) Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF) and
a Project Management Institute (PMI) certified Project Management Professional
(PMP). Dr. Pieper can be contacted at consulting@eleonorepieper.com.

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