At the 2016 Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) 2016 Conference, one of the talks that caught my eye was called Top 7 Insights, Taking ECM to the Next Level by Jacqueline Iny. While at first glance, many of these 7 insights seemed a bit off to me and with the limited presentation time, you were left to draw some of your own conclusions, after hearing the whole presentation and thinking about it that evening, I have found that many are really good.
1. Sponsorship is Overrated. Wait. What? How can the value of sponsorship on any change management or project management effort be overrated? Basically, just having a sponsor for a particular effort does not necessarily lead to a successful engagement. What if the Sponsor does not have a clear message? What if they are not engaged? The conclusion I came to on this one is that sponsorship matters, but can only be beneficial if there is some defined intrinsic value to the sponsorship.
2. 70% of project failures are NOT due to Change Management. This one I believe wholeheartedly. One of the slides we use a great deal in our practice to point out the value of change management, is one which states that most IT related projects fail due to a lack of adoption, not necessarily a failure in the deliverable. Poor project management can lead to failure, even with the most perfectly executed change management plan.
3. Don’t communicate, communicate, communicate. This one goes completely 180 degrees from what many change practitioners are always saying. I agree with the premise of this one, in that many change management consultants attempt to flood the scene with communications from email to presentations to posters and signs in an effort to get the message out as many ways as possible, as often as possible. In reality, communicating LESS can actually be far more effective, so long as you are delivering the RIGHT message to the RIGHT audience at the RIGHT time. Communicating just to communicate is ineffective and can ultimately do more harm than good.
4. Procrastinate rather than plan. This is one that many change professionals, as well as project managers get caught in. Most change professionals hit the ground at a client site, only to have massive expectations of “THE PLAN” placed on them, with a deliverable in a far too short time period. More often than not, we are dealing with emerging change rather than managed changed. This means that there are often far more unanswered or developing questions than there are answered. Slowing things down can lead to greater success once you are able to assemble the entire picture.
Part 2 of this blog will follow, with #5-7 of the insights.
