5   Managing people through service transitions

In addition to the processes discussed in Chapter 4, service transition supports and is supported by other activities. This chapter deals with those elements that are an essential part of, or a strong contributor towards, service transition.

Management of organizational change is an extensive field, and there are many sources of best practice in this area. This chapter describes a selection of these practices in order to address two specific activities that are important to service transition:

   Communications  One of the major traditional weaknesses in service transition has been the inability to deliver sufficiently prompt understanding of the implications, benefits and usage of IT services.

   Organizational and stakeholder change  Reflecting the holistic nature of change on which service transition must be based, organizations do not transform their IT service by only changing the IT services. Modern innovations mean that the organization itself will also inevitably change to make use of the new and changed services available.

5.1     MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS AND COMMITMENT

Communication is central to any service transition change process. The greater the change, the greater the need for clear communication about the reasons and rationale behind it, the benefits expected, the plans for its implementation and its proposed effects. Communications need to be timely, targeted at the right audience and clearly communicate the messages and benefits consistently. If some details of the transition cannot be shared, admit this and explain why it is not possible, e.g. for security reasons. Understanding people’s commitment is important before planning the communications.

5.1.1     Communications during service transition

Typically, many people are affected by a service change and, consequently, sufficient stakeholder buy-in is required to carry the transition forward successfully. It is important to establish an individual’s stage within the ‘emotional cycle’ to understand the method of approach. It is important to identify:

  Those who are already in support of the transition (and on whom it is not sensible to spend time right now since they do not need conversion); they will be picked up at the ‘acceptance’ stage.

  Those who are strongly opposed, and who would be unlikely to respond positively to persuasion. It is not constructive to spend time on these people since effort is most likely to be unrewarded at the moment.

The best use of time is to concentrate on those people who are between the two extremes, e.g. stakeholders capable of understanding and welcoming the transition. Although this seems obvious, it is common for people to spend too much time talking to those who are sympathetic to an idea, since this is easier and delivers the positive feedback that people tend to require to feed their confidence and job satisfaction. At this stage the service transition team needs to be attuned to its audience.

The service transition team will soon become familiar with the need to change attitudes and the operation of converting culture. For them it is a routine task, holding no threat. It can be hard to remember that, for those affected by the change, it is not a usual situation – they will be worried and a shared understanding will help greatly.

It is important that the service transition team members are capable of understanding the impact of their work on others and tailoring their own approach to the stakeholder audience. Ultimately, the service transition team’s goal is to build enthusiasm and commitment to the change, while ensuring that all stakeholders are clear about how the changes will impact on themselves and what will be expected of them in the coming months. Clear two-way communication channels will help employees to feel that their feedback and ideas are valued.

Stakeholder management can consume significant amounts of labour, with up to 50% of staff effort often consumed by this task during significant organizational change periods.

5.1.2     Communication planning

After establishing the strategies that will promote positive change enablers, and having understood the level of commitment within the organization, service transition must ensure that there is a detailed communications plan that will target information where it will be most effective.

When announcing information during a service transition change, the following considerations should be made for each statement you need to communicate:

  What is the objective of the communication and what are the desired outcomes?

  How formal and robust does the communication plan need to be? Some transitions will need a fully integrated and documented communication plan, but a more simple approach may be appropriate for smaller transitions.

  How should the information be delivered – all at once or divided into segments and released over a period of time? If it is going to be released in segments, what are the components and what is the sequence of timing for the communication message delivery?

  What should the tone of each message be (see section 4.7.5.2.)? What tone and style should be used to convey the message – upbeat, cautious, optimistic?

  What actions could be taken before the communication that will increase the understanding and the acceptance of the information given?

  How and when will groups be involved during the cascading of the communication information to other levels in the organization?

  Are the communications successful in overcoming the particular communication barriers on this service transition (e.g. cultural differences, the added structure of large teams, the additional requirements associated with geographically dispersed personnel)?

  Is there consideration to address the communication needs of other stakeholders in the project (e.g. decision makers, opinion leaders, system users, internal and external regulatory bodies and any other persons impacted by the implementation of the new service transition)?

  How will success of the communication be measured?

Figure 5.1 shows an overview of the key elements for consideration when planning for effective communication.

Figure 5.1 Example of a communication strategy and plan contents

To ensure that a communication strategy is effective, surveys and measures should be determined for regular monitoring. This will require feedback from people who have received the communication. It should also include how people are feeling on their ‘change cycle’ to establish that the target is right. The results of this feedback may identify individuals who should be receiving more personal contact from the service transition team in order for them to achieve an acceptable level of buy-in.

To obtain an appreciation of the sequence of events, a communication path diagram such as the one shown in Figure 5.2 helps with the planning of the communication process. This figure simply shows the typical communication activities that might occur in a sample project.

Figure 5.2 Example of a communication path

5.1.3     Methods of communication

Using multiple communication means will help understanding of the overall message. Common media types include:

  Workshops deliver a clear and consistent message to the target audience on the overall service transition approach; this will generally be useful at the start of any communication strategy in order to build understanding, ownership and even excitement across the teams.

  Organization, business unit or IT newsletters to reinforce any messages already delivered; however, care needs to be taken that this approach is used as reinforcement rather than as the first time that employees may have seen the communication cascade.

  Training sessions  As part of the service transition, roles or processes will be likely to change; this requires targeted training, which should be planned giving sufficient time for employees to get to grips with any new ways of working.

  Team meetings give support to team leaders from the service transition team, who will ensure at their own weekly meetings that they can reinforce any messages. Employees’ questions may be better understood at these lower-level meetings – people are more comfortable because they are used to this method of communication with colleagues with whom they work daily.

  Meetings of the whole organization, which may be face-to-face or use video or audio technology, depending on the size and type of organization.

  One-to-one meetings where key stakeholders make time to visit staff in their work environment (floor walks), to set a positive example of the support by senior management and allow employees to ask questions pertinent to themselves.

  Q&A feedback postings on boards or in mail boxes where employees can raise anonymous questions and receive feedback on any concerns they may have.

  Corporate intranet.

  Simulation games can be a practical and fun way of trying out a new way of working.

  Consistent reinforcement memos from the senior stakeholder, emphasizing key information or giving an update on the implementation activities, will keep the service transition alive for those people not perhaps actually involved at all stages.

  Posters/roadmaps – good-quality colourful communications on office walls showing implementation activities, progress or general updates are a positive way of keeping communications alive and delivering a consistent message.

  Pay advice notes – key communications attached to payslips can ensure a practical 100% communication update.

  ‘Z-cards’/encapsulated reference cards – small credit-card-sized documents holding key information and expected to be carried by staff in their wallets or purses.

Models help to communicate expectations for each service or each type of change. Figure 5.3 is an example of a change model used to transition services from an organization to an external service provider (outsource). This is an example of a total organizational change, where there will be changes in management, processes and staffing, although many staff may transfer into the new service provider organization. Having access to a set of service, change and transition models in a form that is easy to communicate will help to set expectations during the service transition.

Figure 5.3 Example of service transition steps for outsourcing

5.1.4     Motivation and the importance of communication

People need to be kept up to date with the progress of change, good or bad, if they are to be motivated to make it happen. Hackman and Oldham (1980) described the state of affairs when people try to do well because they find the work satisfying as ‘internal motivation’. The concept is defined in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1 Job characteristics that motivate people

The essential characteristics of the job	Benefit for the employees	The result if all these characteristics are present
Feedback from the job	Knowledge of the actual results of work activities	High internal work motivation
Autonomy	Experienced responsibility for outcomes of work
Skill variety Task identity Task significance	Experienced meaningfulness of the work

People will be mobilized and engaged if they can see progress. Short-term wins should be communicated and progress celebrated.

5.2     MANAGING ORGANIZATION AND STAKEHOLDER CHANGE

Service transition’s basic role is, on the basis of agreed design, to implement a new or changed service, effectively making the organization different from the way that it was previously. For a change of any significance, this is delivering an organizational change, ranging from moving a few staff to work from new premises through to major alterations in the nature of business working, e.g. from face-to-face retail to web-based trading.

Change is an inevitable and important part of organizational development and growth. Change can occur in incremental phases or suddenly, affecting part or the whole of an organization, its people and its culture. Without change, progress does not happen. Organizational change is an essential part of continual improvement and must be built into all transitions to enable them to deliver value to the business.

Organizational change efforts fail or fall short of their goals because changes and transitions are not led, managed and monitored efficiently across the organization and throughout the change process. These gaps in key organizational activities often result in resistance, dissatisfaction and increased costs. Change is never easy; it usually takes longer than planned and creates barriers and resistance along the way. Effective leaders and managers understand the change process and plan and lead accordingly. Major negative impact can come from losing staff – disillusioned people leaving – which brings risks to the organization, e.g. loss of knowledge and lack of handover.

This section provides more detail about the involvement of service transition in managing organizational change. It includes assurance of the organization change products from service design, stakeholder management and communications, and offers various approaches for coping with change during transition.

5.2.1     The emotional cycle of change

What creates confusion and chaos in organizations more than change not managed well or not managed at all? Research shows that many change efforts fail, fall short of their goals or result in organizational dissatisfaction and inefficiency.

The research on change management strongly suggests that without the support of people, change will not happen. Business managers and change agents must understand the emotional impact that change has on people and how to manage it accordingly. Much research has been done on the emotional impact of change.

What this means is that failure to consider organizational change and how it affects people is a significant factor in the failure of transitions. In order to facilitate the acceptance of change, it is important to understand the ‘emotional stages’ that a person needs to get through before acceptance. This is illustrated in Figure 5.4.

For all significant changes, individuals will go through this process. At first they enter into a degree of shock, before going into avoidance. This will often manifest itself in increased efficiency while the situation is denied. This is usually a rapid stage, at which point performance drops as people choose to ‘shoot the messenger’ and blame the change initiators and service transition team, followed by self-blame as insecurity and the threat of the situation is felt. Performance is now at its lowest. It follows that the quicker the service transition team can get individuals through the cycle, the shorter the timescales before acceptance and optimum performance. One can use the experience of those within the affected area to understand concerns and the nature of resistance in order to communicate effectively at the appropriate stages. This may often take considerable personal time of the service transition team to listen to people’s concerns, but ultimately will get individuals engaged and performing in as short a time as possible.

Figure 5.4 The emotional cycle of change

Appropriate communication through these stages of transition will drive the energy of individuals from low to high, obtaining involvement and generating a more positive attitude as the change takes place. As emphasized, this is a pattern followed by individuals, and different people will pass through these typical phases at different speeds, so understanding where individuals are on this curve and supporting and progressing them can be a significant resource commitment for service transition.

5.2.1.1     Effective management of change

There are five important ingredients of change: necessity, vision, plan, resources and competence. These are all discussed in this chapter. If there is no necessity established, there is lot of resistance from the people; if there is no vision, there is confusion among the employees; if there is no plan, there is chaos in the activities and transition; if there are no/fewer resources, there is a frustration among the employees; and if there is no competence, there is a fear of failure among the employees. Therefore, it is extremely important to pay adequate attention and establish management commitment to take adequate care of these requirements of the change.

5.2.2     Organization, roles and responsibilities

Managing change and transition is the responsibility of the managers and executives involved in that change. They must have an awareness that change has to be managed, that people have to be communicated with openly and honestly and that resistance has to be sought out, listened to and responded to appropriately. This is especially the case if a change is on a scale that is significant enough to affect the organization as a whole. The management board and executive must ensure that there are adequate connections and controls throughout the organization to alert them to any barriers and to facilitate the transition to its goal.

A clear, strategic vision coming from the management board and/or executive is imperative to drive and maintain the change.

5.2.3     Service transition’s role in organizational change

Organizational change is always a challenge. Factors that drive successful change initiatives at the organization level include:

  Leadership for the change

  Organization adoption

  Governance

  Organization capabilities

  Business and service performance measures

  A strong communication process with regular opportunity for staff feedback.

Although service transition is not accountable for the overall management of business and technical change, the service transition process owner or manager is a key stakeholder and needs to be proactive in reporting issues and risks to the change leaders, e.g. when the volume of changes may impact service operation’s ability to keep the services running.

Organizational adoption is a subset of change management practice. It typically happens at two levels: individual and organizational. It is important to understand the culture of the organizations and the people involved. This will often be quite diverse across different cultures, business units, geographies and include:

  Business culture – this may be different depending on the industry, geography, etc.

  Culture of customer organization(s)

  Culture of service provider/IT organization

  Culture of supplier organization(s)

  Individual personalities, especially of senior managers and change champions.

Cultural and organizational assessment and change design are the responsibility of strategy and design. However, most significant service transitions will have an effect on working practices and so require a change in the behaviour and attitudes of many teams and stakeholder groups. Understanding the organizational change elements of a transition is therefore vital. The assessment of the likely risks and success is an important element of the transition as a whole. Service transition will be involved early in the lifecycle to ensure that these aspects are assessed and incorporated into the design and build of the organizational change.

Service transition must be actively involved in changing the mindsets of people across the lifecycle to ensure they are ready to play their role in service transition. These people will include:

  Service transition staff

  Customers

  Users

  Service operation functions

  Suppliers

  Key stakeholders.

Service transition will focus on simple messages at any one time to ensure that there is consistency in the implementation of the changes. For example, service transition would be interested in helping people to:

  Understand the need for knowledge and effective knowledge transfer

  Understand the importance of making decisions at the right speed/within the appropriate time frame

  Understand the need to complete and review configuration baselines in a timely manner

  Apply more effective risk assessment and management methods for service transition

  Follow the deadlines for submitting changes and releases.

Service design will perform the assessment of the capability and capacity of the IT organization to transition the new or changed services. Service transition has a quality assurance role to check that the organization and stakeholders are ready for the change, and it will raise any issues and risks related to organizational change that are identified, e.g. during testing, pilots, deployment and early life support.

Service transition is also responsible for ensuring that the organizational change happens according to the plans, that the change is still relevant in current circumstances and that the organizational change delivers the predicted organization, capabilities and resources. This will involve checking that changes are being adopted, e.g. that a critical mass of customers, users and service operation staff accept the change and make a personal commitment to implementing it. Anecdotal evidence suggests that once a ‘critical mass’ of around 70% of affected people have accepted the change into their normal way of working, the change can safely be held as established behaviour. If the adoption rate is lower, then a significant chance exists that an organization might revert to the ‘old ways’. The actual figure will be greatly influenced by the degree of staff involvement with a particular change, e.g. a few key staff can deliver a disproportionately major influence for acceptance or rejection.

Achieving successful service transition requires organized, competent and well-motivated people to build, test, deploy and operate the service. Successful service transitions rely on changing the organization and people, and it is important to focus on such aspects as competency assessment and development, recruiting, skills development, knowledge transfer, team building, process improvements and resource deployment. If there is a gap in capability, then service transition will provide input into the relevant party, e.g. project management, service design or continual service improvement.

5.2.3.1     Understanding the organizational culture

For successful service transition, an organization needs to determine the underlying values and drivers that enable effective management of change. Each organization and combination of organizations is different, so the service transition approach to change is determined, in part, by the culture and may vary across the organization.

Organizational culture is the whole of the ideas, corporate values, beliefs, practices and expectations about behaviour and daily customs that are shared by the employees in an organization. Culture can support an implementation or it can be the source of resistance.

When performing service transition activities it is important to gain an understanding of the type of culture currently existing in the organization and how this is likely to be affected by any proposed changes. Conversely, it is equally important to understand the effect that current culture may have as a ‘barrier’ to realizing change. Examples of key questions to be posed to help identify culture are shown in Table 5.2. These questions are useful when reviewing the service strategy and service design deliverables.

Table 5.2 Understanding the culture of the parties involved

Cultural aspect	Question
Language	Is there a common language or shared language(s)? Does the language inhibit and reinforce boundaries or facilitate effective change and knowledge transfer? Is the organizational language style mostly formal or informal?
Change	Does the organization appear to resist change or is it constantly evolving?
Communication	What are the preferred modes of communication? What is the content and style of internal communications? Where does official and unofficial communication happen? Are communication channels open and democratic or closed and hierarchical? How is knowledge and experience shared? Are rumours/gossip prevalent?
Knowledge flow	How do people describe the way knowledge and information is transferred around the organization? How easy is it to find what you need to know, when you need it? How easy is it to find the right person with the right experience?
Communities	Are there identifiable ‘communities’ within the organization? Is there a community leader, e.g. problem management community leader? What is the structure and function of these communities?
Networks	Are an individual’s networks well developed, on the whole? What kind of information is exchanged by these people?
Working environment	Does the working environment create the right conditions for knowledge transfer and integrated working, e.g. close proximity physically and/or electronic tools? How are desks configured? How are communal areas used?
History	How does the organization see its own history? Is it valued and used or quickly forgotten? How does the organization value past experiences, e.g. do people still refer back to their old company after a merger?
Meetings	Are meetings seen as productive? How are they managed? Are they effective? Does everyone feel safe to speak? How is opinion or criticism handled? How is output captured or taken forward?
Rewards and motivations	How are individuals/teams rewarded or recognized for sharing knowledge/information and experience? What motivates people in the organization? What else might be blocking engagement of an individual/team, e.g. other major change, major incident handling?
Time	What are individuals’, teams’ and the organizational attitudes to time, e.g. busy or relaxed; punctual, rigid and unchanging or flexible?

5.2.4     Strategy and design for managing organizational change

As discussed in ITIL Service Strategy, an organization’s age and size affect its structure.

During a service transition, changes in roles, processes and relationships must be made or problems will arise. Understanding the different phases of development of the stakeholder organizations helps service transition to manage the stakeholders and users better.

5.2.5     Planning and implementing organizational change

Frequently, plans and designs for managing change are not balanced and the organization and people side of change are omitted. Within IT organizations, project managers often focus on the technical activities rather than on the changes required for the organization or individuals. It is important that project plans are reviewed to ensure that the organizational change activities are included.

In order to manage organization change it is important that the stakeholders and teams understand what is required and can answer these questions:

  What are the business and organizational strategic drivers, personalities and policy changes?

  What issues does the proposed change solve?

  What will the new or changed service deliver?

  What does the new or changed service look like?

  How do current objectives need to be modified?

  What are the objectives of the change as defined by management, and how will success be judged throughout the levels of the organization?

  What are the processes, templates, decision points and systems to be used and what level of reporting data is required for the decisions to be made?

  Who will be involved and who will no longer be involved?

  Who will be affected within and outside the organization?

  What are the constraints – type, range and flexibility – time slots, equipment, staff and supplier availability?

  What is the planned timescale?

  Who or what can help in planning the implementation?

  What skills and measures should be considered?

  How will ‘normal’ life be affected?

  What will the consequential changes be, e.g. to business methods?

As part of quality assurance and implementation, the stakeholders and IT teams can be sampled to understand and clarify their expectations about these aspects.

5.2.6     Organizational change products

The change in the organization from the current state to a new state can require a combination of elements to be adjusted in order to fully realize the organization transformation. The required service is defined in the service design package. The following work products are typical outputs from service strategy and service design that assist with managing organizational change during service transition:

  Stakeholder map

  Current organization and capability assessment

  Current and required competency model and competency assessments

  Constraints (including organization, capability, resources)

  Service management process model

  Policies, processes and procedures

  Roles and responsibility definitions, e.g. a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrix (see section 6.5 for more information on RACI charts)

  Relationship management

  Communication plan

  Supplier framework, especially where multiple suppliers are involved.

An example of a RACI matrix for managing change during the service lifecycle that supports service transition activities is shown in Table 5.3. In many instances on the chart the ‘R’ for responsibility appears in more than one column. This is indicative of the hierarchical nature of the responsibility, with strategic, tactical and operational responsibilities being required and thus spreading across more than a single column. In these instances the left-hand occurrences are more managerial, while the ones to the right focus on delivery.

Table 5.3 Example of a RACI matrix for managing change

Role responsibility	Change sponsor, e.g. business and IT leader	Change enabler, e.g. process owner, service owner	Change agent, e.g. team leader instructing change	Change target, e.g. individual performing the change
Articulate a vision for the business and service change in the domain	AR	R	C	I
Recognize and handle resistance to change	R	A	R	C
Initiate change, understand the levers for change and the obstacles	R	AR	C	C
Manage change and input to change plan	C	AR	C	C
Input to design of target organization or structure, etc.	C	AR	C	I
Set up a system for communicating change	AR	R	C	I
Steer change	AR	R	R	C
Mobilize the organization	AR	C	C	C
Mobilize the department, unit, team	AR	R	R	I
Lead workshops and group analysis of the current processes	I	AR	R	I

Service transition will check that organizational change products and services are fit for purpose. For large-scale changes, such as mergers and acquisitions and outsourcing, this will include validation of the approach to:

  Career development  Are succession plans being built? Do individuals have an understanding of their progression prospects?

  Performance evaluation at organization, team and individual level  Are regular reviews conducted? Is the documentation formal, and is there demonstration of a consistent approach?

  Rewards and compensation  Is there a net benefit to people affected by the change?

  Recruitment and selection  Where there is a shortfall in any roles required, is there a fair and consistent process for selection, including the process of internal movement as well as selection from the external market?

  Consideration of relevant laws and agreements For example the European Union Acquired Rights Directive (ARD), the UK Transfer of Undertakings regulations (TUPE), or agreements with works councils and trade unions.

Typical work products from the build stage on which the service transition team depends are:

  Organization model

  New or changed organizational structure

  Career development structure

  Reward and compensation structure

  Performance evaluation structure

  Performance measurement structure

  Competency model detailed design

  Competency list

  Competency/activity matrix

  Target job, role, staffing and competence requirements matrix

  Job definition and design

  Role definitions and descriptions

  Staffing plan

  Individual

  Individual assessment

  Competency assessment (including role and skill assessment)

  Performance assessment

  Performance enhancement needs assessment

  Learning needs assessment

  Education and training

  Learning approach

  Learning test approach

  Performance enhancement design

  Learning definition and design

  Course definition

  Performance enhancement support design

  Performance enhancement support plan.

5.2.7     Assessing organizational readiness for change

The checklist presented in Table 5.4 can be used to assess the role and skill requirements during service transition.

Table 5.4 Organizational role and skills assessment checklist

Check	Evidence
Is there an assessment of the number of staff required and their current skill levels?	Plan
Is there a documented vision/strategy to address any risks in each area (e.g. resource shortfalls – start hiring actions, sub-contract or outsource the whole area)?	Vision/strategy
Have the generic roles and interactions throughout the service transition been reviewed?	Roles and responsibilities interaction matrix
Are the specific roles and measures defined?	Performance measures by role
Have the skills for each area, i.e. content, application, technical and business, been defined?	Skills requirements for each area
Is there an assessment of the organization’s personnel against the requirements?	Assessment report
Have personnel from areas in the organization other than the areas covered by the service transition been considered?	Assessment report
Have the requirements for both development and maintenance that support the business needs been considered?	Requirements
Has the level of risk that relates to the support available for certain areas been documented? Also the areas that cannot be supported and the assumptions that apply to the analysis?	Risk assessment report

5.2.8     Monitoring progress of organizational change

To enable a service transition programme to be effective and successful, regular checks/surveys should be performed throughout many different levels of the organization. Table 5.5 shows a feedback survey that could be used with individuals and teams involved.

Table 5.5 Example of a feedback survey

Aspect	Response
Service transition meetings are properly managed and run effectively.
I have a clear idea of what is expected of me during this service transition.
I am confident that I can successfully accomplish the assigned service transition work.
My manager encourages me to exchange ideas about how to work better and/or improve the current processes.
My manager is willing to listen to my concerns and ideas and pursue them on my behalf.
The service transition communication methods, frequency and content meet my needs.
The atmosphere during the service transition is friendly and helpful and open.
There is sufficient effort being made to gather and evaluate the opinions and thinking of all members of the service transition team.
I clearly understand the operational needs of this service transition.
The work that I am responsible for will meet the service transition and operational needs of the business users.
The job requirements allow me to balance my workload and personal life.
I believe that real actions and service transition management consideration will result from my feedback captured from surveys.

The results of any survey should be useful in determining the progress made through service transition. This will include the status of employee commitment and any areas for improvement. This will also serve as a useful tool at various milestones within the transition journey. Employees will feel that their opinions count at a critical time as they go into the service transition programme. This is where positive engagement of the new processes can be increased by ‘taking the majority with you’.

Monitoring is, of course, only the first part of a series of actions. The responses obtained must be analysed and understood. Where required, issues should be addressed and fixed as soon as possible. Respondents to the survey must be kept informed of changes that result from their feedback. Only in this way can staff have confidence that their feedback matters and achieves improvements.

Often, improvements will be identified in the post-implementation review of the service change and can feed into the CSI register.

5.2.9     Dealing with the organization and people in sourcing changes

A change in sourcing of IT services is one of the most significant, and often most traumatic, kinds of organizational change. Several different impacts and effects on staff will need to be considered, planned and prepared for.

5.2.9.1     Employee shock

One of the biggest changes that will be caused by sourcing is ‘employee shock’. Many staff functions may evolve into more generic concerns such as project management and negotiation management. There will also be a morale issue caused by transition of staff replaced by the sourcing function. These perceptions need to be addressed early on, at the beginning of the initiative, so that the employees are completely aware of what is about to happen. Lack of communication and secretive behaviour only promotes suspicion and can lead to negative and disruptive attitudes. Sourcing is best done in an open atmosphere where all the options are clear and identified.

5.2.9.2     Business change

Another major change is the way business is conducted. Sharing ‘everything’ with an external service provider may lead to distrust if it is not presented in the correct terms. Care must be taken to ensure that information is passed to the service provider on a ‘need-to-know’ basis. This will keep the relationship professional.

5.2.9.3     Location change

The location of the sourcing can also present issues and risks during service transition. Typical sourcing locations are presented below, and each represents a difference from where the service was provided before:

  Local sourcing exists in the same geographical area

  Global (multi-shore) sourcing chooses the best solution non-dependent on geographical location

  Near-shore sourcing borders the client location offering same language, time zones and culture

  Offshore sourcing is located in one specific geographical location

  Combinations are becoming common with different functions, or aspects of functions, delivered in different fashions, e.g. a 9 to 5 service desk delivered locally but out-of-hours service supported from offshore.

The cultural and organizational issues relating to the change in location need to be addressed to guarantee a successful service transition.

5.2.9.4     Linking of sourcing activities throughout the organization

In planning a service transition to an external service provider, the sourcing strategy is mapped across the organization. This is where the budget is tied to the financial group, services are tied to the service delivery group, security considerations are tied to the security group etc.

Each group that is linked to the sourcing initiative must make provisions for interaction with the external service provider so that the sourcing operation will continue to run smoothly. It is important to obtain commitment from key people, and commitment-planning techniques can be used (see section 5.2.8). The links should be tested during each phase of the transition process to verify that the link is working and providing the correct transaction between the business and the external service provider.

For example, if the business wants to update the security software on the systems that the external service provider is using to run the business’s financial information, the security group should have an established contact with the vendor to convey this need.

If the vendor needs to increase the business-specific skill level of a new employee, it should have an established contact to the training department of the business and/or specialist experts within the organization.

Every aspect of the sourcing operation as it pertains to the business it supports must be linked to the appropriate area/group within the business. These links need to be identified and established early on or the sourcing relationship will not be efficient and will have many bottlenecks that will affect productivity. Service transition will need to test these links as early as possible.

5.2.10     Methods, practices and techniques

5.2.10.1   Hints and tips on managing change

There is a tendency for senior executives to skip the need for organizational change by dictating what behaviours are appropriate or by transferring or terminating employees to get the message across. Typically it works in the short term, but then falls apart after the key executive leaves or moves on to something else.

Table 5.6 provides useful advice on the dos and don’ts of managing change.

Table 5.6 Tips for managing change

Do

Don’t

Establish a baseline and vision. Develop a communication strategy and check that communications are understood. Identify impact on other services, processes, systems and people not involved in service transition. Identify impact on customers/users and other stakeholders. Get stakeholders to participate in the decision-making, prioritization, execution and benefit measurement. Be able to articulate and communicate why we are making this change. Identify new skills/knowledge required. Consider development requirements and how these requirements will be addressed – training, coaching, mentoring. Promote the right culture. Promote organizational discipline. Integrate HR support. Put the right people in the right role/job. Help people to manage stress. Encourage people to think that the situation can be improved – it generally can be. Provide easy access to information about the change. Ensure new or changed documentation/instructions are concise and understandable for the target audience.

Try to micro-manage everything. Put minor changes through bureaucratic processes. Forget the agreed degree of exposure to risk – in many circumstances the business is taking commercial risks as a deliberate policy, but IT and others stand to undermine the business justifications and policies by trying to remove risk from their component of a business change. Ignore input from stakeholders. Focus solely on the IT – all components of a service must be transitioned. Forget the people. Over-complicate things – this makes them harder for people to understand. Ignore the after-effects of failed changes on people. Neglect the costs of transition. Succumb to inertia – instead re-assess validity and relevance of the service or change. Pretend that there will be no losers.

5.2.10.2   J. P. Kotter’s eight steps to transform your organization

J. P. Kotter’s eight steps to transform your organization, shown in Table 5.7, is a well-proven approach to managing transformation. This is a useful method to use to identify gaps in plans for managing organizational change.

Table 5.7 J. P. Kotter’s ‘eight steps to transform your organization’

Leading change: eight steps	Core challenge	Desired behaviour
1. Establish a sense of urgency.	Get people ‘out of the bunker’ and ready to move.	People start telling each other, ‘Let’s go, we need to change things!’
2. Create a guiding coalition.	Get the right people in place with the trust, emotional commitment and teamwork to guide the difficult change process.	A group powerful enough to guide large changes (and that works well together) influences others to accept change.
3. Develop a vision and strategy.	Get the guiding team to create the right vision and strategies to guide action in all of the remaining stages of change. This requires moving beyond number crunching to address the creative and emotional components of vision.	The guiding team develops the right vision and strategy for the change effort.
4. Communicate the change vision (and, communicate it over and over again).	Get as many people as possible acting to make the vision a reality.	People begin to buy in to the change and this shows in their behaviour.
5. Empower broad-based action.	Remove key obstacles that stop people from acting on the vision.	More people feel able to act, and do act, on the vision.
6. Create short-term wins.	Produce enough short-term (quick) wins fast enough to energize the change helpers, enlighten the pessimists, defuse the cynics and build momentum for the effort.	Momentum builds as people try to fulfil the vision, while fewer and fewer resist change.
7. Consolidate gains and produce more change.	Continue with wave after wave of change, not stopping until the vision is a reality – no matter how big the obstacles.	People remain energized and motivated to push change forward until the vision is fulfilled – fully realized.
8. Anchor new approaches in the culture.	Create a supporting structure that provides roots for the new ways of operating.	New and winning behaviour continues despite the pull of tradition, turnover of change leaders etc.

Further detail on J. P. Kotter’s eight steps to transform your organization is described in ITIL Continual Service Improvement. These are iterative stages, and at each communication event, people’s understanding needs to be checked.

5.2.10.3   Organizational change strategies

Service transition will be interested in the proposed strategies for managing organizational change. These can be used to assess the approach from service design and to manage change during service transition and identify issues and risks relating to organizational change.

Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) suggested the following strategies that work well in practice:

  Education and commitment  The sooner managers give people information about the change and the implications for them, the more successful the implementation of change is likely to be. Education and commitment begin in the early planning activities. The discussions generated around the pros and cons of the plan will help to dispel scepticism about the need for change and forge strong alliances that can be used as a change agent.

  Participation and involvement  Allowing people to participate in the change normally overcomes resistance. On its own it is not enough; it must be used in conjunction with a policy of education and commitment (so that people understand the need for change) and effective monitoring and review for managers to be able to assess the impact of change on the service transition programme. It is not unusual for people to revert to familiar working practices, even though they support the changes. ‘Change fatigue’ is a well-recognized concept that can be expected at some stage and should be monitored.

  Facilitation and support  Managers should be ready to respond positively when fears and anxieties about the change are expressed. Talking through the issues and performing a skills gap analysis may be sufficient, but at other times training in the new processes will be necessary, preferably prior to implementation. The manager should constantly promote the benefits of the change, reminding people of the objectives, and communicating a clear vision of what the organization will look like in the future and how employees’ contribution is valuable in making that happen. Some expressed resistance can be positive because it shows that the employees are involved and can probably be moved through the cycle (see Figure 5.4) to a point of acceptance. Employees who show no visible emotion are the ones who need extra attention to identify the hidden issues and deal with them, otherwise secretive and subversive activities may result.

  Negotiation and agreement  Change is easier to implement if you have agreement; gaining agreement suggests negotiation, so managers should be prepared to negotiate, formally if necessary. The relative cost of gaining agreement should be set against the importance of the change. Service transition has a major role in ensuring that such agreement is gained after each service lifecycle stage. Involvement with unions or works councils and HR will be needed, especially if negative impact on individuals is expected.

  Manipulation and co-option  It is sometimes necessary to strike deals with those who oppose change, either by making them privy to restricted information or by ‘buying them off’, i.e. giving them extra rewards (financial or otherwise) to gain their participation. This approach should be used with the caveat that it is likely to cause problems later on. It is often used when the service provider changes and there is a risk to the operational services if key staff with irreplaceable knowledge and experience leave.

  Explicit and implicit coercion  There are occasions when coercion is the appropriate tactic. It will come with associated costs, similar to the directive approach of ‘act now explain later’. Coercion may well run counter to the values and beliefs of your organization and, by inference, to individuals working in it. Strong leadership is needed if using this strategy, together with a full knowledge of the situation and the possible problems that will be caused.

Other methods that managers commonly use are:

  Rewarding desirable behaviour, while at the same time ignoring or discouraging inappropriate behaviour that is detrimental to the service transition programme.

  Treating ‘hurting’ systems by identifying what it is that the people, whose commitment you need, dislike about the current system and putting it right. Managers can do this for individuals or encourage them to identify their own solutions.

  Exposing the issues in a sensitive manner. People are likely to take a stance against the change if they are made to feel that their worries are insignificant or they are being backed into a corner. Holding an informal, open meeting at which no minutes are taken, where all the issues are discussed, in order to gain a greater understanding of one another’s viewpoint on the services to date and the transition plan, will help to avoid entrenched attitudes.

  Being a role model for the change. Managers should behave in ways that are congruent with the expected outcome, reinforcing the vision of the change. Their enthusiasm can be infectious, acting as a positive agent for change.

  Using peer-group pressure to persuade people that the change is good for the organization. Managers need to identify those individuals who command respect among their peers and gain their support. The Pareto principle of 80:20 is an effective measure – once 80% of the people will let change happen (or even make change happen) you can move on to the next phase; the other 20% will follow.

  Encouraging the sharing of positive changes and celebrating success; allowing others to see that it really does work will encourage them to embrace the change.

5.2.10.4   Techniques to overcome individuals’ resistance to change

Rosabeth Moss Kanter identified ten reasons why people would resist change, and optional strategies that will promote positive change enablers. These can be helpful for service transition staff when they are involved in managing stakeholder change to overcome issues from individuals during transition. The ten reasons are:

  Loss of control  When you move people from a process with which they are familiar to one they know little about, they will experience a feeling of losing control. This can be overcome by involving them in the decision-making, even allowing them to make decisions for themselves. It is essential to inform people of what choices they have – even if they are extremely limited. Managers should anticipate who is likely to oppose the changes and decide how to win them over. A detailed explanation of the business benefit and the return on investment (ROI) will strike a sense of urgency and awareness as to how the new service transition will support the business needs.

  Excessive personal uncertainty  The first question most people will ask is ‘What is this going to mean for my job?’ This can be answered effectively by explaining the need for, and implication of, the change at both a business and a personal level, including the often difficult issue of estimating how long the period of uncertainty will last. Honesty is the best policy.

  Avoid surprises  People like to be given the opportunity to think through the implications of change to/for them; springing new ideas on them will create scepticism.

  The difference effect  People build identities around many facets of their work – their role, the job, the building, the corporate name – it gives them a sense of tradition. Managers should only change what they must, keeping familiar symbols wherever possible.

  Loss of face  People dislike moving from a position of competence to one of incompetence, which can often happen when new processes, systems and ways of working are introduced. Managers can alleviate this problem by acknowledging the person’s competence under the old regime and letting them participate in deciding the change process. This can also be done by allowing a joint responsibility for personal objective setting. This will generate early engagement as the change transitions.

  Fear about competence  Some people will believe that they cannot adopt the new ways of working – ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks!’ The solution is to give them the training/coaching they need before the new system is implemented, allowing them to have practice runs before the system goes live so that they prove their competence to themselves, thereby creating enhanced levels of confidence. This can have the added bonus of increasing their desire for change, and personal responsibility to their own career development.

  Ripples  The unexpected effect of an action taken in one area on another. Managers would be naïve to think that planned change is trouble free; sometimes it is impossible to predict accurately the effect that one change will have on another part of the organization. During the planning phase people should be encouraged to think widely and divergently, considering unlikely as well as likely possibilities when attempting to predict outcomes; this catastrophe planning can help to minimize the ripple effect.

  Increase in workload Change frequently results in more work. If this is the reality, it should be acknowledged and rewarded if possible.

  Past resentments  If the proposed change is associated with an individual or organization about which the person has a grievance, they will resist the change. If people are allowed to air their resentments, managers will have the opportunity to remove or repair the grievances.

  Real threats  There are times when change is going to have a negative impact on the individual, and they are justified in resisting. Pretending it is going to be all right does not help; managers need to act first and act fast by talking with people as soon as possible, and involving them in the solution.

5.3     STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT

Stakeholder management is a crucial success factor in service transition. The new or changed service must support and deliver stakeholder requirements to be considered successful, and the active involvement of stakeholders will increase the likelihood of delivering as required. Failure to properly identify all stakeholder groups makes it almost inevitable that many of those affected will be unaware of proposed changes and unable to register their concerns and wishes; nor will they be able to be supportive if they are not included.

5.3.1     Stakeholder management strategy

The stakeholder management strategy from service design sets out:

  Who the stakeholders are

  What their interests and influences are likely to be

  How the project or programme will engage with them

  What information will be communicated

  How feedback will be processed.

It is helpful for service transition if stakeholders are listed under categories such as ‘users/beneficiaries’ or ‘providers’. Each category can then be broken down further if necessary. Categories should be recognizable groups rather than abstract ones; for example, ‘employees based in one geographical location’ are a readily identifiable group, whereas ‘members of the public who support human rights’ are not. Some categories may identify the same individuals, but it is often useful to differentiate between stakeholders ‘wearing different hats’, such as those shown in Figure 5.5.

Figure 5.5 Potential stakeholders

5.3.2     Stakeholder map and analysis

Stakeholders inevitably have different interest areas in the overall change: for example, some will be concerned with how the change will affect their working environment; others will want to influence changes in the way customers are handled. A stakeholder map (see Figure 5.6) is a useful way of plotting the various stakeholders against their interests in the service transition, its activities and outcomes. Service transition should work with service design to ensure that there is an accurate and relevant stakeholder map or equivalent.

Figure 5.6 Example of a stakeholder map

Examples of those who may be affected are:

  Sponsors of the service change, e.g. technology refresh

  Those affected by the service change or service transition

  Suppliers of goods or services

  Service management teams involved in the new or changed service

  Customers or consumers who will be affected by the service transition or the new or changed service

  Relationship management staff

  Internal and/or external audit

  Information security

  Fraud unit

  Risk management

  Shareholders, management and staff of the organization

  Labour groups/trade unions/works councils

  Political or regulatory bodies

  The wider community, such as the general public

  Project and programme management teams delivering the projects within the overall service lifecycle.

A stakeholder analysis helps to ensure that there is sufficient understanding of the stakeholder requirements and the stakeholders’ interests in, and impacts on, the change. Stakeholders’ positions (in terms of influence and impact) may be rational and justifiable or emotional and unfounded. However, they must all be taken into account since, by definition, stakeholders can affect the change process and hence the service transition.

There is often a re-usable element of the stakeholder map and analysis. For example, where many projects are delivering into a shared service and infrastructure, the stakeholders may be the same: including the business sponsor, the service operation manager, the head of service management and permanent members of a change advisory board.

The stakeholder analysis helps to ensure that communication channels are targeted appropriately and that messages, media and levels of detail reflect the needs of the relevant stakeholders. The communications channels may need to accommodate stakeholders who cannot be engaged directly with the service transition. In many cases, working through partners, industry groups, regulatory bodies etc. may be required. Often, one larger communication approach, covering all areas, can help to deliver a more consistent and stronger message than by operating at functional level.

One technique for analysing stakeholders is to consider each stakeholder in terms of their importance to service transition and the potential impact of the change on them and ‘plot’ them on a matrix (see Figure 5.7). This will guide the activities that service transition should adopt. For example

  A business sponsor will have a ‘high’ status of importance to the overall service change, and, depending on the scale and opportunities for any return on their investment, the impact of the new or changed service may be ‘low’, ‘medium’ or ‘high’.

  Someone who works on the service desk, supporting a different service, will have a low importance to the overall service change and the service impact will have a low impact on them.

Figure 5.7 Power impact matrix

Stakeholders may move up or down the matrix as the service progresses through the lifecycle, so it is important to revisit the stakeholder analysis work, particularly during the detailed planning for service transition. Responsible stakeholders can and should enhance and even alter the course of the service transition.

5.3.2.1     Stakeholder changes

During the service lifecycle, stakeholders may come and go. Key stakeholders, such as the change sponsors, should (hopefully!) remain constant throughout. But sufficient records and documentation will be maintained to enable effective handover in the event that individuals are replaced: ‘sufficient’ is adjudged in accordance with business risk and cost.

Some stakeholders will be able to participate in advisory or assurance roles; some will be important in assessing the realization of the benefits; others will have an audit perspective.

5.3.3     Changes in stakeholder commitment

Figure 5.8 is a sample commitment plan. It shows the current commitment level of individuals and groups, and how that commitment must change if the transition is to be successful.

Figure 5.8 Example of a commitment planning chart

Each individual is rated with an ‘O’ to indicate their current position and an ‘X’ to indicate the degree of commitment needed from them. Sometimes they need to step back, e.g. the departing director of customer in this table would need to hand over the leadership role.