CHAPTER 8
Communicating Change
You can’t build an adaptable organization without adaptable people—and individuals change only when they have to, or when they want to.1
—Gary Hamel, American management consultant, professor, and author
What is a project if not an engine for change? Whether the goal is to build a bridge, develop a new piece of software, transform an organization, or offer a new service or product to customers, the intent is that at the end of the project, something will be different than when it began. The opening pages of the PMBOK® Guide plainly state, “Projects drive change in organizations.”2
At the same time, humans are naturally resistant to change. Employees can view change within an organization as a threat in many different ways—to their sense of control, to their feeling of competence in doing their job, to their expected workload and ability to complete everything asked of them, and even to their job security if the change could make what they do obsolete. They are uncertain, and depending upon whether and how their uncertainty is addressed, they could resist the change.
Change initiatives have a high rate of failure. Research shows that anywhere from 46 to 70 percent of organizational change efforts fail. Research also shows, however, that actively managing change positively impacts success in projects and organizational initiatives.3,4 Organizations that excel at change management are five times more likely to integrate communication into their change management strategy, and are eight times more likely to implement and maintain changes.5 If all projects involve change, then all projects should at least take into consideration the concept of managing and communicating change.
The purpose of this chapter is to help you:
• Understand change management, including three common models of managing change
• Describe how change management and project management work together
• Integrate change management into a project through communications
• Put it into practice: Communicating change in traditional, agile, and virtual project teams
What Is Change Management?
The Association for Change Management Professionals (ACMP) defines change as “the transition from a current state to a future state.”6 Current state and future state bookend the change—they are defined respectively as the conditions at the start when the change begins, and at the end once the benefits of the change have been realized.
Change management is “the practice of applying a structured approach to the transition of an organization from a current state to a future state to achieve expected benefits.”7 It focuses on the people within the organization who are affected by the change (all stakeholders, including the project team), and how to support them in accepting the change and transitioning to the future state.
How Do Change Management and Project Management Work Together?
The ACMP’s Standard for Change Management specifically calls out the relationship between change management and project management.
Project management methodologies typically emphasize the organization and management of resources and activities required to complete projects (deliver the change) within the defined scope, budget, timeline, and quality standards. Change management methodologies typically emphasize the people side of change and the activities required to prepare the organization for the delivered change, facilitate the transition from the old way of working to the future state, and embed the change as the new norm.8
As you can see, change management and project management differ, but overlap and are often interdependent. Integrating the two can help ensure that the objectives of the project (and the organization) are achieved. The responsibility for that integration varies depending on the context of the project.
1. Some organizations have change management offices, departments, and/or practitioners who specialize in this methodology. These practitioners are often part of the project team, and their role is to ensure the integration of change management principles into the life cycle of the project.
2. Other organizations expect communication professionals to address change management as part of their responsibilities within a project.
3. In many projects, change management or communication resources are not available to the project team. In these cases, it is the responsibility of the project team to ensure that change management principles are addressed.
This chapter is most applicable to the third situation and focuses on offering knowledge and communication strategies to project managers and team members who wish to incorporate change management methodology into their projects.
Change Management Models
There are a number of change management models available. Here is a brief overview of three of the most common: Kotter’s eight-step model, Lewin’s model, and the Prosci ADKAR model. While these models have different components and approaches, you’ll see that they address similar concepts. Models like these can be useful frameworks to help you integrate change management principles into your project.
Kotter’s Eight Steps
In his best-selling book Leading Change, John Kotter proposes an eight-step plan to help organizations change successfully. He based his approach on his personal experience and research with dozens of organizational change initiatives.
1. Create a sense of urgency around identified crises or opportunities.
2. Build a team to lead the change.
3. Develop a vision for the change, and a strategy to achieve the vision.
4. Get everyone on board by communicating the change vision.
5. Empower employees to action and remove barriers to change.
6. Generate short-term wins to build momentum and positive reaction to the change.
7. Continue the change momentum until the change vision is achieved.
8. Anchor the change within the organization’s culture.9
Lewin’s Model
Kurt Lewin’s model for change is one of the earliest (1951), and while it is simple, it is still widely used today. He presented “Changing as Three Steps,” or CATS:
Step 1: Unfreeze—People and organizations must prepare for change. One strategy to accomplish this is to demonstrate the discrepancy between the current state and the desired state.
Step 2: Change—People must change behaviors and embrace new roles and responsibilities. This is where change is put into action through new structures and processes.
Step 3: Refreeze—The new systems and behaviors are cemented into place. Support mechanisms like reward systems and reinforced cultural values can help accomplish this.10
The Prosci ADKAR Model
Jeff Hiatt, founder of the change management consultancy and training organization Prosci, developed a model that can be a useful tool in understanding and facilitating the five outcomes that individuals need to achieve in order to make change “stick.”
• Awareness of the reasons/need for change
• Desire to participate in the change
• Knowledge about how to change
• Ability to implement the change
• Reinforcement of the change11
Communicating Change
Incorporating principles of change management into your project communications is a natural fit. Managing change is much like managing uncertainty, which we have addressed throughout this book. The rest of this chapter outlines four change management concepts to build into your project communications. These concepts are drawn from the change management models described above, as well as the ACMP’s Standard for Change Management.
1. The need for change
2. The effect of the change on stakeholders
3. Stakeholder support through the change
4. Change reinforcement
As you build your project communications management plan (see Chapter 5), use these four concepts to inform the content of your messages, timing, and other aspects of the plan. If you’re struggling to understand just how these four concepts should play out in your project, ask your stakeholders to tell you. Involving them and asking for their input on the project can increase their commitment to and readiness for the change. Avenues for this include using sensing mechanisms like surveys or focus groups, or bringing in stakeholders as members of the project team, subject matter experts, testers, or other roles as appropriate.
To demonstrate this approach in practice, let’s look at an example of a financial software implementation project. What concepts should the project team incorporate into project communications in order to ensure that the people affected by the change are ready, willing, and able to change?
The Need for Change
Employees want to know that the change is coming and why it’s happening. This includes explaining why the change is necessary, how it is tied to the organization’s overall strategy, and what the risks are of not changing. Research shows that successful companies align their projects with their overall purpose and strategy. This means explaining why the organization is undertaking the project, and how the project will help achieve organizational goals.
Communications about the need for change should start early in the project life cycle, and should clearly express the rationale for the project and relate it to the organization’s goals and/or purpose. Much of this information can often be found in project documents like the project charter and business case, as well as organizational information like mission, vision, and/or values statements.
In our financial software implementation project example, communications should:
• Address the need for the new software: e.g., the old software no longer meets regulatory requirements around financial reporting; it could not be integrated into other business processes; or the software was being discontinued by the vendor.
• Address the benefits of the new software and how it aligns with organizational goals: e.g., the new software can provide a more seamless customer experience; it will eliminate manual processes that could introduce errors; or it will facilitate better financial reporting that helps the organization identify opportunities for growth.
• Showcase sponsorship for the change: Messages from leadership legitimize the change, reinforce its alignment with organizational goals, and reassure employees they will be supported through the change. A message from the chief financial officer could underscore the importance of the change and express a strong commitment to providing support to all employees affected by it. Supportive messages from immediate supervisors of directly impacted employees can also model a demonstrated need for and commitment to the change.
Stakeholder Impact
In line with the concept of “What’s in it for me?” or WIIFM (see Chapter 3), communicating change means letting stakeholders know what to expect and when to expect it. Reduce their uncertainty and increase their trust in the project by answering their big questions.
Communications about what to expect should also begin early in the project life cycle and continue throughout. Don’t expect to know and be able to share every aspect of this information up front; tell stakeholders what you can, when you can. Don’t wait until every detail is finalized before you begin communicating, or stakeholders will begin to speculate on their own.
In our financial software implementation project example, communications should:
• Explain what employees can expect to see/experience during the implementation, i.e., give them a timeline for the software implementation, tell them how they will be supported, and reinforce why they should adopt the change (e.g., invoices will no longer be paid through the old system after the implementation date; employees will be valuable and key contributors to the organization’s ongoing success by adopting the new system). Communicate that each person is important!
• Address any anticipated risks and uncertainties. If the new software will eliminate redundancies or create efficiencies, be clear about any impact on employee jobs. New software generally requires a learning curve, so reassure employees that proper training will be provided on how to use it.
• Clearly outline expectations. While training will teach employees how to use the new software, you also need to communicate when you expect them to use it, and the consequences of not using it. For example, all payment requests must be submitted through the new system effective March 1. Any requests submitted via the old system after March 1 will not be processed and will be sent back to the requesting employee.
Support for Making the Change
Employees need to know how to make the change you are asking of them. This includes communicating, educating, and training around roles and responsibilities, processes and tools, and desired behaviors. Initial communications should emphasize that support will be provided. Once the project is underway, you can provide additional details to stakeholders as they become available, including what form the support will take, and when stakeholders can expect it.
In our financial software implementation project example, you could use communications to:
• Provide multiple educational tactics to suit employees’ different learning styles and give them a sense of control over how they will develop their knowledge. Formal training sessions can walk employees through the new software so that they can see how it works and practice using it. Follow-up videos and/or written documentation can reinforce the individual steps required to process payments with the new software. An intranet forum can provide a place for users to ask questions and project team members to share tips and best practices. Challenge yourself to use the rule of seven (see Chapter 4) by communicating a number of options for employees to learn, and then reinforce their learning.
• Acknowledge the difficulty of the change by providing adequate and contextualized information. Is this software implementation merely a shift to a new platform, where much of the purpose and functionality is similar to the old system? Is it replacing an antiquated or manual process? Does it ask employees to know or understand more of the financial processes of the organization, such as how payments are applied against budgets? Be clear and be honest—you will diminish trust if you tell employees it will be a simple transition and then it turns out to be highly challenging for them.
• Solicit and address feedback about the change. Follow up with employees to identify any pain points they may be experiencing with the new software. Was a payment process not covered in your training? Did a software update change a specific step? Iterate and rerelease training and documentation to address those areas.
Change requires adaptation to something new for everyone affected by the project. The process of adaptation can be stressful, and when stakeholders are hit with wave after wave of change, that stress can lead to change fatigue. It is most common in organizational change initiatives where many aspects of the organization’s operations and culture are expected to transition to a new state. According to a survey on organizational change initiatives by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Katzenbach Center, 65 percent of respondents cited change fatigue as the biggest obstacle to change.12
Change fatigue happens when employees face too many changes at once or in rapid succession. They’re often asked to do more, but rarely given clear prioritization of the different change initiatives. They may have seen similar change efforts fail in the past. Change fatigue is a form of burnout, and has many of the same consequences: increased absenteeism and presenteeism, lower engagement, and even increased turnover.
Change management approaches can help slow the development of change fatigue, and even combat some of its symptoms. However, even well-managed and effectively communicated change can wear people out if it goes on too long. If you think change fatigue could become an obstacle in your project, be sure to address the sources of change fatigue in your communications. However, you should consider it in your risk management planning as well, because change fatigue is a risk to your project’s success.
Change Reinforcement
Reinforcement means ensuring the change is sustained. Human beings tend to revert back to old habits and patterns, so it’s important to keep the change and its purpose in front of stakeholders even after the project itself is complete. This is one notable area where project management and change management diverge. Projects generally come to an end when the objectives of the project are achieved. Change management, however, continues after the end of the project to ensure that the outcomes are successfully adopted and integrated into the organization. It is an ongoing process to continue to influence stakeholders’ engagement with and ability to implement the change.
In cases where change management processes are the responsibility of the project team, you may have limited ability to reinforce the change. Once the project is completed, team members move on to another project and/or return to their functional roles. However, you can include ongoing communications in your project close-out process. Recommend to the sponsor or other stakeholders who will manage the outcomes of the project that they continue communicating to keep stakeholders engaged and inhibit regression back to the former state. You can even provide recommendations of what those communications should look like and include a transition management plan in your project.
Once our example software implementation project is complete, continuing communications to reinforce the change can:
• Celebrate change adoption. Share success stories of individuals or groups who are successfully utilizing the new software. Hold an event to celebrate the rollout. Be sure to reinforce the goal of the change by connecting back to the goals of the project that were outlined in your initial communications about the need for the change, such as improved customer experience, cost savings, or reduced strain on organizational resources.
• Build accountability into the process. If you have clearly laid out expectations for implementation of the change, you should also establish and communicate accountability measures if those expectations are not met. Let stakeholders know that these expectations are being integrated into existing performance management processes.
Integrating Change Management into Your Communications Plan
Depending on the degree of change, the number of stakeholders, and the size and complexity of your project, it may be helpful to map your stakeholders to each of these four concepts and use the results to help you build your project communications management plan. The template shown in Table 8.1 can serve as a guide:
Table 8.1 Stakeholder change map template
Revisit and update this chart at least as often as you review and update your project communications management plan. As with many other aspects of the project, the answers to these questions can evolve over time as the project progresses.
The end goal of both project management and change management is for the project to succeed. But the integration of change management strategies into project management broadens the definition of success beyond simply completing the project on time, within budget, and within scope. Success means realizing the benefits of the project for the organization. “When applying change management, the project manager’s goal is to deliver change that has been adopted (integrated into the organization’s work), and to ensure that the intended benefits are on track to be delivered operationally over time.”13
Putting It into Practice
Here are a few practical tips, fun activities, and useful ideas for how you can implement the concepts in this chapter into your project environment. Note that ideas listed in one type of team may be adapted to other teams. Be creative. Use these as a starting point. Add your own ideas to build your communications toolkit.
Traditional project teams |
• Challenge the project team to help implement the “rule of seven” (see Chapter 4). Have the team suggest seven different ways to communicate the change the project will bring. • At the initiation of the project, ask each team member to talk to one stakeholder about the project, and identify any uncertainties the stakeholder may have. Discuss the results and incorporate them into the project communications management plan. • Ask the project sponsor to create a brief video explaining how the change aligns with organizational objectives. Share the video with stakeholders, and post it on the project website. |
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Agile project teams |
• Ask one team member to serve as the “change voice” on the team to verify that change is being communicated using the approaches in this chapter, and to speak up if it is not. Consider rotating the role with each sprint. • Choose at least one significant win for each sprint—reaching a major project milestone, receiving positive feedback from external stakeholders, reaching goals ahead of schedule—and share with all project stakeholders. Try telling it as a story (see Chapter 7). • Don’t forget to focus on change management within the agile team. Agile projects by their nature involve significant change with each iteration. Ensure project team members understand what is changing with each sprint, why it is changing, and how they will be supported in accomplishing the goals of the next sprint. |
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Virtual project teams |
• Ask team members to act as champions of the change. Provide talking points, posters, and other tactics that can help them talk about the change face-to-face with stakeholders in their various locations. • There is a learning curve when dealing with change. If a team member or stakeholder is struggling with understanding the change, look for different ways to share the message. Find out the preferred communication method of the team member or stakeholder, and adjust accordingly. • When working virtually, change fatigue can easily occur. As the project manager, make sure you are having regular conversations with each team member. As team members, make sure you are reaching out for help—from your project manager and your team colleagues. |
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Summary
Projects create change. Projects are the connectors between where we are now (current state) and where we want to be (future state). While there are different models of change management, three of the most common are Kotter’s eight-step model, Lewin’s model, and the Prosci ADKAR model. These models can help provide frameworks for integrating change management concepts into project communications—a task that often falls to the project team.
Change creates uncertainty. When there is too much change, or the change is continuous, change fatigue can occur. To minimize the uncertainty and fatigue, communication to help stakeholders transition through the change is critical. Change communications should address the need for change, the impact of the change on stakeholders, the support that will be provided to adjust to the change, and how the change will be reinforced. Addressing change through these communication approaches can help ensure that the organization realizes the intended benefits of the project.
Key Questions
1. Think of the last project you worked on. How was change communicated? What change communications could have been improved?
2. Consider the four change management concepts in the “Communicating Change” section of this chapter. How would you apply them to communications in a current or recent project?
3. Have you ever experienced change fatigue? What were the factors that contributed to it? How were you able to address these factors to overcome change fatigue?
Notes
1. Hamel (2009), https://blogs.wsj.com/management/2009/11/13/outrunning-change-the-cliffsnotes-version-part-ii/.
2. Project Management Institute (2017), PMBOK® Guide, 6th ed., p. 6.
3. Hornstein (2015), p. 291.
4. Project Management Institute (2012), Driving Success in Challenging Times.
5. Towers Watson (2012), p. 3.
6. Association of Change Management Professionals (2018), p. 9.
7. Association of Change Management Professionals (2018), p. 9.
8. Association of Change Management Professionals (2018), p. 15.
9. Kotter International. https://www.kotterinc.com/8-steps-process-for-leading-change/
10. Cummings and Worley (2008), p. 23–24.
11. Prosci, Inc.
12. Aguirre, et al. (2013) https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/report/cultures-role-organizational-change
13. Project Management Institute (2013), Managing Change in Organizations: A Practice Guide, p. 92.
References
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Meinert, D. April 1, 2015. “Executive Briefing How to Combat Change Fatigue.” HR Magazine, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/pages/0415-execbrief.aspx
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Prosci, Inc. “The Prosci ADKAR Model: A Goal Oriented Change Management Model to Guide Individual and Organizational Change.” www.prosci.com, (accessed June 1, 2019).
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