Project management and change management can be combined
Organizational change is only possible when there is a partnership between the creation of new ways to work (projects), and their transition into the new norm (change management).
These were the key points that I made to a group project managers recently to show them that their current view on the project timeline ending with handover doesn’t do them any favors.
Top 5 Reasons Why Change Management is Important
Plan and understand: Without understanding and planning, you won’t be able to realize the benefits of your project.
It will also include identifying and including activities in your plan where users can ‘discover’ the necessary changes by participating in projects. To help them visualize the project’s impact better, we might offer them access to demo models and trial versions.
Effective Scoping: Without these transition activities, your project will be under-scoped. These persuasions and participation activities can often take longer than the creation project deliverables.
The “Right Stuff: You won’t be able to allocate enough resources without the right skills. It takes a high level of interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence to help users transition to new ways to work. Project team members must be persuasive, engaging, and able to build trust with users.
Key activities: You won’t understand the importance of key activities such as Impact Assessments, Readiness Assessments, and deployment of change levers if you don’t have a grasp of how to manage it. These activities are difficult to integrate into your project if they are not included in the project plan at the beginning.
Vital Impact Assessment: This is where you can identify the stakeholders that will be affected by your project’s knock-on effects and unintended consequences. You won’t find them unless you search for them.
This increases the number of stakeholders that require engagement, which in turn increases the number of communication activities within your project plan.
Melanie Franklin is a proven leader in program, portfolio and project planning and delivery. Over twenty years, she has managed the project management capabilities of several large corporations and been responsible for the successful delivery global transformational change programs. She is co-chair of UK’s Change Management Institute and is a ‘Master’-level change practitioner. Melanie is the author many books on project management and change, including Managing Business Transformation and Agile Management.
These links will give you more ideas on how to manage change in relation to project management.
http://agilechangemanagement.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Change-Management-for-Project-Managers.pdf
http://agilechangemanagement.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Project-Managers-are-great-change-managers-too.pdf
Melanie Franklin, Change Management Institute and Agile Change Management Ltd.
