The first
three months of your change program can be a stressful time.
The first
month of your program will have you setting up the channels and modes, as well
as getting your Project Control Group, leadership teams and Work stream
counterparts comfortable that you know what you are doing. This includes asking
for others to help you set up the communication foundations.
In the
second month you will be forming communication packs to set the minds of the
leadership at ease showing you have a change and comms plan and of course,
there is the forming of 'that' plan or program.
Heading into
the third month you will be busy communicating what you need from others to do
the work in front of you.
These first
three months can be a daunting time as the themes for the Workplace Change may
not be agreed yet, but don't fear, the information you will receive in this
course will enable you to get the rubber on the road and lead confidently.
The first
course in this series will focus on Month 1.
Scope and
Strategy
Once
engaged, get as much information as possible about how this project has come
about. You may have been provided some information in the interview, or you may
know the business well, whatever the situation, information is power and will
help your change program.
It is
reasonable to think there will be more than one reason for this Workplace
Change and the more you know, the more considered you can be when planning and
scheduling activities. The following topics in this Pack are key
requirements for Month 1.
Business
Case – Communicate how this workplace change came about
Not Everyone
will have the same information. Make sure that the information about project
comes from the project teams where possible rather than coffee machine conversions,
where urban myths can be developed.
Work out
what you tell and where it suits in your change & Communications strategy.
The Wider
business needs to know how we got to this decision and what the changes will be
you don’t have to be too prescriptive in the early months about the future changes
but you need to start communications about anything you have access to now in
the various packs you will develop and meeting you will chair or attend
Measure
Sentiments and Responses as you go through your change program.
There will
be many times you will repeat the central information about how this project
came about. Make sure you sell the sizzle and scaffold on the story as it progresses
look at ways to sell your messaging on different information sources I.e
meeting agendas, stand up team meetings etc and review regularly how well this
information was received and/or perceived. This will give you insights into
what people are excited about and what people are concerned about review and
remedy any concerns before they turn into issues.
Do Your home
work and understand how project works
It is
important to get as much information as you can on what others are doing in changes
project elsewhere. Its is also really useful to understand what is going on in
the project that the other work stream leads may be working on.
Endorsement
by the Leaders
The approval
from the Business Leaders and their engagement in the proposed plan including
their perspective on the change is paramount.
Get their
input and sentiments on what the change means to them
Get their
buy in during business readiness diagnostics. Meet with managers and ask
them to undertake a business readiness assessment/evaluation.
No
Secrets
Provide
Leaders a heads-up of upcoming announcements so they can prepare their teams.
Keep them up to date on content of Packs and always keep the Change & Comms
Program up-to-date in case they want to look at it.
Help
Leaders to help you and the Change stream
Leave no
doubt to the commitment required of all Leaders. Remind them regularly
what is required of them and always provide the estimated hours of engagement
required of them and their teams. Provide tailored communications to meet
Leaders communication criterion with their staff and make it easy for them to
put their name to it and send it out quickly.
Consistency
Key things
to remember in getting the endorsement by the Leaders and keeping their support
is to make sure you are consistent with your messaging and actions. They
won’t back you if you aren’t highly organised, consistent and show a high level
of emotional intelligence towards the business and their teams.
Get into the
rhythm of developing Packs that go out the same time every month, and involve
leaders where required, or at least asking for their input at different times.
Inclusion is key here.
Socialise
the Change and Comms Program with them. This will set their mind at ease
and help them answer queries from their staff. Refer to where you are at
in the program regularly so they can see everything is running to plan and
under control.
Make sure
you have their sentiments on what the change means to them, their teams and
where required, build in any messaging and activities that will win their
approval.
Project
Governance
As you are
learning about the Mission and Vision of the project, and who the Leaders are,
you also need to know how the project governance works. Much of this
information can be provided by your Project Director.
Examples of
project governance are:
·
Org
Chart/team structure
·
Schedule
of regular meetings with team (Project Working Groups)
·
Weekly
meetings with your Project Director to provide update on your work streams
progress
·
Roles
and Responsibilities
·
Minutes
of meetings
·
Peer
feedback
·
PWG
and Project Director feedback
Your Project
Director should set up discussions with you and the other work streams
socialising the roles and responsibilities of each of you, and you in
turn should prepare and issue roles and responsibilities to your change
champions.
What the
Project Is to Achieve
Work with
the internally appointed team to initiate the workplace roadmap, with a focus
on governance (control and monitoring, effective communication
protocols), risk management, and the overall timeline.
The PCG may
take the Change initiatives to the Exec Leadership team for approval (this will
help us understand how far we can go). Remember before you start your Change
& Comms Program review the Business Case and other Research documents.
Do your homework as your program will be scrutinised so don’t lose
support early by leaving out something imperative, or putting something in the
program that is adverse to the direction of the business.
Each
business will have different protocols and before you launch your change and
comms program, socialise socialise socialise.
1. Check with the Project Control Group
the changes they expect to see?
2. Find out expectations and frequencies
of Packs
3. Is there a continued requirement for
Endorsement of Initiatives as you go, or can you lead comfortably once the have
signed off on your Change & Comms Program?
4. What is the Requirement and Plan for
support from the Property team, Project Director, People & Culture Team,
Records Management Teams, HSE and others?
5. Take guidance from your Project
Director on who sees it, who approves and endorses it.
The Change
Manager should provide the Project Director with recommended reporting for Work
streams to bridge any gaps in communication between the Work streams. The
lack of clarity across Workstreams in roles and responsibilities can often be
the number #1 cause of confusion for the project team. The Change Manager
should work with the Project Director, the internal Change & Comms Teams
and any other corporate identify teams to ensure effective Work streamflow and
roles and responsibilities.
Get underway
in socialising the change management approach with workstream leads.
Hold a kick-off session with key stakeholders to agree on the goals
and objectives for managing the journey and to discuss a high-level
approach to the change strategy for the project, identifying any critical
communication points (to enable these to be communicated early, and often, to
employees). Inconsistent messages will cause confusion). Remember that
the initial email that you should send to the project team should acknowledge
that you know of their roles and will pursue discussion on how you will be
working together!
The Change
Manager should have their ear out for identifying any gap in project team
representation and in communication flows. There is a level of guidance
required for Work streams generally as they have varying degrees of
understanding of how the project should be managed. For this reason, the
Change Stream should be the conduit between the Streams and filtering inputs
and outputs. It is not unusual for the Change Stream to identify the
different groups that will be recipient of Info Packs.
Don’t leave
it up to others to send you rotating into the universe having conversations
with all and sundry that don’t need to know the material you need to share.
Project
Identity
Depending of
when you are brought into the project there may be the opportunity to name the
project.
Workshop or
socialise the project name with the Project Working Group.Present 2 options to
Project Control Group of project name and logo and seek endorsement.
Don’t use
this project name in any materials until the name and logo is approved.
If rework is required, communicate to your Project working Group why,
rework the detail and then table it again in next Project Control Group
meeting.
Understanding
the project identity including how all project stakeholders are aligning their
journey roadmap and project timelines for the project is important for the
Change Manager. The Change Manager is one cog in a large wheel and should
understand all significant project team undertakings (such as: IT, Design and
the Fit out teams). The Change Manager should update the Change &
Comms Plan and other programs as required to align with the communications
strategy and design program and process. This will be realigned monthly.
Understanding
the project identity will enable the Change Manager to better align
deliverables from these other streams to the Change and Communications
strategy.
Research
This is
the time to get to know the business.
Has there
been previous relocation projects that we can learn from? If so, get your
hands on any Lessons Learned and User Requirements/Design Requirements
documentation and if your Project Director likes the idea, schedule a Lessons
Learned meeting where you summarise and report what went well and what didn’t.
Invite the other Work stream Leads.
Get to know
who the other people are in the business managing different projects and find
out what cross project initiatives may be underway. These initiatives could
conflict, clash or undermine your efforts, so best to know what the impacts are
before you go too far.
Review the
Activities and Training Strategy documents available and think about how you
are going to incorporate cultural change, brand initiatives, Business
Continuity Planning, social responsibility, and measures of success.
Determine
The Key Objectives Of Messaging And Focus Points.
Research is
broad and includes understanding the brand, culture and values. Regardless of
the structure of your project team, understanding the brand, culture and values
of the organisation is critical. The Change Manager is generally working
tandem with internal comms throughout the project, however be warned, if you
are an external Change Manager coming in to work on the project, you need to
earn the trust and understand how to work with the business. The business
will be focusing on mitigating risk of others and managing reputational risk.
There is nothing worse than a project team member, let alone the Change Manager
thinking they know better than the business and their established codes.
It is often that Change Managers are swapped out during long projects for
exactly this reason.
Find out
what success looks like to the PCG, Strategic leads and other key stakeholders.
Do this
by:
·
Participating
in meetings
·
Capturing
people-related concerns
·
Meetings
with People & Culture, Brand, Internal Comms teams, Corporate Affairs
·
Issue
questionnaires on success factors
·
Socialise
and seek endorsement of a Stakeholder Engagement Workshop and deliver
Engagement Workshops
·
Be
diligent in the beginning with attendance at all meetings (don’t be too busy)
·
Document
all sentiments and diagnostics in a Business Unit Requirements database
and assign responsibilities to all work streams
·
Explore
cross-project opportunities with concurrent initiatives, such as Diversity,
‘Flexible work from home', IT Projects and Hack/Sprint projects?
·
Review
Success Factors And Report Back To Project Control Group, PWG, Strategic Leads
And Change Leads
Communication
with Your Project Team
Now that you
have been introduced at the Project Working Group, Project Control Group or any
other significant stakeholder meeting, you will need to get moving on the
Change & Comms Plan if you haven’t populated it too heavily already.
You may
follow up with your project team after your first meeting. Send an email
providing heads up of what you see going on in the coming weeks. Your email may
include the following:
Hi all
Great
meeting you today and I look forward to working with you over the next 12
months. I also thank you in advance for your willingness to tele-hookup
individually or as small teams so I can get some further information on what
your stream is doing in the project. This will help me determine where
the Change stream can help socialise new initiatives and also help with the
messaging.
Tell them
how you want them to catch up with you.
Tell them
who you will be working with to coordinate setting up the meetings, after all,
you probably don’t know the lay of the land yet!
I will be in
contact with [ ] shortly
to coordinate the meetings with you and I will preside. I propose to send
an agenda in advance of our hook-ups so you can see what we would like to
discuss with you, and welcome you adding anything further to the discussion.
Of course, we will be in touch regularly but if we can get enough
milestones into the change program now this help me greatly in looking ahead
for when the project team needs to contribute to content for release and
ensures we all get the support we need and can walk the talk.
Give them
heads up of what things are coming
To give you
an idea of the sort of things I will want to discuss I have grouped examples
below into Work streams. The comms stream will of course be welcomed to
sit in on any discussions.
Discussion
with the Property team to include:
Pack
inclusions
·
Select
the right packs for the different leadership groups;
·
Project
stakeholder roles, inputs and outputs;
·
High
level milestones with activities ticked off as we go to form the bigger
picture;
·
The
help we will give each other;
·
Concurrent
projects and activities and any crossovers that we all need to be aware of;
·
In
Focus topics and how/when staff will be introduced to the features and
facilities of the new office.
Discussions
with the Change and Comms Stream to include:
Communications
and Channels
·
Determining
the level of communication suitable for the project;
·
Identifying
the communication modes, channels and tools we will be using;
·
Content
Plan 60 days;
·
Announcements
and who’s involved in making them, how and when;
·
Communication
engagement plan that drills down on the approach to deliver the change and
comms strategy and the multiple engagement plans that focus on the strategy as
a whole, or different milestones in the project.
Discussions
with the Technology Lead to include:
Technology
·
Understanding
what we know now, what’s new and what’s in progress, the detailed IT discovery
and how we can help;
·
Physical
support and education and how to mesh the IT Change Plan with the overall
Change Plan;
·
What
Technologies we are introducing into the existing building to ease transition;
·
Teams
that have requirements outside the normal hardware range supported by IT or
that work differently to others.
Discussions
with Workplace Services to include:
Facilities
·
Timing
for interactions with staff;
·
Timing
for introduction to the new Facilities, Site Tours, New Meeting room protocols,
Gap Analysis of current state to future and procurement changes, Change of
Address notifications;
·
Pilot
space rotations, health and wellness, workplace etiquettes, clean desk
guidelines, clean up campaigns, relocation readiness.
Sign off
with a Summary of what you discussed and next steps. Tell them who is
going to help you set up the meetings, and give them a timeline for these
meetings so they can placehold them in their calendars.
In short,
the above is just an example and is certaintly not conclusive. These are
just some of the things that come to mind and that I would like to start
exploring with the different Work stream leads. Of course we will focus
on the upcoming theme which is ‘What does working agile mean’ and this will
include discussions with all streams, including with People & Culture, HSE
and any other functional leads connected with the project.
Next
steps
[Name of
support ] to find a time in your diary (1 hr maximum). Preferably starting
[date] from [time].
[You, the
Change Manager] to send an agenda for each meeting.
All parties
to put down on the agenda what they want to discuss if not already
included.
After we
have our meetings, I will send you each through a revised Change & Comms
Plan. I will then start reporting on this weekly which will keep us
moving in the right direction and providing comfort.
Some Work
stream members may have never gone through changes like this before. If
you have a Case Study of a similar project, provide it.
I attach a
case study of my work with [provide an example of a project similar in
challenges] which was a very similar program to our project and which involved
moving [# of people] to [name the style of working].
I look
forward to speaking with you this week and please accept my apologies if I have
left anyone off that should receive this email. I would be grateful if
you forwarded it to them.
NOW SIGN OFF
and get to work on forming relationships with these people. You are going
to need them to work with you closely for the next 12 months or more and you
As is true
with the old saying, ‘people like people who like them’, the same is true for
‘people help people who help them.’
Nominations
and Comms Process
If this
hasn’t happened yet, the Change Manager may be involved in nominations of the
Change Champions, Tactical Leads, or Change Agents or whatever else the
business may call them, and how this process is undertaken. Forming
project teams is incredibly important. The Change Champions like any
other members of the project team need to be in place for project success.
Don’t underestimate the relevance of a project organisation chart and
what governance structure a workplace change project follows.
The Change
Manager will assist the Strategic Leaders in appointing their internal Change
Champions (Reference Group) who will be integral stakeholders in the process.
The Change
Champions for a workplace project play a significant part in the project as
they are the conduit between the project team and the business.
Engagement
program outlining time commitments of the Change Champions and Role and
responsibilities document of the Change Champion
After
identifying what the role is for this essential group, the Change Manager will
assist with the nomination process and formal engagement.
Your first
month when doing the job is all about Exploration including finding out the
business case for this change regardless if it is a result of a real estate
transaction or whether it is a re-set of the companies workplace requirements.
It is
important for the Change Manager to do as much digging as possible so you can
get the full picture of how this change has come about, and who are the
stakeholders involved.
There can be
other projects underway that may work against your project if you don’t
understand the landsape.
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