Change Management in the Project Lifecycle: Post-Project Phase

The system has been implemented, your changes have gone live, and you give a sigh of relief.  You're done.

Wrong.

Although many companies skip it, there is still one phase left: the post-project phase.  This is the time when you kick-off sustainable activities, evaluate the success of the project, and complete any shut-down activities.  Luckily, this phase is typically less frantic than those leading up to the implementation, but it is no less important.

Sustainable Activities
There are a number of activities that should continue to occur after a project has gone live.  The one you need to focus on as a change manager is on-going training.  In the short term, there will be people who missed the training roll out and need to receive training in order to use the new system.  There will also be people who need supplemental training.  A day, a week, a month after Go Live, people will discover new areas of training that they need, as well as existing areas that they've forgotten.

In the long term, you need to have a sustainable plan in place to:

• Provide training to new hires and people who switch positions
• Update training materials as the system evolves (and it will, I guarantee it)
• Offer refresher training on activities that only occur occasionally (e.g., year-end close activities for the finance department)

Whether on-going training is an activity that is handled by a company-wide training department or the project run team, your job isn't done until you have a plan in place to address these needs.

Adoption Evaluation
I have been at a number of clients where they tell me that their past projects have failed.  When I ask them what failed, they admit it wasn't the technology.  The new system was put in place without a hitch.  The real problem is that people simply refused to use it.  Once the system has gone live, you need to evaluate whether the organization has adopted it.  Are they using it when they should?  Are they using it the way they should?  Is there an influential group that refuses to use it, thus causing other groups to avoid it as well (ahem, I'm talking about you, Management)?

If the change has been adopted, congratulations!  Now, put in place a plan to ensure the organization continues to use it.  If the change has not been adopted, start doing some analysis on why this has occurred, and put a plan in place to address the issues.

Key Performance Indicators and Achieving Business Objectives
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) may or may not be part of the Change Management team's responsibilities.  Even if it isn't, this is an area where you may want to partner with the responsible team.  If the organization is not meeting its KPIs and achieving the business objectives that were part of the project, the Change Management team will likely need to be part of the solution.  Whether there's a need for additional training, more communication, or other Change activities, you can help provide the "people perspective" that goes with the statistics.

Project shut down
Finally, when you have completed the last of your responsibilities, developed plans for sustainable activities, and handed over on-going tasks to the run team, you need to shut down the project Change Management team.  If your company has a system for knowledge transfer, ensure that you have submitted relevant work materials and feedback.  Make sure your consultants and contractors are paid and have had their access to the company shut down.  Check off the last boxes on your work plan.  Celebrate with your team.  This is the time to make sure your "t"s are crossed and your "i"s are dotted.

Congratulations!  The project is complete and you're ready to move on to your next Change Management adventure.

Let me know: How many projects have you been on that had a "Post-Project" or "Shut-Down" phase?

Art or Science? The Exciting Conclusion...

It turns out, Readers, that you are a quiet and moderate group.  The dominant refrain from reader response and conversations I've had with clients and colleagues is that Change Management must be a combination of art and science in order to be truly effective.

This is great progress from a few years back when many of the people at the firm I worked for had a tendency to interpret CMS - Change Management Strategy - as Chicks Making Slides.

I agree that Change Management requires a combination of the science of methodology and planning with the art of people management and flexibility.  Today, though, I'll focus on the science side.  Specifically, I'd like to call your attention to an area I feel has been greatly lacking in Change Management - the science of Return on Investment (ROI).

Heads up, all you Change Management grad students (does such a thing exist?), because I'm about to depart from my practical advice to lay out my Change Management ROI thesis proposal.

A (Theoretical) Approach to Measuring CM ROI 

Perhaps one of the most difficult questions I receive from clients is, "How can you prove the value add of Change Management?"  I can provide a large number of anecdotes.  I can point to surveys such as IBM's Making Change Work study.  I can list dozens of articles and books that discuss the value of Change Management.

What I cannot do is authoritatively say that if you invest X dollars in Change Management, you will receive X value in return.

What we are sorely missing is a comprehensive, quantitative study of the value Change Management brings to a project or organization.

The Subject

I propose a study that is undertaken using a large organization such as IBM, Accenture, or Johnson & Johnson as the subject.  IBM and Accenture have the benefit of having an extensive and diverse portfolio of projects that include Change Management.  A non-consulting firm such as Johnson & Johnson has the benefit not needing to get permission from other organizations to use their data.

Even better - study more than one organization.  This would help control for differences in methodology and execution.

The Data

The chosen organization would need to gather a few major pieces of data for each project they implemented:

• What was the total cost of the project?
• What was the total spend on Change Management activities, broken down by Change Management, Communications, Training, etc.?
• What were the project's objectives for itself (e.g., schedule, budget, team morale, etc.)?
• How well did the project meet these objectives throughout the project lifecycle?
• What were the project's business goals and/or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) (e.g., save X amount of money, reduce process time by X minutes, increase customer satisfaction by X %)? 
• How well did the project meet these goals and or KPIs at go-live, one month post-Go-live, one year post-Go-live, etc.?

As a control group, they should gather the same data for projects where they did not have any Change Management, as well as for projects that only had training.

This data should allow them to compare how well a project with Change Management met its internal and business objectives versus projects that did not utilize Change Management.  It would also allow them to do a cost/benefit analysis of the money spent on Change Management as a percent of overall budget versus the level to which they achieved their objectives.

I would recommend projects where objectives are very concrete, making them easy to set and measure.  It's much easier to determine how much a procurement system implementation will save you by reducing maverick spend than it is to determine how much happier your employees are after implementing a culture change.

The Roadblocks

There are a number of hurdles a researcher would have to overcome to implement this type of study.  First, my experience tells me that many projects don't set clear business objectives or KPIs.  I've been on a number of projects where there was no defined business case for the system implementation.

Second, on projects where business objectives are clearly set, I believe it's relatively rare for consulting firms to go back to the client on a regular basis post-Go-live to determine how well those objectives have been met.

Third, there are a large number of variables.  Would different consulting companies have different results based on their methodology?  How much of an impact does the experience of the Change Manager have?  How exactly would we define Change Management for the study?  And the list goes on.

The are other challenges, but the final one I would point out (and this is completely personal opinion) is that I think many Change Managers have a nagging fear in the back of their minds that a study like this might not conclusively demonstrate a positive ROI. 

We shouldn't let that stop us, though.  I believe we would find a correlation between including Change Management on a project and the project's ability to help an organization meet its KPIs.  And if we don't, that at least would point out to us areas where we can improve our methodology and practice.

Do you think this type of study would work?  Have you seen any good, quantitative research on the value of Change Management?