Change Management in the Project Lifecycle: Design Phase

The Design Phase is where things really start to get fun.  As the functional teams work with end users to determine how to translate the requirements gathered during the Analyze Phase into useable system functionality, it's time for the Change Management team to ramp up.  If you've been a team of one up until now, Design Phase is an excellent time to bring on another team member.

Practical Design Phase Activities

Once again, the activities in this phase can be broken down by which team you partner with.  This time around, we'll add another team: Human Resources.

Activities Conducted by Change Management

Executive Change Readiness Assessment (ECRA):  The ECRA is designed for top-level Executives.  This will typically include your Sponsors, the Directors and/or Vice Presidents of impacted business units, and, depending on the organization, C-level Executives.  The focus of this assessment isn't whether the Executives are ready to change, but whether they are ready to direct and support the change.  You should plan on conducting this assessment multiple times throughout the project, depending on the project's length.  Use the first assessment during the Design Phase as a baseline against which to measure future iterations.

Change Readiness Assessment (CRA):  The CRA is designed for the future system end users.  Unlike the ECRA, the CRA does focus on whether end users are ready to adopt the change.  The assessment asks end users whether they feel they are receiving enough communications, adequate training, and sufficient management support.  Once again, plan on conducting the assessment multiple times during the project.  And remember that this first one is a baseline...your results will not be good, and that is to be expected.  You haven't rolled out any training, yet.  How can they give it high marks?

Super User/Change Agent Network:  There are many different names for this type of network, and many different uses.  Essentially, it is a group of future end users who are not full-time members of the project, but who are asked to participate in project activities.  Their role may be to act as Super Users who know the system better than your average end user and are expected to eventually serve as trainers and front-line support.  They may simply be Change Agents who are asked to vocally support the change among their peers and help others embrace the new way of doing things.  Or they may be some combination of the two.  Whatever their role, they are an integral part of helping the change be adopted throughout the organization, and should be selected with care.  Once you've created the network, manage them with care, show them lots of love, and you will see great returns on your investment.

Communications:  There still isn't a lot to communicate to the general end user population at this point, but you should be actively communicating with your Change Agent Network and Sponsors.

Training: The functional teams will likely be holding a large number of design workshops during this phase.  If at all possible, you should have your training developers attend as many of these workshops as possible.  This will help them develop a solid understanding of the system design that will help them build the training in future phases.

Partnering with the Functional Teams: If you have more than one person on the Change Management team, I recommend assigning each person to one or more functional teams.  This does two things.  First, this provides one point of contact for each functional team.  This way, they don't need to try to guess who on the Change team to contact when they have questions.  It also reduces the number of e-mails and phone calls the Change lead has to deal with each day.  Second, it helps ensure at least one person on the Change team will have a deep understanding of each functional area, which will come in very handy for developing communications and training.

Design Feedback Workshops: If the functional teams haven't planned these on their own, recommend they be added to the plan.  If they have planned these, volunteer to help.  Design Feedback Workshops are conducted with the end users who provided input into the system design.  Once the functional teams have incorporated these design suggestions into the system, hold a workshop where you show the completed design to the end users.  This gives them an opportunity to tell the team if the design meets their expectations.  You may also find that once they see the design, it helps them better understand the system and helps them identify new or better refined design points.


Partnering with Project Management
Phase Kick-off/Lessons Learned: In the Analyze Phase, I talked about the need for a project kick-off.  As the project continues, it's important to conduct phase kick-offs, as well.  These help ensure that everyone on the project team understands the timeline, objectives, and activities for the upcoming phase.  The kick-off is also a good time to conduct a lessons learned session.  For more details on connecting an effective lessons learned session, read this earlier post.

Sponsorship:  How involved Project Management wants to be in Sponsorship is something you'll need to work out on each project.  I have typically found, however, that working with the Sponsors tends to be a joint effort.  If your Sponsors haven't been overly involved up to this point, now is the time to help them become active.  Work with the Sponsors to determine how much direction they want/need, their expectations of their role as a Sponsor, and the project's expectations of their role.  It is important for them to understand that their commitment to providing active, visible sponsorship directly impacts the success of the project.

Partnering with Human Resources: Throughout the project, there will be activities that are best completed in partnership with Human Resources (HR).  These are activities that impact people's job descriptions, compensation, or team structures.  If you are ever in doubt, it's a wise idea to find out who is the project's HR representative and have a quick chat with them.

Rewards and Recognition:  If there are people on the project team who are not consultants, chances are that being on the project is requiring them to learn new skills, work longer hours, and take on additional responsibilities.  These are things that should be recognized and rewarded.  Work with HR to determine how the project team can do this within the appropriate guidelines of the organization.  I've seen programs as simple as a Thank You Box, and as complex as a new bonus structure.  Whichever path you take, make sure that you are rewarding behaviors you want to perpetuate, and providing rewards that are meaningful to the recipients and in-line with company policy.


The Design Phase is a busy one, but it's also very satisfying.  Don't forget to evaluate how successful the Change program is in achieving its goals, and don't be afraid to tweak the plan as you go to improve your results.

Let me know:  How many people have you typically had on the Change Management team during the Design Phase?

Training and the One Minute Manager: The Ultimate Test

Reference note: The full citation for Leadership and the One Minute Manager can be found at the end of this blog post.

Years ago a friend let me borrow her apartment for a week.  One night I picked up her copy of The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson.  At the time I was 23, out of college for less than a year, and not managing anyone.  Whatever wisdom the book had to offer was lost on me.

Then last week I picked up Leadership and the One Minute Manager.  The thing that most captured my interest was that, although the book is focused on leadership, it makes numerous references to training.  In fact, the more I read, the more I became convinced that the title could easily be changed to Training and the One Minute Manager.

Let me start my discussion with my favorite quote from the book.  Toward the end of the book, the discussion turns to performance evaluation, and one of the characters shares this anecdote:

...I think of my favorite college teacher.  He was always getting into trouble with the dean and other faculty members because on the first day of class he would hand out the final examination.  The rest of the faculty would say, 'What are you doing?'  He'd say, 'I'm confused.'  They would say, 'You act it.'  He'd say, 'I thought we were supposed to teach these people.'  They'd say, 'You are, but don't give them the questions for the final exam.'  He'd say, 'Not only am I going to give them the questions for the exam, but what do you think I'm going to do all semester?' (Blanchard 87)

Have you guessed his response?  "Teach them the answers."

This anecdote was meant to illustrate the proper way to conduct performance evaluations.  It can just as easily be applied, though, to corporate training.  It addresses some of the fundamental issues of training:

• What is the objective of corporate training?
• How do we measure success?
• What is the role of the trainer and the trainees?

These are questions most trainers have thought about throughout their careers.  Here I set forth my answers, with Leadership and the One Minute Manager on my mind.

Practical Answers to 3 Training Questions

1. What is the objective of corporate training?  Let's be practical.  Training, both development and delivery, costs money.  And these days, money is tight.  Most often the objective of corporate training is to teach people to do their jobs better, faster, more efficiently, etc.  We want them to use new software, manage their people more effectively, and follow new policies.  All of which is designed to help them help the organization meet its overall business goals.  Compare this to the goal so many educational institutions state of teaching students how to learn, how to reason, etc.  With such different objectives, it doesn't make sense to use the same training methods for employees that we would for students.  Which brings me to the next question...
2. How do we measure success?  A student's success is often measured by his ability to memorize enough information from a course that he can answer questions on a test without advance knowledge of those questions.  Like the students in the anecdote, however, employees already know the questions on the test.  In fact, there's only one question: Can you successfully perform your day-to-day job activities?  And there's only one acceptable answer.  As trainers, we often get caught up in measuring success based on trainee feedback on course evaluations.  Or we administer end-of-course tests and count a course successful if the trainees can pass.  Sometimes we include pre-tests and post-tests and measure the level of improvement.  The list goes on.  Yet, even when these tests involve real-life simulations, correctly completing a simulation in class is very different from successfully completing your job.  At the end, the only true measure of success is whether an employee consistently and accurately can apply the skills learned in the training sessions to their daily activities.  This measurement of success raises the question...
3. What is the role of the trainer and the trainees?  This view of training demands a partnership between the trainer and the trainee.  When the only question on the final exam is the ability of the trainee to apply the training to her job, who knows better how to write the exam than the trainee herself?  While the trainer is traditionally the one responsible for putting together the training curriculum and the evaluations, in reality, without the input of the trainee, the potential for the course to succeed is greatly reduced.  In this model, the trainee can't abdicate responsibility for her learning to the trainer.  And the trainer can't work in a vacuum deciding what information is important.  Instead, it's a symbiotic relationship. 

Not only does this model of training increase the chance of success from a content perspective, but it also addresses one of the fundamental concepts of Change Management: People are more invested in the success of endeavors that they have helped to shape and create.  The last time you were forced to attend corporate training, I imagine you did a bit (or a lot) of grumbling.  It's a waste of time.  You have more important things to do.  These courses never teach you what you need to know.

What if you had helped to design the course?  What if you had decided what questions would be on the final exam, and knew that the entire course would be dedicated to teaching you the answers?  What if you knew the training would directly contribute to your success?

Trainers: How much do you collaborate with trainees in developing training?

Works Cited



Blanchard, Ken, Patricia Zigarmi, and Drea Zigarmi. Leadership and the One Minute Manager: Increasing Effectiveness Through Situational Leadership. New York: William Morrow, 1985.