Recently, Kolme Group aired our second chapter of the EmPOWer your PMO Series titled – “Change Management Powers, ACTIVATE.” In this webinar we discussed the interesting fundamentals of Organizational Change Management.
Kim Essendrup, Kolme Group Co-founder and our PMO Superhero, teamed-up with Kelly Smith, one of our Change Management Subject Matter Experts (SME) to bring back some of our favorite characters for a new adventure. Read on to see what our superheroes are up to this time, or check out the replay on our Kolme Group YouTube channel and download our Change Management Cheat Sheet!
The Mission: Creating a Standardized Project Intake Process
I have to hand it to Kelly and Kim, they picked a pretty great example for demonstrating the power of Change Management: Fundamentals. They went with Standardizing the Project Intake Process since that’s a big pain-point many PMOs struggle to gain organizational alignment on. Although it can seem like a daunting undertaking, it’s a vital investment; put simply, the intake process is used to assess which projects are important enough to a) be approved and funded, and b) prioritized among the other new and/or in-flight projects.
This type of data-driven decision making is at the heart of what we do here at Kolme Group, so it makes me excited when we can relate our mission back to highly relevant, real-world project management examples.
As the opening credits rolled, our presenters set the scene by describing the obstacles our heroine, PMO Powerhouse, is likely to face when initiating the new intake process. Some of these include common murmurings like: “We’ve tried that before…” or “We don’t like ABC department’s intake form, it has completely different requirements…” and maybe even “I’m not sharing my budget for DEF team to use GHI process unless they use their JKL Cost-Center…”
Oh, PMO Powerhouse, we’ve all been there! Sounds like we need to do a little tag-teaming ourselves and bring in a Change Management SME.
Cue…
The Magnificent OCM!
Our newest character, the Magnificent OCM, understands that organizational changes happens first at the individual level, then compounds to ensure the success of a larger organizational change. Lucky for PMO Powerhouse, the Magnificent OCM has mastered Change Management methodology, tools & techniques, and follows the Change Management industry leader and certification authority, Prosci® for her best practices.
Here is The Magnificent OCM’s most important advice for PMO Powerhouse:
- Sponsors play a vital role in Organizational Change, so we need to assess and prioritize where we should offer them guidance by evaluating their areas for improvement on communicating, networking, and bandwidth for visibility.
- Prosci®’s ADKAR® model helps assess the barrier point for the change and guides us on where to focus the efforts of the Sponsor and/or the Direct manager.
- In alignment with Project Management, we should define Organizational Change Management plans to help step leaders through their OCM responsibilities such as preparing for resistance, training their teams, communicating effectively to build change awareness and momentum, and, of course, being a stronger, more visible change leader.
Rising Star: Our Sponsor
As our adventure unfolds, we learn that the Magnificent OCM and PMO Powerhouse are paired up with their project’s sponsor, Rising Star, to lead the Project Intake Process change initiative. Rising Star has some great strengths; he is a powerful speaker and can be available to lead various State-of-the-Organization or Department-All-Hands meetings to help drive the “Why?” of the change. But Rising Star is new to the C-Suite role and is still building his networking muscle, so the Magnificent OCM set her sights on helping him build a sponsorship coalition in order to gain cross-functional, top-down alignment. While doing this, she introduces PMO Powerhouse to one of our favorite plans, the Sponsorship Roadmap.
In addition to touting the importance of the Intake Process Change to the organization, Rising Star and his sponsor coalition of senior- and mid-level managers also need to listen. Feedback and a Feedback Loop is key. This is because resistance can and will happen, and as good Change Practitioners we need to be ready with a plan to address it. As Kim describes, sponsors and managers must understand that change is not just something we do once and then walk away from. We need to empower leaders to be an ongoing part of the change, and give them the tools to make them successful. You can do this by communicating that “a Change is coming – Let’s talk about how we prepare YOU to help manage the change for YOUR team.” Magnificent OCM has got Kim’s back: She builds a custom Coaching Plan specifically for Rising Star to set him on the right path to further develop his and his team’s leadership skills.
With the plan in place, Rising Star now needs the tools to help his organization learn the new Intake Process. The Magnificent OCM collaborates with Rising Star and PMO Powerhouse to create a Training Plan that will ensure their teams are armed with both the knowledge and the ability to successfully adopt the new Intake Process. As the project manager, PMO Powerhouse will make a plan of action for each department to be trained on the new process, including: identifying a pilot group, finding key champions to help train-the-trainers, and reinforcing the learning with friendly competitions and quizzes.
Sounds like we can call this Change Mission a success!
Next Time On…
We are continuing on our journey with PMO Powerhouse as she navigates the challenges of leading PMO initiatives. We’re excited for Chapter Three of the series, “I’m Ready to PowerUP! How To Select a PPM Tool”… Capes, Spandex, and All.
We’re Here To Help
Contact Us to find out more about our Project and Change Management Services or email us at PPManswers@KolmeGroup.com.
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