You wouldâve come across folks that often seem to know precisely what to express and how towards react and react to almost any kind of situation, actually when theyâre put in the spot. Very frequently, these individuals arenât confident due to the fact they know all the exact right answers (itâs nearly impossible to find a person who does) – theyâre […]
The post Relaxed Down, Breathe, Raise self-pride – Tips to Conquer Interview Anxiety appeared first on Jobacle. com .
In this article, I will outline the primary responsibilities of the CDAO role and, in this and subsequent posts, will further differentiate CDAOs from CIOs and CTO roles. I invite the readers of this post to comment and add their thoughts and experiences with the position.
CAO (chief analytics officer) and chief data officer (CDO) are terms that have increasingly been used interchangeably for the CDAO (chief data analytics officer) role that has been getting traction over the past several years. This trend is not only happening in mid-sized firms with 1000 or more employees but also in large Fortune 1000 companies such as global banks. Scale, while an essential topic for certain aspects of the CDAO role, is not the only consideration for having a CDAO and a center of excellence in data analytics.
In a data-driven decisioning company, the CDAO is the steward of the cognitive or thinking functions behind every decision in the firm. The CDAO provides the 'neurons' (data, decision sciences, insights, platforms, and more) that enable better thinking and decision-making throughout the organization. This broader view that "data analytics is the brain and part of the central nervous system in the organization" is warranted given the shift to digitization and AI. The use of data will accelerate over the next ten yearsâdriving decision-making by ever more constituents in the organization, adopting artificial intelligence, making sense of the metaverse, and other high-tech, knowledge-driven endeavors.
In addition, the CDAO is often best positioned to drive and deploy CRM initiatives and digital infrastructure programs such as marketing and risk automation. Led by the CDAO, the data analytics team, the organization's data, and appropriate tools are the core enablers of this knowledge, decisioning, and action ecosystem. The CDAO's role in data-driven infrastructure development is often lost in much confusion about who designs and implements AI, how it should be built, and what data and tools are needed.
The CDAO mindset differs from that of the CIO or the CTO as they don't own or exclusively think about operational systems and tech infrastructure. CDAOs think about the data in those systems and how it feeds into knowledge systems for analytics and decision-making. The CDAO consults with business partners to arrive at a knowledge solution. In other words, they don't think about servers or plumbing unless it relates to dataâwarehouses, big data, or other knowledge platforms.
The CDAO must be a collaborative leader who can engender trust to transform and lead the function. Change management and transformation skills must include running a strategic roadmap, blueprinting process, and ongoing executive committees to seek stakeholder buy-in and top management support.
What Tom Davenport said in Competing on Analytics in the early 2000s still holds today: engaging top management's trust through thoughtful communications is the key to building a successful data analytics and AI COE. The CDAO should have strategy expertise and experience managing diverse teams. Another key trait is the ability to coach and grow data analytics professionals; these teams are highly skilled and in demand, and many are very independent thinkers and experts.
Ideally, the CDAO should have a POV on the work product and will challenge and coach the team during the development phase but not micromanage. Said differently, having a POV on the data analytics solutions of the team should be in the form of advice; think growing talent, not telling talent what to do. In terms of the operational aspects of the function, CDAOs must understand how to make trade-offs in the form of prioritization processes.
The CDAO is a highly visible and critical role responsible for leading the data analytics function as a general manager and businessperson.
The CDAO drives outcomes:
Data: The CDAO is the executive responsible for ensuring the firm treats data as a strategic and critical asset. The CDA drives the data strategy, management, and governanceâincluding all aspects of data throughout the lifecycle. The CDAO helps select the tools for data lineage, hires the team, vets data stewards, and ensures connectivity to IT governance and the corporate governance process. At the same time, the CDAO plays a crucial role in building gold standard quality data and the platform(s) to house that data, most likely in the cloud. However, the role profile of the CDAO, unlike its legacy predecessor, the chief data officer, is grounding the data efforts with the end game in mind. This represents yet another mindset to skill set shift from the past. The CDAO starts with the commercial purposes and outcomes and spends time learning what the business needs instead of an all-too-common trend in data management: build it, and they will come.
Whether or not it is technically possible to throw all the data into a big data platform is beside the point; again, mindset versus skill set must still be done with the priorities and applications desired by the business in mind. Suppose you are reading a CDAO job description or a CDO job description that leads with regulatory commitments or risk management capabilities. In that case, this will result in a stalled road map for data analytics as that is not thinking about the end-state vision for data analytics and AI. That position then will struggle to get beyond data governance and developing the platform because whatever gets built will not be fit for purpose for all use cases.
The CDAO ensures business partner input and consensus are accounted for in the priorities from a data analytics blueprint that seeks to connect AI, analytics, and data into a unified impact strategy. Using terms like data literacy probably needs to be revisited into something like quality decisioning or data analytics and AI literacy. Data literacy is very 2005 in an age of ML, and many executives find being called data illiterate somewhat insulting, so it is time to rethink how this gets presented.
Success factors and mindset shifts include:
Information: The CDAO mindset for information is about distributing insights and democratizing data access for citizen data scientists and citizen business users. The mindset goes beyond business intelligence concepts (BI) such as regulatory reporting to concepts such as data visualization and analytical self-service. Still, the focus is on assisting business and power users in generating insights from data visualization and Analytics-as-a-Service platform tools. For that, the exemplary architecture facilitates the delivery of insights. But understanding what architecture to build requires a blueprint and road map that is business aligned. Many firms refer to this as simply delivering the platform but providing the "platform" requires so much more. This goes beyond just standing up the environment or ensuring data stewardship.
The CDAO was created; as Gartner recently mentioned in a talk, I attended to be more of a "concierge" type role beyond data stewardship and strictly the plumbing and configuration of tools. The CDAO needs to ensure an assisted self-service paradigm to help businesses and other users gain traction with data analytics. This means helping the business generate insights when they get stuck and helping them to use the tools until they graduate to power users. Cloud-based or on-prem tools such as Power BI and Tableau data visualization tools should enable the self-service paradigm.
Success factors and mindset shifts include:
Knowledge: The holy grail and the highest level of DA maturity occurs when you generate and use knowledge. Achieving the knowledge stage in a company is a complex endeavor requiring not only change leadership but the right combination of org design, stakeholder engagement, and the right open-source tools. This is where proactive and predictive analytics comes into play, as well as topics in AI such as automated machine learning, deep learning, and optimization modeling. The fact of the matter is very few firms truly achieve this level. Many firms attain a beachhead level of one or more competencies, such as predictive modeling for marketing or risk. But the full vision of truly plugging in AI and decision engines to drive the next best action or next best everything requires for the consumer or business is a concept that only a few world-class, leading-edge firms have fully achieved.
Success factors and mindset shifts include:
In conclusion, the CDAO has a formidable challenge to bring insights to ultimately inform decision-making, data, and other tools to bear on various problems. The CDAO role is becoming more common, and it is a role many firms are ready for, including mid-size firms, but it will all go back to the level of transformation and maturity the board and the CEO are trying to drive.
I look forward to your thoughts on this post and your experience with the CDAO role.
Sometimes businesses are forced to restructure and cut staff. We've seen this during the COVID-19 crisis, but it can happen at any point of time.
While sometimes unavoidable, the decision to layoff employees can be one of the toughest decisions a company has to make. These are never easy conversations to have, but it's possible to show both commitment and compassion to impacted employees.
"How?" you ask. By providing them with outplacement services.
Providing outplacement services is an essential step that benefits the impacted employee and the business! Here's why...
Getting laid off is a gut punch and one of the first questions an impacted employee asks is, "What do I do now?" As an employer, you can't answer that question. But one thing you can do is give the employee the resources to help them answer that question.
Outplacement services typically help people with resumes, LinkedIn profiles, cover letters, and job search and networking strategies. These services are particularly beneficial to those impacted employees who have been with the company for a long time. A lot has changed in the job search game, and these employees have a lot of catching up to do.
Nothing is ever guaranteed, but studies have shown that people who receive outplacement services get hired two times faster than those who don't. Providing these services shows the impacted employees that, even though you are laying them off, you still care about their professional futures.
Being unemployed is tough, but employers can make it easier by helping their former employees get the resources they need to help them move through the stages of career grief faster and get their job search going in the right direction.
When a company goes through layoffs, thoughts are naturally with the impacted employees. However, layoffs impact the entire company.
The workforce just lost trusted colleagues and friends. In addition, some people are about to see their job responsibilities change as a result of the layoffs.
The workforce is shaken, perhaps even scared about their own futures at the company, and some will have survivor's guilt.
Many of the remaining employees will talk with those who are laid off. If the company showed compassion and offered outplacement services to those impacted employees, this will get communicated to the current workforce.
While it doesn't make the situation any easier, the fact the company did what it could to help the impacted employees can slightly improve the morale of the remaining workforce.
Another thing the company can do to ease the concerns of its workforce after a layoff is to over-communicate. Be as transparent as possible and give them what information you can about the decision and the future of the company.
In order to rally the remaining workforce and move the company forward, these employees need to know the vital role they play in helping the company achieve its goals. These employees need to feel a part of a team.
All of this plays a huge role in the company keeping the trust and respect of their employees.
The company's employer brand and reputation are two things that may get put on the back burner when a business goes through tough financial times. But, eventually, these things will matter again, and the way the company navigates a crisis or restructuring will impact its reputation.
Just because a company lays off employees, doesn't make it a bad business. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown numerous businesses for a loop, but even in normal conditions, businesses have to make adjustments in staffing based on a number of ever-changing factors.
Ultimately, it's the way the business handles the layoffs that will impact its reputation.
Employees who feel that they were mistreated or shown a lack of compassion during the layoff process will post a review on job review sites like Glassdoor and Indeed.
Job seekers use these sites to research your company's employee experience, and negative reviews about employees not being treated well during layoffs could cost the company talent in the future.
Giving outplacement will lessen the odds of a former employee writing a negative review about the company. It may even lead to some positive reviews.
Being able to say you made sure every single person got one-on-one job search coaching will show just how much you care for your employees and will reflect well on the company's reputation.
Cost has always been a point of contention for companies considering whether or not to use outplacement services. However, over the last few years technology has made outplacement services more efficientâand cheaper.
Many essential outplacement services such as resume reviews, LinkedIn and cover letter advice, and professional networking are now built into virtual platforms that eliminate the need for in-person services.
And the good news is, Work It Daily is one of them!
Learn more about Work It Daily's outplacement services and give impacted employees a fighting chance to find work faster in this competitive job market.
For pricing inquiries, please contact [email protected].
There are many types of disasters including threats to health, critical infrastructure, power outages, and weather-related (which vary by region, season, etc.). It seems like disasters are continually dominating the nightly news headlines.
According to Statista Research Department the:
And did you know that the Red Cross responds to more than 60,000 disasters every year? How can your entire organization be better prepared for the next disaster?
One thing you can do is create a different monthly campaign on the organizationâs intranet. Be sure to keep the content fresh and interesting. Not sure what to promote each month to keep the employees engaged? March could be Red Cross Month wherein you offer CPR or other lifesaving skill classes to the employees or host a blood drive or find the nearest mobile bloodmobile bus.
Other well-established campaign weeks/months are:
There are several campaigns listed on the Ready.gov Preparedness Calendar and the NWS Awareness and Preparedness Calendar by state.
This will allow you to increase awareness of what to do before, during, and after various disasters.
Also, try to practice whenever practicable. This means taking time to perform exercises and drills such as evacuating your building and safely assembling in the designated area(s). Providing this type of information will make both the organization and the employees more prepared for the next disaster.
Although the topic of disaster preparedness may seem overwhelming, think of it as three main components (including other related articles Iâve written):
1. Having a documented and tested IT Disaster Recovery (DR) plan â technology is typically at the core of the business and touches every department.
2. Having a comprehensive and tested business continuity planning (BCP) plan â each department will identify the unique needs/requirements based on their business impact analysis (BIA).
3. Employee Emergency Preparedness â because employees will want to ensure their own families are safe before coming into the office.
For more information on disaster preparedness, follow me on LinkedIn!
Thirty-plus years ago, I was an officer cadet in the Royal Navy. On one occasion, we were lined up on the parade ground and took turns in telling each other off under the supervision of a Royal Marine Drill Instructor.
Confrontation is part of leadership. Most of us are brought up at home to be âniceâ and âpolite.â We have a problem, as leaders, confronting our staff over poor performance. Nobody wants to be the âbad guy,â so s/he does not know how to handle these discussions. Either s/he gets aggressive, then abuse is exchanged, or s/he avoids confronting the person and the poor performance continues.
Military-style reprimands are not appropriate in civilian life, so what can a civilian leader do?
One method is an extension of my âfour questionsâ approach to problem-solving. See âfurther readingâ below for the original article.
The â4 questionsâ â a recap:
This is my personal twist on the GROW method. GROW is an acronym. This is how the four questions fit into the acronym.
How do we adapt the GROW method for "Corrective Coaching"?
We add three stages to the front end. The âPROâ elements set the conversation up.
P = Present: Present your colleagueâs poor performance as factually and as unemotionally as possible. Describe actions taken or not taken with dates, times, and other measurable data.
Keep your presentation as unemotional as possible. Your colleague may be feeling defensive. If s/he interprets any language or behavior as emotional or judgmental, s/he will attack.
R = Response: Give your colleague the chance to respond to the issue presented.
Ask your colleague to respond. I would not recommend asking: âWhat have you got to say for yourself?â This is aggressive, arrogant, and cliched. Try asking: âWould you like to comment?â or âWhat are your thoughts?â Make your invitation to respond as neutral and non-confrontational as possible.
Now say nothing! Their silence will feel uncomfortable. It will be a lot less comfortable for your colleague. Let the silence do its work. Listen very carefully to what your colleague says and the way s/he says it.
If s/he admits that it is his/her fault, skip the âOâ stage shown below. If s/he gets defensive or blames other factors or people, proceed to the next stage.
O = Ownership: Ask a question to get your colleague to take ownership or responsibility for the issue. Here are some examples:
Having asked the question, wait silently for the answer.
When your colleague replies, donât just consider the words, but also how they are spoken. Does s/he look like s/he means them?
If your colleague continues to be aggressive, then you may need to escalate to higher levels of management.
If s/he does admit responsibility, move on to the following adapted version of the GROW questions.
The first two questions have been slightly adapted to focus on the issue to be solved.
Your colleague may see this as a way to regain your trust and respect. The result should be a plan with a concrete timeline and actions that you can follow up on.
Whatever happens, keep control of this conversation. That means:
Confronting people can be quite scary. This is what builds your colleaguesâ respect for you as a leader. If you feel like it, contact me in a private message and let me know how you get on!
Further reading...
Here's the original article on the four questions: 4 Steps To Solving Problems
Here are six important tips that will help you ace your next phone interview:
Basic preparation steps include having your resume in front of you, making sure you are on a good phone line where there are no disturbances, and allocating enough time for the phone interview, even if it goes beyond what was scheduled.
The first question I used to ask job seekers was, "What do you know about us?" If I did not think they had spent the time to do their homework, they were immediately downgraded. So, spend some time researching the company before your phone interview. Check out their website and social media accounts, and see what employees say about them on Glassdoor.
Also, go to LinkedIn and review the background of the person conducting the interview. Check if the manager you will be reporting to participates in LinkedIn groups and discussions, and see if you have anything in common.
The words you use account for only 15% of the effectiveness of your communications. Intonation and body language are most important, and since you are on the phone, you live and die by your intonation. Put energy in your voice and demonstrate a high level of interest. An old telemarketing trick is to have a mirror in front of you and smile when you speak since that automatically affects your tone in a positive way.
People hire people they like, so it is important to turn the interview into a conversation by asking intelligent questions. Show off your expertise by following up their question with an insightful question of your own. Those who just answer questions and wait for the next question will lose here. Use a conversational tone, as if you are having lunch with a friend, telling a story, instead of just responding to questions.
For example, here are two ways to respond to, "Can you tell me about your experience at Bank of America"
"At Bank of America, I was hired to oversee the integration of systems that were the result from acquisitions."
Or...
"You know, that was a really challenging experience because I had to integrate all the different systems that were the result of acquisitions. You can just imagine how tricky that would be since there were so many differences between them, and I had to research and document the trade-offs from an integration of each one."
Which is more interesting? I did some interview coaching with a highly accomplished technical manager at Intel who was getting interviews and no call backs. It was immediately clear that he was just responding to questions in a fairly monotone manner and was about as interesting as a memory chip. After some coaching on how to build rapport using the above technique, he had three offers in four weeks.
Companies have a reason they are looking for talent and it is your job to find out what their chief source of "pain" is. Do this by asking:
"What is the biggest challenge someone will face in this job in the next six months?"
This lets you target your responses and demonstrate how you have successfully handled these challenges before.
Don't just end the call wondering how you did. Ask them. If you are going for a sales position, this is mandatory. State something like:
"Based on what we discussed today, do you think I am a good candidate for this position?"
Now, when they respond, you can handle any concerns they may have.
By using these six simple techniques in your next phone interview, you'll be sure to make a good impression on the employer and, hopefully, move on to the next step in the hiring process.
Need more help with your job search?
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This article was originally published at an earlier date.
Are usually you struggling to obtain discovered by employers? Could it be hard for you to set up a reference to certain firms? If so, this survive event is for people!
We get it. Is actually difficult to be passionate regarding a job when everyone have no connection towards the organization. How do one show enthusiasm within your protect letter and job job interview if you don't completely love what you'd become doing, or where you needed be doing it?
Fortunately, there's a good easy way to display your enthusiasm for a new company during the software and hiring process.
With this training, youâll learn how to:
Sign up for our CEO, J. To. O'Donnell, and Director that will train Development & Training, Christina Burgio, for this specific live event on Wed, September 14th at twelve pm ET.
CAN'T GO TO LIVE? Which okay. You will have access so that you can the recording and this workbook after the program!
In business, time is money. Wasted time is a LOT of money. When you are completing an assignment, are engineers better off getting their work in on time or getting it right the first time?
In my day-to-day efforts, I need to balance my teamâs execution versus their effectiveness. I have deadlines promised to the organization, and I strive to exceed these dates. I push my team to improve their performance by executing to their commitments.
Timing is great when everything is perfect. What happens when something is wrong?
Engineers are strangers in the business world. We think differently than others. We train to solve problems scientifically. We are often perfectionist striving to ensure everything is just so. Dates are a suggestion against developing the perfect solutions. We do not compromise.
Perfection is an ultimate goal. If the solution is six months late, what value does it bring for being perfect?
Many colleagues are tinkerers. They twist, turn, pull, and push to ensure everything is perfect. Precision is our king! They continue to work out minute details to the deepest degree.
Many in business find this behavior annoying. Analysis by paralysis is paralleled. Why canât these engineers make a decision?
Engineers by nature want to be right and provide perfection. Often, this need leads to their own detriment.
Business needs to move forward, and deadlines must be kept. Customers expect results on the day published. They want their stuff.
The same stakeholders also want their product to work. Mistakes are unacceptable, and functionality is required.
So how do you choose between right and right now?
In many cases, I can negotiate with a customer for more time. I cannot bargain for function. The product must work well to fulfill the customerâs needs. Make it right the first time.
Sacrificing time for function will pay off dividends. The balance of being late can be offset by correcting mistakes later in production, by providing a product that does not meet specification, and by avoiding any sort of rework. Costs of a mistake late in the development cycle of a product can costs 10X, 100X, or even 1000X dollars to correct. The earlier these errors are discovered, alternatively how ârightâ it is from the beginning, the less expensive to correct.
This opinion does not provide carte blanche to engineers to take all the time in world. Remember, time is money. Being late to be right cannot always happen, and time is a finite resource. Sometimes, you must compromise a little perfection to maintain timelines.
How do you choose?
Each engineer within his or her career must learn the balance between time and perfection. Sometimes good enough is everything a project needs. Other situations require perfection.
Most people will explain this balance is only learned through experience. Over time, âyou will figure it out.â
My best advice to any engineer is to be curious and ask questions. Ask your boss, what is most important to her agenda What is critical to the customer specification? How do I know what is important to get right versus having it complete right now?
Below, I have included a few ârules of thumbâ to begin your journey.
If safety of another human being is a concern, lean towards perfection. Human life is far more important than a penalty for being late. If you feel something needs more effort to keep someone safe, take the extra time and the hit to protect your integrity.
When product functionality is paramount to customer success, take the extra time. Similar to safety, you must choose what is right. Making the product stronger with the additional effort will outweigh the penalties in most cases.
Trivial items are the places to relax on perfection. Is a bolt length 10mm or 12mm long? In many cases, the difference is miniscule. Knowing what is important versus trivial will help engineers maintain their schedules without sacrificing product integrity.
If you need to ask yourself, "Do I need to do more to make this 'right' and will anyone care?" then place the extra effort on this topic. If the decision seems trivial, ask your boss or a senior member of the team their opinion. If you cannot sleep at night knowing something in your work is not measuring up to your personal integrity, add the effort.
Early in your career, your choices are not clear. You will make mistakes. I recommend making them on the side of caution⦠making it right the first time. You can always ask for forgiveness on delivery; however, apologizing for an error requires much more effort.
I walk a line between both worlds as an engineering executive. I need things done NOW to satisfy my customer, and I need output to be accurate. I cannot always have both. When in doubt, I will defend my engineers who make it ârightâ versus the one who cut corners to make it on time. Right comes with much less risk to the customer⦠unless perfection becomes an obsession.
Strive to âmake it rightâ every time, and over time, you will learn to exceed your committed dates.
I'm jumping on this bandwagon of the five things I wouldn't do based on my profession as a career coach if I was in job search mode right now.
If I lost my job due to a layoff, want to change careers, or hate my job, I would not do these five things...
@j.t.odonnell 5 things I wouldn't do if I was looking for a new job right now... #5things #careeradvice #resume #linkedin #sprayandpray #careertok #jobsearch #edutok #jobtok #jobsearchtips ⬠original sound - J.T. O'Donnell
I would not get on a job board and start applying for everything under the sun. First of all, you don't want 90% of those jobs and there's nothing more demotivating and depressing than getting rejected from companies you weren't interested in. That's exactly what's going to happen. Less than 3% of people ever get contacted when they apply online. So, don't rely solely on job boards, and don't apply to every job you see. It's ineffective and a waste of time.
An over-the-top resume is a resume where you put everything you've ever done on it. You really try to hype yourself up. Unfortunately, it comes across as narcissistic and desperate. It's also difficult to read and usually gets you tossed. Instead, customize your resume for each position you apply for, and focus on quantifying your work experience.
LinkedIn is the number one place recruiters search for potential job candidates, and they search for them based on keywords (skill sets). So, if you want to get found by recruiters and hiring managers, you need to learn how to optimize your LinkedIn profile.
I would be practicing right now before I even start looking for a job. You need to know how to answer those tough interview questions because it'll help you stand out, and it can help you not only get the job but get more pay as well. Never skip interview prep, no matter how qualified you think you are.
Your network is your net worth. What you need to do is create a bucket list of employers you'd like to work for and start strategically reaching out and connecting with those people on LinkedIn as a way to gain visibility when you start applying for their roles. Networking is always the best way to get a job.
There are other tips and tricks I would recommend, but those are definitely the five things I wouldn't do if I was looking for a job right now.
If you would like to learn more about what you should and shouldn't do in your job search, sign up for Work It Daily's Power Hour Event Subscription. I look forward to answering all of your career questions in our next live event!
There are many important questions youâll be asked in a job interview, and âWhat do you know about our company?â is one of them. It seems simple enough, but it actually requires some work if you want to leave a good impression. This guide will teach you how to answer this question and give you […]
The post What Do You Know About Our Company? How To Answer appeared first on Career Sherpa.
Are you really managing change, transforming your organization, or following a project management process? Project management skills are very effective in all instances.
âThroughout my career, I have been a part of several change management initiatives (or projects) whereby companies have made a conscious effort to implement specific strategic plans which had some impact on the organization.
In some instances, the changes were well defined, and the intent was clear; however, the problem was in the implementation and, most importantly, the sustainability of the change.
In other instances, the companies chose not to implement structural changes but chose to focus on improving existing processes in an effort to improve operational performance. The issues here were recognizing and again implementing the desired changes.
For example, one of the companies decided to implement a new work-from-home policy across their global locations. The initial idea was to apply the policy in a uniform manner across locations; however, this soon turned out to be inviable due to major differences in labor laws, the unionized segment of the workforce, and the availability of dependable, high-speed internet connections, just to name a few.
The change project turned out to be a massive endeavor with a significant degree of customization. It also took far much longer to implement, not only for cultural reasons but also for intergenerational reasons as the baby boomers and Gen X tended to prefer as much inâperson work as possible.
The change identified was a specific change to the HR policy yet, due to the nature of the change, it was actually a complete organizational transformation.
In today's increasingly unstable world, change management has been elevated with many companies assigning specific change management or organizational transformation teams to tackle many issues such as:
Whatever the case may be, change is the new normal and successful companies must have a clear, forwardâlooking strategy for longâterm survival.
When implementing change initiatives, there are many moving parts that need to be managed, considered, and accepted. This also entails a full understanding of the business context of the desired change, the people that will need to adopt the change, as well as the economic impact of the change.
If it sounds familiar, these elements align closely with scope, stakeholder management, and cost control which are three of the knowledge areas of the project management profession.
This is why I believe that change management initiatives be:
In this way, the main areas that will affect the success of the implementation will be managed by a team that already uses these skills in their daily work: scope, risk, cost control, communications, quality, procurement, etc.
In today's climate, I cannot stress enough the importance of managing THE most important corporate resource: the PEOPLE!
Successful implementations are mindful of:
Just because the project crossed the "Go Live" stage does not mean the change is fully implemented! Sometimes the training, acceptance, and desired productivity can take years to fully achieve across the organization so ensure a sustainability team remains "on call" for as long as it takes.
This is why it is super important to determine if the rollout will be topâdown or bottomâup (communications and stakeholder management!).
Change initiatives can really be highly successful when you really manage all of these moving parts!
Recently, I worked with a company that frequently used the term âmanaging a change" to apply to virtually any change that they encountered on a daily basis. I heard the term applied when an operational issue did not go according to plan, when an employee did not follow a specific safety procedure, and when the finance department moved a specific cost to a new account on the ledger.
While one could argue that having to process such situations would be a sort of management of change, the term itself is actually a project management concept that applies to variances between budgeted or baseline tasks versus modifications that are proposed either by internal departments external customers and third parties.
Lack of compliance with company procedures is not management of change; it is definitely something to be investigated and should be part of an employee's performance evaluation.
So, what is management of change then?
In the energy sector, equipment suppliers manufacture products such as valves, pipes, fittings, or other industrial items that are subject to customer inspection. During the bid phase, the scope of the inspection activities will be set and agreed upon prior to contract signature. After contract signature, if the customer decides to change the inspection criteria by requiring more rigid specifications be followed, or even the ability to stop manufacturing activities in-process when this was not agreed, then this would constitute a management of change (MOC) event.
MOCs are every project manager's nightmare or OPPORTUNITY!
Management of change is one of those tricky, disruptive subjects that requires:
Some would say that it is its own knowledge area...
Whatever the case may be, following a robust MOC process will greatly increase the project's chances of success, including a better bottom line.
When demystifying the change management vs. management of change conundrum, we can ask ourselves a number of questions to determine not only which one applies, but also how to manage each.
Although many of these questions seem quite obvious, you would be surprised by the number of companies that do not actually ask these specific questions.
As a general rule, I have found that these questions and the ensuing actions are best covered by issuing a formal project charter whereby the main stakeholders apply their individual signatures as a show of commitment but also to demonstrate full understanding of the change project.
Upon approval of the project charter, key results and objectives (OKRs) or KPIs are formally issued and, once again, signed off by the same stakeholders that validated the project charter.
The project execution plan is then issued with the corresponding tasks to be completed with the agreed baseline dates established in the charter. Any deviation to these tasks would then generate a management of change or MOC event, in classic project management terms.
For short-term or small scope changes, these tools can be scaled or even reduced to checklists so that an agile mindset prevails, thus avoiding a heavy, bureaucratic process that will not be well received.
Project management and change management, therefore, are intrinsically linked but use different strategies and techniques to achieve their goals. Using project teams to manage both is a very effective way to increase the organization's chances of success.
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