An essential part of change management is not just managing the
implementation of new technology, but managing the impact of that
implementation. Moreover, the impact can be wide ranging and very
different for the various people affected.
“IT change inevitably has a broad reach,” says Nigel Stevens,
former senior vice president of information systems at publishers
Reed Elsevier. “It affects senior management, employees, suppliers
and, most importantly of all, customers,” he says.
There is one other consideration. “It can have an impact on the
IT directors themselves,” he says. “What happens to them if the
IT-instigated change goes awry? They’re usually held
responsible.”
Whatever and wherever the impact, it is essential that the
change itself is managed. Regardless of the change management
methodology adopted, there are three key components to it:
- Analysing and understanding where and what the various impacts
will be
- Communicating those to the stakeholders affected
- Ensuring stakeholder buy in to what the effect the changes will
have.
Unmanaged change in any part of the organisation can be
disastrous, especially at the very highest levels. It can be
dangerously easy for senior business management to fail to
understand that decisions which they consider outside the remit of
IT can, nevertheless, have IT implications as well.
Stevens recalls a decision made by the incoming chief executive
at a major cosmetics company where he worked, to change, at short
notice, the supermodel who represented their cosmetics range.
As no real thought was given to the impact of the decision, the
company then found itself required to remove all images of her
from every piece of marketing and advertising material, in all
media, worldwide within three months. “It cost the company millions
of dollars to do that,” says Stevens.
Even something as apparently trivial as changing a font on
printed materials can have an unforeseen impact. “The company
selected one that did not show up clearly on the website,” he
recalls.
Similarly, corporate rebranding needs to be assessed for IT
impact. One company found out at the last moment, having decided on
a new brand name, that the URL for that new name was owned by
another party.
“CIOs have a huge issue in communicating their concerns about
such non-IT decisions to their CEOs and being heard,” says
Stevens.
Even where the IT impact is evident, senior management decisions
can still have deleterious consequences if insufficiently
anticipated.
“One company I worked for decided to relocate their IT and
logistics operations,” says Stevens. “Although this was simple
enough in terms of moving boxes and offices, the company had failed
to allow for the fact that the majority of operations staff were
secondary earners, and were highly reluctant to relocate. But
because their personal knowledge was crucial to efficient
operations, the company ended up bussing those who did not wish to
relocate around the M25 for three months, because they could not do
without them.”
All too often, both senior management and the IT function itself
can under-estimate the impact of IT-associated change.
Stevens says, “Business can require change, but then fail to
understand the full implications of, say, deciding to implement SAP
globally. As the world becomes ever more complex, making and
managing change becomes more difficult.”
However, there is then a danger that IT is simply seen as too
negative, too fond of pointing out problems and risks.
“Change is difficult – it’s very easy to get it wrong, but we
must be positive, identify the benefits and communicate them before
getting started,” he says.
Those benefits, however, must not be merely implicit, and they
must relate to the stakeholders. Nor is it enough, reminds Stevens,
just to say "well, we’ve told them what the benefits are" and then
assume that ticks the box when it comes to the impact of the
change.
“Most change, especially that which arrives with a new computer
system, is imposed on users – they don’t usually actively seek it.
So you have to look at all aspects, the biggest one of which will
probably be cultural – getting people to act differently,” says
Stevens.
A classic example is the move towards staff and managers
becoming self-service: making requisitions, applying for leave, or
expenses, and registering budgets, now increasingly done online,
without paperwork or the involvement of other departmental staff.
Although the benefit for senior management may be obvious in terms
of cost savings, it is unlikely to be of direct concern to
employees and represents a big change that needs to be managed
carefully.
The communication about the changes and impacts resulting from a
new system therefore have to be different according to the position
of stakeholders.
“You can’t make the same presentation to everyone,” says
Stevens. “You have to talk in an appropriate fashion, explaining
the individual impacts. Psychology is key.
"In the IT world you have to understand and work with a range of
people, and you need everyone on your side. Communicating the
impact of putting in a new finance system for the finance director,
is completely different from changing the desktop for 40,000
employees," says Stevens.
No matter how trivial the IT change, Stevens warns that there
will always be a change management issue that has to be
anticipated, understood, communicated and planned for.
“It is never the case that we don’t need to tell anyone that
we’re doing something to their computers,” he says.
“I was once told in an operational meeting that we needed to
upgrade from NT 3.5 to NT 4.0 because the maintenance was running
out. We then decided we might as well upgrade from Office 97 to 98
at the same time. How? Just put the new discs into the server on a
Saturday morning. We did, and everything worked fine, ready for
Monday morning, when the upgrade would appear completely
transparent and unnoticed by users.”
“Then first thing on the Monday morning I got a call from the
CEO’s PA to say she couldn’t get her Office 97 files up and what
had gone wrong with the computers?”
Should change management simply be seen as yet another burden
for the CIO, one more item on an already crowded agenda? Stevens
recommends they regard it as an opportunity, not a problem. CIOs,
he argues, are well placed to take on the essential business role
of corporate change managers.
This is not just because IT systems inevitably catalyse and
enable business change, which is, after all, the primary function
of IT. It is also because the CIO is one of the few senior
executives to have a comprehensive view of the whole organisation,
and therefore to be able to anticipate the ramifications of just
where the "change wavefront" will impact, and to what extent and
severity.
Says Stevens, “We have to educate the other members of the
business community about the criticality of effective change
management, because there is unlikely to be anyone else as well
suited as us to do it. Moreover, IT disciplines lend themselves to
business process, impact, security and risk analysis.”
In short, says Stevens, “The CIO should not be seen as ‘an IT
professional who can do change management’. We should be considered
as ‘a professional change manager who understands IT’.”
For the savvy CIO, therefore, becoming the corporate change
management expert is an opportunity that should be embraced.
Change management summary
• Implementing new IT will bring about changes affecting senior
management, employees, suppliers, customers and the CIO
themselves.
• Change must be actively and proactively managed as unforeseen
effects can be costly and risky.
• Change management, especially in complex environments, is
hard, and it is easy to get it wrong.
• Detailed impact analysis must be carried out, to see what the
ramifications will be throughout the company and amongst all
stakeholders.
• Behavioural and cultural changes will be have the most impact
on staff whose working habits are altered by new IT.
• The changes that a new IT system will bring must be
communicated to those impacted by it in a manner appropriate to
their roles and concerns. Psychology is key.
• All stakeholders must buy in to the changes that will impact
them, and sufficient time and attention must ensure this
happens.
• Hiring a dedicated marketing communications expert
specifically to oversee change management programmes can be a good
investment for the CIO.
• It’s essential for the CIO to get the Board to understand that
even apparently non-IT decisions can have IT implications that are
costly and risky.
• No IT changes, however trivial, are likely to prove invisible
to users.
• CIOs must beware of appearing over-focused on the risks of
change, not the benefits.
• Change management is an activity in its own right, and will
therefore require adequate resourcing.
• Change should be managed as rapidly as possible to minimise
both the "disruption window" and the time in which other aspects of
the business can change simultaneously, increasing the complexity
of each change management programme.
• Becoming the corporate change management expert is a key
opportunity for the CIO.
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