A Comprehensive Guide to Project Change Management

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Have you ever decided you could do your current task (at work or home) a little better, or in a different way in order to achieve your goal? Or even changed your actual goal slightly? Have you then looked at how to change what you are doing in order to achieve any original or changed goals?

If that sounds familiar then you have already undertaken a simple form of change management. Learning organizational change in the workplace can be a little more complicated. So, what exactly is change management within an organization? How does it benefit you and, perhaps more importantly, how do you implement it?

What is change management?

Change management relates to the processes used to manage change within a project and its team that has two components:

• Change: this is anything that modify projects, tasks, processes, structures, or job functions.
• Project management: this refers to the process of handling a project team and track their activities to meet project goals.

The change management process is a systemic approach to organizational change. That change could encompass the goals of the organization, its core values, the processes it uses, or the technologies (and that can include things like software) that it utilizes. It could also refer to any shift in an organization’s social media marketing objectives and key results.

When an organization identifies the changes it wants to make, it will then look at how they can make those changes successfully. It is also used to implement the methods to help people, and the organization, to accept change, to adapt to it, and to make the successful transition to the ‘new way’, whether that is a new process for tracking time or new uses of phone features such as how to transfer calls to another phone.

But don’t think of it as something that will likely occur rarely. As most organizations face regular changes of some sort, change management has become an integral part of how many businesses operate and can be an essential factor in their growth, performance, and development as well as workplace productivity.

Types of organizational change

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What types of changes within your company would benefit from stringent change management? While there are multiple changes that could be needed regularly, there are, broadly speaking, three main types.

1. Developmental change. A change within your organization that improves on any princesses, systems, or strategies that you are already operating. As long as you keep your staff well informed of changes they need to implement process improvements.
2. Transformational change. Transformational changes are those you make to thoroughly reshift your business processes. These changes may be a response to extreme market changes.The most radical of changes where you make major alterations to your company culture, your operations, or your core values (or any combination of the three) For example, a complete update of your website’s design.
3. Transitional change. This is when your organization moves away from its current version to a new version. It involves the implementation of change through systematic planning, organizing and imposing of change. This could be to solve a problem (changing to being fully automated) or it could be a major change such as a merger or acquisition scenario.

When should you consider change management?

Being able to successfully implement change management has become one of our most crucial abilities. With increasingly competitive markets and ever-evolving technology, you have to be able to efficiently manage change. Some common catalysts for change management include:

• Implementing new tech. For example, shifting your entire workforce to a modern communications platform. Implementing such a new platform. You would need you to not only enable your staff to adapt but also learn every aspect of the new system, from learning how to forward a voicemail on a phone to knowing how to host a webinar.
• Change in leadership. This could cover everything from a change at the very top (CEO, general manager) to who is heading up your team. New leaders may have different ways of working than you are used to.
• Mergers & acquisitions. If your company undergoes any sort of M&A process, then you may see fundamental change that could encompass anything from job losses to change in production.
• Crisis. As we have seen with the Covid pandemic, a crisis can have a dramatic effect on how we work. We have seen a major shift to remote working and all that involves. Change management has had to consider everything from relevant technology.

Resistance to change

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As a species, it is natural to resist any sort of change. Overcoming that resistance is perhaps the greatest challenge you will face if implementing anything "new". How you, as a change manager, deal with this is crucial to success. Knowing the challenges you may face, and how to deal with them, is something you must be able to do.

1. Goals. If you do not clearly define the goals you want to achieve through any change, it will be difficult to get your workforce to adapt. Whatever the reason for any change, from new tech to a new demographic base, you need to communicate the what and why clearly so that your staff can get on board more easily.
2. Leadership. When it comes to implementing change management, you need to lead from the front. If your management team is not 100% on board and convinced by the benefits change will bring, then it is going to be harder to implement. You need to be ready to inspire your staff and convince them that this is changing for the better.
3. Identify resources. Knowing what resources (human and otherwise) will best help facilitate the change process can be a major step toward success. Human resources can be people like your IT team who can help show staff how to eliminate issues like mic echo on a new platform or you might need an SEO expert to help identify and optimize long tail keywords for your content.
4. Agility. If there is a lack of ability across your organization and slow approval for any changes needed, then these issues can hamper the whole process. Ensure the whole workforce and management are on board.
5. Communication. Whether planned changes are major or minor, you should ensure that all pertinent information is shared across the organization. Having people know what the process entails is essential. That goes for everything from time trackers for data-driven businesses to new automated CRM processes. Communication can make or break a project, so you should plan and document how you'll connectas a team.

The takeaway

Change can take many forms. It could be as simple as installing a new unified communications platform that allows staff to be able to host a conference call or it could be a major shift that sees your business change the type of products they make.

But managing any change efficiently is the foundation of successful implementation. And that applies for any and all aspects of change. There has to be acceptance of change, particularly at management level, and transparency in sharing relevant info with all stakeholders.

Need more help? Check out the Zentao blog. They have more articles on project management, software management, building cross-functional teams, and so much more.

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Author bio :

Jessica Day - Senior Director, Marketing Strategy, Dialpad

Jessica Day is the Senior Director for Marketing Strategy at Dialpad, a modern business communications platform that takes every kind of conversation to the next level—turning local international calling easier and turning them into opportunities. Jessica is an expert in collaborating with multifunctional teams to execute and optimize marketing efforts, for both company and client campaigns. Here is her LinkedIn.