The truth is change is coming to a theater near you and soon, but how it comes is entirely up to you. That is the measure of control you do possess. Change can come incrementally or manifest itself as the Big Bang!, and the latter will be much more disruptive than the former, we promise you.

Very often in our line of work we’ll hear someone in IT / IS or Corporate services say, Thank goodness that project is finally finished, as if one particularly pesky piece of business is behind them and it’s smooth sailing ahead. Well, no. If you don’t want to go through the Big Bang! experience (otherwise known as when the wheels fall off), this is not the mindset you should cultivate. Each and every day we at TAG spend considerable energy helping organizations become comfortable with the concept of incremental or continuous improvement. Why? Because if you’re constantly improving, you rarely suddenly arrive at the Big Bang! crossroad.

You can either be the Changer or the Changed, but it is better to be the actor than the acted upon. Change will not be denied. If you choose internal stasis through passivity or inertia, external agents will force you to change because the competition and market won’t take your everlasting comfort into consideration. . .and then what? Right. You’ve got the Big Bang! to survive, because staying where you were allowed the competition and the world to pass you by.

We know change is difficult, so we won’t belabor the point. Nevertheless, if you put the following conditions in place, it won’t be quite so arduous:

Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein said, “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”  Since change is (ironically) a permanent state of being, leading an adaptable organization focused on steady, incremental improvement is vital. If change is anticipated and implemented without fanfare on an ongoing basis, the hysteria of the Big Bang! will be kept in check.

First, using the 80/20 principle, think about which projects are critical, must-haves, and core to your mission (about 20% of the whole array), and set aside those that are discretionary or not vital. During this exercise, projects that should be eliminated altogether should be obvious. (Be ruthless.) Of the mission-critical projects, decide which should proceed and which should be deferred based on urgency and capacity. Considerations during your deliberations should include:

• The organization’s ability to undertake the project:
  • Do you have enough funding and staff?
  • Is there a learning curve?
  • What will on-boarding require?
• Data derived from the success or failure of other projects
• Timing and competition with other critical projects, especially for key SMEs and Management attention and cycles
• How projects may be interrelated and dependent on each other
• New technology and business process changes

Second, having decided which projects should proceed, it is time to collaborate with the entire range of managers, from line managers to senior managers, to prioritize them. Each will contribute something to the debate, and it is better to debate now than waste valuable resources (time, money, and people) later. Line managers will have first-hand knowledge of processes and capacity; middle management will have a better view of the interplay and inter-relationships between departments and activities, and top management will possess the long view that encompasses the overall organization direction and strategy. And obviously, inviting greater participation overall means greater cooperation and commitment.

Third, once your projects have been prioritized, it is time to figure out who will be doing what. Streamlining your projects down to the vital few has the added benefit of not stretching the capacity you have, but concentrating it where it is needed most. Here I would offer a special caution: it is very important that you are realistic about day-to-day operations and the support resources necessary to Keep The Lights On. Too often organizations under-estimate this aspect and/or think of KTLO resources as discretionary. They are not. Borrowing resources from KTLO operations results in “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” and effectively lowers service levels and stresses organizational capacity. Perhaps even more harmful, it underscores the notion that KTLO work is of less importance or less glamorous, damaging morale and trust.

Peter F. Drucker wrote, Management is doing things right; Leadership is doing the right things. Getting your portfolio into shape by winnowing out projects of questionable value and tabling those that can wait will go a long way to making the choice clear.

Making decisions means risking what is known for what is not. In my line of work, I have seen many organizations mired in keeping the status quo because the bogeyman in the hall is whispering, what if you’re wrong? The irony, of course, is that by not making a decision—right or wrong—you end up doing nothing, and this poses a far greater risk because your competition is certainly doing something. ​

Fear of the unknown and fear of being wrong are formidable inhibitors to decisive action. There are others, such as a reluctance to be held accountable, but even that is anchored in fear. Another inhibitor is being overwhelmed by the number of factors involved: the people who will be affected, the processes that will change, available resources, and so forth—aspects I call the “what.” The “why” of a decision is the part usually easily identified; Something has driven the case for change. It may be an eroding top line, a dissatisfied customer, excessive overtime, the competition, or staff malaise. But how to address the “what”—that becomes the immovable object stopping many decision-makers from acting quickly and decisively. Often, they feel compelled to have all the answers before embarking on any course of action. Unfortunately, seeking those answers, they usually consider the internal ramifications—conditions within their control—and neglect those coming from external sources such as the market, competition, technological advances, etc. And those considerations don’t wait.

This is why Change Management is an important weapon in your arsenal against indecision and inaction. Change Management builds the business case by objectively assessing what is versus what should be and engages the organization in why it is good for them. It garners the right sponsorship and builds coalitions; it demands commitment and ferrets out resistance; and it focuses the entire organization on a singular goal. Change Management is grounded in communication—communication that is clear, consistent, and candid. Change Management champions intellectual honesty and trust, and encourages open dialogue and debate that fosters buy-in and mitigates the possibility of decisions being undermined.

Theodore Roosevelt got it right: “In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” Decisions should evolve; they should never be made in a crisis. Making decisions is a daily event. If you don’t make the small ones today, you will have to make a big one tomorrow—chances are, it won’t be pretty.

How many times has IT management staff felt that their business partners don’t appreciate or understand the effort, time and money required to satisfy a business demand? On the other hand, how many times do you think business partners wonder if IT is focusing on the correct enterprise initiatives, or why their requests are not satisfied to their expectation level? The answer? Too many times to count on both hands. Without transparency, the worst fears of both sides and all stakeholders become a reality.

Webster defines Transparency as “the quality that makes something obvious or easy to understand.” At TransAccel, we view Transparency as a prerequisite for making better supply and demand decisions that are based on cutting the right costs in the right way, while maintaining what is most valuable to the organization. With transparency, the IT organization can participate in valuable discussions that balance costs with IT benefits.

Transparency should exist across all sectors of IT – but especially crucial are:

• Portfolio management
• IT budgeting, performance management, chargebacks and cost allocations
• Measurement and benchmarking
• Investment planning
• IT service portfolios and catalogs

Poor Transparency exists when the value and tradeoffs associated with IT spending are not quantitatively discussed within the larger context of business strategy and goals. Typical results of this information disconnect are inaccurate budget forecasting, inefficient investment planning, and the wrong projects draining away resources, to name a few. Another consequence? Prior optimization goals are often repeated or even increased in following years.

Benefits of Transparency include better demand and supply management, budget forecasting, investment planning, increased governance, respect from business partners, identification of business-valued initiatives, and the elimination of non-core and non-differentiating resource-sapping projects.

The goal is to run IT like a business. TransAccel would be happy to assist your organization with aligning IT services and activities to business goals, and mapping those services to interdependencies and resource requirements.

As organizations strive to achieve leaner and more cost effective IT departments, Transparency is one of four basic cost optimization principles that will allow you to drop additional coins into your piggy bank.

The good news is that this can be done with small steps, consistency, and attention to detail:

1. Maintain documentation. How often have you looked for information only to find that the only available documentation is three years old and woefully outdated? Assign people—and hold them accountable—to keep documents such as policies, procedures, training materials, and system specifications current. This is particularly critical when members of the original project team leave the organization and new employees are hired. Don’t rely on tribal knowledge.

2. Provide continuous communication and training to everyone who is affected by the newly installed changes. Proactively distribute news and tips via email distribution lists. Get on the agendas of regular meetings. Post information on your organization’s intranet site or internal portal. Thoughtfully consider if new training modules need to be offered as the system develops. Offer refresher brief training or “lunch and learn” style sessions to address knowledge gaps.

3. Keep business leaders engaged with updates, issues, and progress, especially after the project governance structure has disbanded. An information vacuum can leave management wondering, “What did we get for that expensive change initiative we launched last year?” Keeping leaders updated has an additional benefit; it earns you the credibility to ask them to help remove obstacles as they arise during the system’s or process’s evolution.

4. Value and respond to individual needs and provide coaching or assistance when needed. Organizational change happens at the individual level, one person at a time. Each person you assist provides them with confidence, reinforces the change in the organization and likely wins you a person more willing to embrace whatever changes come in the future. You will have subtly developed a network of change champions.

Sustaining change requires discipline, but it’s not as time- or resource-consuming as it appears. It’s a relatively small investment of effort that pays substantial benefits. Safeguard your project achievements by not resting on your laurels.

The inclination is often to do something radical—like a reorg—in a desperate attempt to stop the noise. Can you start with a reorganization? Sure. But this only works for organizations at a very high level of maturity, where processes are well instituted. Likewise, it can also work for organizations at a very low level of maturity that lack process rigor, but it will often result in sub-optimization. It’s not about moving things around, it’s about doing things differently.

Getting past Level 2 requires a three-pronged approach:

1. Stop managing and start leading. This one’s not easy. Leaders at this level have worked very hard to get where they are. They’re confident in what they’re doing and they’re good at it. But when things start to change, the heroics stop mattering to the business and the noise begins, and it only gets louder as time passes. Often leaders make one of two decisions: 1) comply with whatever the business says, or 2) leave. But there is a third choice and it’s to lead, step up, break free from the rut of managing noise, and take the organization to a new place.
2. Make processes efficient, then effective. Organizations at a Level 2 already have many processes that are installed. Their focus needs to be on making them more efficient, and then effective. Gaining efficiency comes through repeating the process numerous times and measuring the results to continuously improve. As every good designer/architect knows, “form follows function.”  This principle, associated with modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th century, says that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose.
3. Build trust. The underlying problem facing Level 2 IT organizations: Their internal clients don’t trust them. They lack credibility. It’s harsh, but it’s true. Level 2 organizations should invest in building a strong group of business relationship managers (BRMs, aka account managers). The ultimate sign of a strong BRM is when the business can’t tell if they’re talking to an IT person or another business person. So what constitutes a good BRM? What are the core competencies every BRM needs?

• Business acumen
  A good BRM should speak the business’ language and be effective at translating business needs into IT demand and vice versa.
• Communication skills  to manage expectations
  Internal customers should feel their BRM keeps them informed and up-to-date on the status of their request and projects.
• Strategic planning
  A BRM should be capable of joint account planning, e.g., collaborate with the business to proactively solve business problems rather than respond to problems after they arise.
• Facilitation
  A BRM should be effective at facilitating outcomes, including decision making, consensus building, negotiation and conflict resolution.