Change Communications a Value-Add for
IT Consultancies
By Martha J. Hudak, APR
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Summary

This paper was originally developed for an IT consultancy interested in providing more value to its clients.  At the same time, it was distributed to their consultants in the field to create a better understand of the impact of their technology improvements on the end user—the people side of change.  Many IT consultancies offer technical training as part of a technology deployment, but these firms can make their deployments more successful by adding the people dimension and increase the size of spend by the client. 

What is Communicate-Change?

Communicate-Change is a structured approach to change management communications.  It is primarily targeted internally to end user work groups impacted by a technology change or any project that creates changes in the way work gets done.  Sometimes an impacted end user group may be external, such as customers or regulators.  Communicate-Change incorporates more end user opinion techniques (visioning, focus groups, one-on-one feedback sessions, surveys) than traditional internal communications to ensure two-way communications throughout the change process that includes assessment, measurement and feedback.

Communicate-Change is NOT a directive or one-way communication.  It does not use stock templates for technology announcements.  Its purpose is to move end users in a structured way to accept and engage in the change that will make deployment smoother and more successful and accelerate adoption.  To accomplish this, it uses various research and communication techniques to engage people, and not just inform them.  Additionally, a communications professional knows how to create messaging that is understandable to segmented end user groups, who should deliver the message and what communication channels are appropriate for each message, resulting in messages targeted differently to group.  Messaging is devoid of technological terms common to IT, and instead, complex messages are translated in a way to make them understandable to end users.  None of this is a “cookie cutter” approach.

The role of communications in Change Management.

Communicate-change plays a critical role within any change management model.  The bottom line of change management is, “If we are not successful to enable people to change on how they’ll be doing their job, is it possible for us to achieve the business objective?”

There are different change management methodologies.  All are a staged approach to inform end users of the benefit of the change, which then moves them through different stages to embrace the change.  Many times, change management communications is used synonymously with internal or employee communications, but it is not the same, particularly for technology project where the change communicator must understand the technology, the IT project life cycle stages and project management stages. 

Many large organizations may have a Change Management Model in place.  If a change management methodology for IT is not in place when a new IT project is started, the business analyst or Project Management Office may inherit some or all of the different elements of a change management and communications process.  Key responsibilities may be training, business process changes and leadership counseling; and communications is critical in all these areas.  However, the business analyst or PMO may not have the training or time to plan and execute a successful communications program.

How a change communications program is integrated into an IT project.

According to Prosci, a leading change management methodology, “Change management activities that are launched at the beginning of a project can be more proactive in addressing the people side of change.  When change management is brought in as an add-on late in the project, it is typically to ‘fight fires’ and help with damage control.”

Communicate-Change is no different.  It is most successful when integrated into the project plan in the beginning as Business Requirements are developed and reporting directly to the executive sponsor or project leadership.  The number one failure of mismanaging change, according to Prosci, is lack of the CEO and appropriate sponsors to motivate employees.  Communications is often cited in research as the first or second reason projects do not meet goals, and it is also a key factor in the role of the executive sponsor.

Measurement also should be integrated into the project plan, which is best accomplished by incorporating the people side of change into Functional Reporting Requirements and determining up front how they will be measured.  The budget also should extend three to six months beyond deployment to measure the speed of adoption, utilization and proficiency of users.  Communications is fully integrated with all project activities when planned early, and these are means to ensure the integration required.

The Communicate-Change five-stage methodology is easily integrated into the IT project life cycle stages:

Business Requirements > Design > Development > Training > Deployment > Post-deployment feedback

It also tracks to standard project management phases in the Project Management Institute (PMI) methodology as well as various change management models, such as: Prosci’s ADKAR, McKinsey's 7-S Model, Lewin's Change Management Model and Kotter's Eight Step Change Model  What is does differently is not silo the communications function, but more tightly integrate it.

The return on investment by integrating change communications into your IT project.

A structured approach to change management, according to Prosci, “moves organizations away from merely reacting to resistance to change and provides a solid framework for engaging and mobilizing impacted employees.”  More important, a proactive communications program for an IT project can prevent employees from falling into the “valley of despair” in the change cycle, which reduces productivity, support for the change and individuals from sabotaging a project before it is deployed. 

For just a tiny percent of the total project budget, an IT consultancy can add change management communications to its offering, which is much easier if training is already bundled in the offering.  End users will arrive at training sessions with a more positive attitude and an understanding of how the technology change will benefit them personally.  Positive, engaged employees ensure successful deployment of the technology change, and keeping a pulse on them throughout the project helps identify potential barriers that can be addressed early and less expensively.

Communicate-Change is designed specifically to integrate into a technology deployment and support your technology at every milestone to ensure successful adoption.

About Us
 

Author:  :  Martha Hudak is a communications professional with an extensive background in all communications disciplines.  She spent several years in technology environments at Fortune 500 companies, experiencing considerable change and directing communications initiatives around change.  She has partnered with Mark Menarik to develop the new Communicate-Change service offering from MJ Hudak & Associates.  Mark is an engineer by training and, as an entrepreneur, launched technology start-ups and new product offerings.