HOW CAN PROJECT MANAGERS INFLUENCE CHANGE IN LARGE, COMPLEX ORGANISATIONS?

WITH AROUND 16% OF PROJECTS FALLING INTO THE DOMAIN OF ‘BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION AND IMPROVEMENT’, HOW ARE WE AS PROJECT MANAGERS ABLE TO INFLUENCE CHANGE, PARTICULARLY IN COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTS?

For much of my career, I have worked on and around initiatives intended to bring about large-scale change and while the projects, programs and industries have varied, many of the challenges and success factors have shared some common threads.

I do not claim to be an expert in change or transformation, nor does this article hope to have all the answers to the question posed but I will attempt to share some of the observations (good and bad) that I have made along the way.

LESSON 1: TIMING IS EVERYTHING

In 2017 I was asked to develop a digital education strategy for TAFE SA, the largest VET provider in South Australia. The strategy was intended to be a transformational document, outlining a series of projects relating to the learning management system and the processes, protocols and standards relating to digital delivery and assessment.

The organisation is a complex one – around 290 delivery sites, 70,000+ student enrolments annually, more than 2,000 staff and at the time, around 500 qualifications being delivered. The strategy was well received and with executive sponsorship, projects were being scoped and prepared for kick-off.

All looked good for the strategy but within three months of its launch, the priorities for the organisation shifted markedly. An unfavourable audit report from the VET regulator led to a change in leadership and a change in focus almost solely towards fixing compliance issues. While the digital education strategy and its roadmap of initiatives complimented quality compliance, most were put on hold. The momentum had been lost and it took a further 2 years before the bulk of the digital strategy initiatives were looked at again.

LESSON 2: DANCE WITH THOSE WHO SUPPORT CHANGE!

Earlier in my career, I came across the idea of the ‘tipping point’, beautifully written down in his 2000 book by Malcolm Gladwell. It describes the magical number of a population needed for the global adoption of an idea or innovation.

In his book, Gladwell observed that the adoption of social innovations, ideas and products spreads much in the same way viruses do. He postulated that in order for an innovation (or in this case, a transformation) to gain sufficient hold to be transformative, approximately 20% of a population needed to adopt the change, and that three “rules of epidemics” must be in place.

1. The Law of the Few

Gladwell suggested that for most change situations, relatively few people will do most of the work (see the 80/20 rule or ‘Pareto Principle’) in fostering adoption – particularly if they possess one of three specific personality traits.

• Connectors: these people are ideas ‘super-spreaders’. They tend to have large and complex social circles, perhaps cover different cultural, socioeconomic, or professional groups. They make connections easily and are expert at creating introductions.

• Mavens: mavens tend to be teachers and students, accumulating and sharing knowledge and information with colleagues and peers. They thrive on opportunities to solve problems and trade knowledge.

• Salesmen: these people need little explanation. They are the born negotiator, the one who can convince those that otherwise can’t be persuaded.

2. The Stickiness Factor

What is that one thing that keeps you coming back for more? The stickiness factor is what causes you to return to your favourite websites or choose the same brand of shoes or toothpaste. For transformation to be really, truly accepted, it must be sticky.

3. The Power of Context

The adoption of transformational ideas is often influenced by the smallest of changes and people are far more sensitive to their environment than might be thought. Gladwell uses the example of the City of New York. In a bid to cut rising crime figures, the city focussed on the smaller things, adopting a zero-tolerance policy for fare dodgers on the subway and removing graffiti. This led to a reduction in more serious crime as the population became more aware of the potential penalties for transgressions.

Considering who your connectors, mavens and salespeople will be in the early stages of a transformational project and bringing them to the dance may reap significant benefits later on.

LESSON 3: YOU CAN’T WIN THEM ALL

As well as your ‘few’, it’s important to understand that people inherently lean toward change or away from it. The ‘Diffusion of Innovations’ theory is well known but useful to remember when considering transformation. It may be easy to get the innovators and early adopters on board but our tipping point cannot be reached until the early majority start to be engaged.

LESSON 4: CULTURE IS CONTAGIOUS

Building on lesson three, I would say that it’s also essential to ensure leadership from the front. If the project is to transition to a new software platform or process, are business leaders and senior staff not only using it, but seen to be using it? If senior business leaders are all laggards in relation to your transformation project, it may be impossible to fully embed the change that you wish to implement.

LESSON 5: LEARN FROM OTHERS (OR STEAL SHAMELESSLY AND SHARE GENEROUSLY)

If you are reading this then you have an interest in project management as a discipline, and you read the stories of others who may have had similar experiences to your own. Naturally, project managers take the lessons learned from previous projects into their planning and implementation of subsequent ones, but the lessons from other project managers in other businesses or even industries and their projects (successful and not) are critically helpful in foreseeing the pitfalls and planning ways to navigate them.

If your story is a positive one, then make sure you share your wins. Write the recipe for how you successfully pieced together all that complexity and baked the perfect project. The AIPM community discussion forum is the perfect place to ask the questions of peers. “I’m trying to accomplish [insert challenge here]. What worked for you?” I look forward to reading your recipes!

Author: Bryan Foley is an experienced project and program manager with a background in consulting, healthcare quality improvement, and educational redesign projects. He is currently the Project Manager for the Australian Research Experimental Submarine, and CareerSpark projects for School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Adelaide.