One of the many perks of being a Change Management consultant is the exposure we get to a broad spectrum of organisations with varying levels of understanding and capability in change management. This ranges from organisations who have never heard of the discipline, to those who have embedded change management into daily business operations, and everything in between.
Market research shows, and our experience supports, that a high quality of change management has a positive correlation with return on investment. Projects that implement effective change management tend to be more likely to meet objectives, stay on schedule and keep to their budgets. People who transition through a formal change management process experience greater proficiency, faster adoption, and ultimate utilisation.
With that in mind it’s time to ask yourself – what is your organisational change management maturity and what can you do to improve it?
What is change management maturity?
When we talk about change management maturity we are scoring a range of factors that indicate how effectively change is delivered at your organisation. This includes, but is not limited to:
- The quality of the organisational change management strategy or framework
- The availability and application of change management processes and tools
- The expertise of resources who deliver change management
- The understanding of the purpose of change management across the organisation
- The buy-in for change management across senior leadership
- The inter-connectedness between change management and project management
- The approaches and effectiveness of stakeholder engagement, communications and training
An organisation with little or no change management capability typically experiences higher rates of project failure, turnover and productivity loss. An organisation that has change management competency embedded into it’s operations and in a cycle of continuous improvement experiences higher rates of project success, a more content workforce and a high degree of responsiveness to change.
Is it easy to improve change management maturity?
The short answer is “no”. An uplift in change management maturity requires understanding and buy-in from senior leaders first and foremost and then a willingness to commit to developing the capability.
However, not every organisation wants or needs to reach the higher echelons of maturity. While improving capability is never a bad thing, where your maturity should lie ultimately depends on the size, culture, and strategic direction of your organisation.
A lower level of maturity might be sufficient for an organisation that is smaller and that can engage directly with its people. For larger organisations experiencing high volumes of change a higher maturity will undoubtedly help yield improved outcomes for your projects and your people.
The best thing you can do is to understand what your organisations maturity is, the pain points an improvement in your maturity could address, and what level of buy-in leaders are willing to commit to in order to address these pain points. Only then can you define a change management maturity program.
Where do I start?
The best way to determine your change management maturity is to engage your people.
- Engage your leaders to understand their knowledge of change management and the value they place on it.
- Engage team members to understand their experiences with change and what the key pain points are.
- Engage your project resources (project managers, business analysts, communications, learning and development etc.) to understand how change management is currently applied and by who.
Chamonix have experience in driving these conversations to identify pain points and improvement opportunities, defining a maturity score, and developing a tailored action plan for improvement that aligns to corporate strategy.
If you need help or would like to know more about Chamonix’s end to end approach to digital transformation, get in touch
