Top tips for managing change

How can your organisation manage business change and transformation? Bev Andrews from the Association of Change Management (ACMP) provides her top tips for organisations when it comes to managing change. 

What is the Association of Change Management Professionals?

The Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) is a professional association dedicated to advancing the discipline of change management.  ACMP is a global community offering members the space to learn, share and cultivate professional change practices and continually develop their skills, experiences and connections.

Why is change management important?

Change management is more important than ever before for individuals personally and professionally, as well as organisations who are facing constant and ever-changing business needs.

Change is often quoted as the ‘people side of the business’.  It’s more than that - it enables individuals to build resilience and once reactions to change are understood, you can adapt, grow and support others around you.  For businesses and organisations, it is about getting results, transitioning to a new way of operating, smoothly and with minimum disruption.

What advice would you give to organisations undergoing change management?

Change is more than a communications plan with some training thrown in - change starts with strategy and operational planning.  It covers all aspects of a business and has an equal place at the table with operations, sales or finance.  Change is not a soft and fluffy function that is only there to make people feel good, when delivered well, it provides value and tangible business outcomes.

How has change management developed with the rise of digital technology?

This is an interesting question as digital technology means different things to different people and will depend on each organisation.  Quite often with a traditional IT project, the changes to systems and their outputs are managed as individual projects and depend on the organisation’s project management maturity, degree of understanding of dependencies and how the system is used within the business operating model.

With digital technology you do need to understand the impact to the operating model - how will the data be used in real time and how is it going to impact the way your people work.

Digital transformation transcends across all teams and requires collaboration and visibility - there has been an increase in Agile ways of working and along with it, (think 12 month plan v 1-2 monthly tranches).  New language, thinking and tools have been introduced - daily huddles, visual change boards, experiments are all elements associated with agile ways of working.  However, the tools are adaptable no matter the scale of the change that the business is undertaking.