As we look towards the end of the COVID-19 crisis, “Returning to Normal” is at the forefront of everyone’s minds and hearts right now. Welcome as it may be, we are all dealing with the changes this new challenge is bringing, both at home and professionally. Our Change Management consultant and ProSci Change Management practitioner, Charae Gibbs, shares her …
There is a lot of talk around being an “agile” organization these days. Since COVID began so abruptly last spring, many organizations are reconsidering how they adapt to change, and being “agile” sounds appealing. Leaders are asking their teams to be more agile, but what should teams count on those in a leadership role to do in an Agile organization?
It should be noted that the first step in Improvement is to admit that you have things to improve! Once you think you can improve, in order to actually improve, you have to do something. After you do something, you can assess the results and realize you can improve again! In other words, focusing on improvement is a beautiful virtuous cycle.
Change is going to happen – we all know that intellectually. However, when we have built up a comfortable life, or a comfortable belief – we do not necessarily “know” this emotionally. We are afraid of what could be on the other side of change. And the longer we resist the change, the stronger our fear becomes as we conjure up further negative permutations of the change.
It is too easy for Leaders to work on strategy, execution plans, tactical implementation, and even on vision and values, and forget to intentionally, proactively, consistently, and articulately COMMUNICATE about these things to their greater teams who need to know.
Given the inevitability of change, creating a static “Waterfall” schedule with all tasks and dependencies fully known at the outset of a project seems antiquated at best. Here is how we recommend generating a tried-and-true Milestone Schedule in an Agile fashion – specifically by creating an Agile Project Backlog.
This describes AJC’s value of Foster Accountability. We have executed projects and change before and can help our clients’ teams create and visualize the path. At first, all they need to worry about is visualizing working with our team. We will help them create and follow the path so that over time, they will be able to see the path for themselves and can execute on their own the next time.
Many of us have had the experience of asking for something specific, and not hearing back – for a “long” time, or sometimes ever! Great leaders, such as Pat Gelsinger of Intel, give advice to leaders, especially in a pandemic, to “Communicate, Communicate, Communicate.” At AJC, we are keenly aware of the frustration and stress …
My specialty is communications but I am SHRM (HR) certified and PROSCI change management certified and been involved in all sorts of change efforts throughout my career – from closing down pension plans, communicating changes and large increases to employee benefit programs, new leadership teams, new CEOs, acquisitions, mergers, new system implementations, restructures, etc. Change …
Following up from our previous Blog, “How Do I Know if my Team is Ready for Change?”, this article discusses when to measure change in a project. Ideally you will have a baseline measurement – i.e. before work has begun on the change. For example, if you are implementing a new system, you can poll …
