Final Thoughts on Integrating OCM Deliverables in Your Process Improvement Plan (Phase III, Operate, continued)

Dear Readers,

Today’s post is a continuation of our response to a question from a federal government contractor in Central Ohio, who asked about integrating Organizational Change Management (OCM) deliverables into his process improvement plan. Julie Calfin, Broadsword’s Director of Consulting and our resident expert on OCM, has done great work helping software and engineering professionals who are leading their organizations through large scale change. Take it away, Julie! ~ The CMMI Appraiser 

Thank you, CMMI Appraiser!

Before I address Organizational Alignment Assessment and Action Plan, which make up the final component of the Third Phase (Operate) of integrating OCM deliverables into your process improvement plan, I want to take a step back and remind everyone why this work is important in the first place.

There is a very simple reason that organizations invest in OCM. They want to have a smooth transition that keeps their projects on time and budget while they are asking their people to do things differently.

For that reason, OCM should always be embedded in whatever the transfer initiative is. In this case, we are talking about integrating OCM deliverables with the process improvement plan.

In previous posts, we discussed the OCM deliverables that can be added to each phase of your Process Improvement Plan that will help you affect the change you are striving for. The Phases that we have outlined for your Process Improvement Plan are: 1) Initiate; 2) Implement; and 3) Operate.

Today, our focus is on the Organizational Alignment Assessment and Action Plan deliverable in the third phase, Operate:

Organizational Alignment Assessment – The purpose of the Organizational Alignment Assessment is to identify which of the organization’s “systems” need to change to align with the changes that your process improvement program implemented. Some examples of organizational systems are:

• Organizational design and structure – jobs, the number of people performing each job and the relationships between/among jobs
• Performance management – measures used to gauge performance and the methods used to evaluate employees
• Compensation, benefits, and incentives – pay, vacation, rewards, and benefits that are offered to attract talented professionals and to incent high performance
• Hiring and promoting – practices and criteria used to hire new talent and to promote existing employees to higher level jobs
• Education and development – resources available to equip employees with the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to perform their jobs effectively
• Corporate communications – resources and methods used to disseminate important information to employees and collect their feedback

Organizational systems are really performance levers that help you change the culture of the organization. Just like the levers on the instrument panel of an aircraft, we can bring performance up or down by utilizing our organizational systems as performance levers.

This tool is separate from the Stakeholder Commitment Assessment. It is bigger, broader and more strategic in nature. Here’s how it works. Now that the organization has implemented process changes and new tools to enable the process, and has created new roles and new jobs in the organization, leadership can use the Organizational Alignment Assessment to look at all of the organizational systems and see if they are still aligned with all of the changes introduced. You build an assessment tool to investigate each of the organizational systems in the context of the changes to people, process, and technology. Then, you evaluate all the systems that the organization has, and decide if (and how) those systems need to change to align with the changes that you’ve just introduced.

The Organizational Alignment Assessment tool is highly useful. It helps you answer, “Are things getting better?” as well as, “How do you know?” It gives you information to make the changes necessary to establish the type of environment that can make you a great company.

Organizational Alignment Assessment Action Plan – This Action Plan helps you answer additional questions, such as, “Are your organizational systems (like performance management and compensation) still aligned with the new processes and tools? Which organizational systems need to change to align with the changes implemented by the process improvement program?”

As its name implies, the Organizational Alignment Assessment Action Plan is based on the results of the organizational alignment assessment. This assessment helps you identify which of the organizational systems needs to change to align with the changes that your process improvement program implemented.

This Action Plan will include actions that the organization needs to take to align its systems with its new jobs, processes, and tools. Each action will have an associated owner and a due date. Actions typically include changes to the organizational systems that are no longer aligned with the way the organization does its work. For example, if new jobs were created or additional workload was added to existing jobs, the organizational design and structure need to change. Actions may include writing new or updated job descriptions and evaluating how many people are needed to perform each job. Other actions may involve changing the reporting structure within the organization to enable new relationships between jobs.

This concludes my answer to the question about how to integrate OCM deliverables into the process improvement plan. I hope you have found it useful! If I could leave you with one insight, it is this: OCM is not some ethereal or ambiguous concept. OCM is a strategy and a set of tactics that help you get your people to change their behavior without hurting them or your business.

The rest is up to you.

Like this blog? Forward to your nearest engineering or software exec!

Julie Calfin is the Director of Consulting at Broadsword Solutions Corporation. She has years of real world experience using OCM strategy and tactics to help her clients achieve their goals. Julie also uses the CMMI, in partnership with her clients, to set-up, monitor, and sustain process improvement programs.

Visit www.broadswordsolutions.com for more information about running a successful CMMI program.

How to Integrate OCM Deliverables in Your Process Improvement Plan (Phase III, Operate)

Dear Readers,

Over the course of many poignant blog posts here at Ask the CMMI Appraiser, Julie Calfin, Broadsword’s Director of Consulting and our resident expert on Organizational Change Management (OCM), has been responding to the inquiries of software and engineering professionals who are leading their organizations through large scale change. Today’s post is a continuation of our response to a question from a federal government contractor in Central Ohio, who asked about integrating OCM deliverables into his process improvement plan. Take it away, Julie! ~ The CMMI Appraiser 

Thank you, CMMI Appraiser!

For those just joining us, this conversation has been about applying the discipline known as OCM in a structured but agile manner, using the CMMI as one of your tools, in order to help your organization transition from wherever you are today to wherever you want to be tomorrow.

As I mentioned in previous posts, there are OCM deliverables that can be added to each phase of your Process Improvement Plan that will help you affect the change you are striving for. The Phases that we have outlined for your Process Improvement Plan are: 1) Initiate; 2) Implement; and 3) Operate.

Today, our focus is on the OCM deliverables in the Third Phase, Operate:

Phase III, Operate, is a critical part of your OCM strategy. The Operate Phase is the point in the Process Improvement Plan where you have deployed your new processes and are now monitoring their deployment. This phase is all about measuring the results of the processes. How well are the processes performing? Are they achieving the desired results? And most importantly: How do you know?

The Operate Phase gives us data about how well the process works. After all, if we don't know that - why are we doing this?

Some of the OCM deliverables in the Operate Phase include topics we’ve already covered, such as the status dashboard, ongoing training and mentoring, and ongoing communications. But there is an important deliverable we have not yet discussed, the Stakeholder Commitment Assessment and Action Plan.

Stakeholder Commitment Assessment – The purpose of the Stakeholder Commitment Assessment is to determine how committed your stakeholders are to the behavior changes that you are asking them to make. A Stakeholder Commitment Assessment helps you inform management where you think the stakeholders are with regard to the changes that your Process Improvement Program has implemented. Are they onboard with little evidence of change resistance? Are there some issues? Is a stakeholder group resisting the new ways of doing things? Are there any correlations between the stakeholder groups’ commitment levels to indicate that one group is influencing another?

I recommend assessing the different stakeholder groups that were identified in your Stakeholder Identification and Analysis deliverable from the Initiate Phase. The assessment can be a survey or an interview questionnaire that includes questions to reveal the level of commitment from each stakeholder. For example, the survey may include a statement such as, “Most people in my group seem committed to making the changes that are necessary to perform the company’s new CMMI-based processes.” Survey-takers would indicate their response to this statement by a six-point scale that ranges from “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree”.

We may choose to represent this information using a simple stoplight chart where red (danger), yellow (potential problem) and green (no problem) indicators are provided for each stakeholder group. Or, we could demonstrate this information using a dashboard with gauges (like in your car) that point to a number between 0 and 10. Such a dashboard would indicate the current commitment level of each stakeholder group.

Keep in mind, regardless of how you display the data, this is anecdotal information. It is based on interviews and survey results and is not intended to be ultra precise. Instead, it serves to help you understand where your stakeholders are on the commitment curve.

Do you remember that, when you created the Stakeholder Identification and Analysis (in the Initiate Phase), you gave each stakeholder a rating about how impacted they would be by the changes, and another rating for how influential could they be to influence people either for or against the change? The Stakeholder Commitment Assessment helps you determine how accurate you were in that initial analysis. Because this is ongoing, the Stakeholder Commitment Assessment is performed multiple times throughout a process improvement program. Based on the results, you can identify any problems and develop your action plan to address those problems, outlining the steps the organization needs to take to bring these stakeholders up the commitment curve to adoption and institutionalization.

Now, to put the Stakeholder Commitment Assessment into action:

Stakeholder Commitment Assessment Action Plan – The Stakeholder Commitment Assessment Action Plan helps you answer the question, “What are you going to do for each stakeholder group to get them on board with the change, and bring them up the Commitment Curve?”

This Action Plan contains specific actions that the organization will take to gain the commitment of high risk stakeholder groups and to sustain the commitment of stakeholders who are adopting the changes. Each action will have an associated owner and a due date. Actions typically include communications, mentoring, training, and incentives. In cases where there is a large segment of the organization’s stakeholders who are resisting the changes, the organization may need to take more significant actions such as reorganizing departments, changing reporting structures, hiring new people, or reassigning people who cannot adopt the changes.

There is one more aspect of integrating OCM deliverables into your process improvement plan that I would like to address in a separate post: your Organizational Alignment Assessment and Action Plan. Check back soon!

Like this blog? Forward to your nearest engineering or software exec!

Julie Calfin is the Director of Consulting at Broadsword Solutions Corporation. She has years of real world experience using OCM strategy and tactics to help her clients achieve their goals. Julie also uses the CMMI, in partnership with her clients, to set-up, monitor, and sustain process improvement programs.

Visit www.broadswordsolutions.com for more information about running a successful CMMI program.