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Tag: change management

How To Cope When The Project You Are Leading Fails?

Posted on by Imarticus Learning
Reading Time: 2 minutes

 
Everyone fails at some time or the other. Failures are meant to be dealt with and learned from. Yet, there isn’t a single training course that deals with fears of failure, coping with failing projects or handling failures at work. And this, despite the fact that project failures cost money, maybe losing a client and leaves you despondent and feeling completely at sea. So read on to discover the simple path.

Realization and acceptance of failure:   

Admit the failure and accept the fact. Don’t run away from it and blame others. After all, as a Project Manager, you will realize that there are many factors leading to the failure of projects. Face it that you are not alone and solely responsible. Failures can happen to all of us. How you walk-on is more important than how you celebrate project success.

Know when to let go:

Never get stuck with the sinking boat. There is only the drowning way out if you don’t bail out in time. The tell-tale signs of reduction in buy-ins, missed timelines, apathy from the senior management, costs incurred so far, and last but not the least your ego and knowing when to let go.

Review and review constructively:

The project has failed and it is now your failure. So get to the task of a constructive passionless review of where, why and when the train got off the rails. Take responsibility for your team and the failed project. In part, it is your failure!
Were deadlines missed, were resources competent and timely, were there any tell-tale signs of off-roading, what exactly have you failed at? Well, seek and you will find. Recognize your mistakes and be sure that they will ensure you don’t go the path of failure again.

Bias will color your sights:

Reviews often seek reasons for project failure. Seek them without bias. Have an outsider audit the process, don’t look for reasons that confirm the easy way out, and avoid blaming others when things don’t go, as you planned. If you knew along it was doomed, why did you not act? Optimism is positive when in moderation as is bias and playing the blame game.

Don’t play the blame-game:

The PM has to bear the brutal brunt of a failed project. It’s the job, not the person that is being blamed. Check to see what lessons you can learn, what were the signs you did not see, how can you prevent the same one happening again, how can you get your team up and running, what really was your role in the error. Now that it has happened, move on. Do what you can as the PM and do it best, is a great policy to follow, now more than ever!

Plan to better implement projects rather than produce better products:

Let your focus be on doing things differently the next time around. As leader of the team, concentrate on implementation practices rather than a high-velocity release of products. Your team will produce results when you lead from the front and help implement projects better on time and within the budget each time, every time. There will always be so much beyond your control to complain about another day.
In parting, let’s remember failure is a great teacher. Great lessons are learned and success implies always trying to gain control even beyond what you can actually control.

What Would Be The Career Path For an Agile Coach?

Posted on by Imarticus Learning
Reading Time: 3 minutes

The job role for an Agile coach originated from IT but is now in demand by various industries across the globe. If you’re a project manager and are looking to take the next step in your career, becoming an Agile coach might just be the perfect role for you. More prominent organizations and companies are now looking to increase the efficiency rate and delivery rate while making software and hence adopt agile methods to be able to do this. As an Agile Coach, you’re required to create and motivate high-performing teams by imparting Agile methodologies via open communication and collaboration of team.
An Agile Coach ensures that the team is working together in the most effective way possible. The role is different from the program/project manager whose task is to ensure that everyone is clear about the functionality of their roles. An Agile Coach needs a combination of experience in project management and high leadership skills.
Project management experience: can be in IT, software development or other domains where one has been involved in overviewing the delivery of a plan right from its conception to its completion.
Leadership skills: Agile Coaches have high leadership, advisory and consultancy skills, and they are also skilled communicators, facilitators and great at identifying various solutions and approaches to problems by understanding organisational development.
Good Agile coaches can generally easily transition from being Business Analysts, Scrum Masters, Developers, etc. It doesn’t matter where a person is currently, what matters is having the perfect skill set for the job role.
Tips on becoming an Agile Coach:

If you start adopting Agile practices in your current job role, you will impress the recruiters as they look for people who have practical experiences.
Get involved in Agile training and consider doing a certified course. Being certified in Agile is not enough on its own to secure a position as an Agile coach, but it shows recruiters a willingness to learn, and it will ensure you’re up to date with the very best practices in the industry. Go to Agile or Scrum Meet-Ups and meet others in the field. There are always conferences and group seminars one can attend to gain more knowledge of this filed.
There are certain required capabilities that recruiters look for while considering a person for the role of an Agile coach.

They are,
Required skills:
Experience in Project Management.
Practical and hands-on Agile delivery experience.
Expert knowledge of Agile principles and practices, and being able to transfer that understanding at all levels of the organisation process.
We are consulting and facilitating skills in leading a team in the adoption and improvement of agile methodologies.
Excellent training and presentation skills.
Ability to adapt to a fast paced environment and produce quality results.
Skilled in leading meetings, decision making, and negotiating win-win solutions/approaches to problems.
Strong interpersonal skills, with a demonstrated ability to work independently.
Excellent listener and amazing non-verbal and verbal communication skills.
A willingness to instruct and mentor without biasedness and with enthusiasm.

Following are the responsibilities that one needs to undertake as an Agile coach:
Supervise, analyse and identify problems or communication gaps in knowledge and understanding of how Agile works and lead the teams through training or mentoring sessions.
Work with the Agile teams to identify and manage interactive dependencies.
Work with the teams to identify and then implement process improvements.
Be there for the team and resolve conflicts within the team or outside of it.
Closely work with respective Project Managers to ensure the timely execution and delivery of the feedback received by the customer/user.
Undertake the project manager’s responsibilities when necessary.
Keep the Agile team motivated.

The Past, Present and Future of Business analysis

Posted on by Imarticus Learning
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Over the years technology has bridged many gaps. These gaps existed between processes, skills and resources. However, an interesting turn of events happened with the era of Business analysis. This brought a time where data became the real asset and insights, disruptions and innovations followed.  Not only this, data analysis helped solving recurrent business problems, something quite unimaginable in the times of manual file-based processes.

How did it all start?

Back in the days when everything was manually recorded on paper within hard bound files, technology gave the world a better way to manage processes with IT systems. Once these systems were in place, everyone started creating a lot of data.  Only after a few years of accumulation of this data did organisations thought about using this data for generating value. This is where business analysis took precedence. There was an obvious market need for innovation and organisations realised that they need to be able to analyse this data and draw insights.   

What does the present look like?

Today business analysis courses has evolved as an amalgamation of domains and analytical skills. Domain is one of the key ingredients for identifying patterns because without an understanding of the business it is simply not quite possible to draw any kind of conclusions or even understand the data. Several analytical techniques have become common. Some include MOST (Mission, Objectives, Strategies and Tactics), PESTLE (Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal and Environmental), SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats), MOSCOW (Must or Should, Could or Would) and Six Thinking Hats.

Today, data talks well with folks with a keen understanding of domain and a good grasp of implementing analytical techniques. Their key challenges are ensuring that data is relevant and integrated. Once solved, organisations can harness the data and release innovative solutions in the market. Over the past few years, the market has witnessed ideas ranging from digitised health platforms to big data stylist services – all born from data analysis. And this is just the tip of the iceberg!

What does the future hold?

With automation and agile becoming a norm, there is an obvious push towards complexity. This means a major chunk of business analysis tasks that require human intervention today will be automated. While this is great news from a business perspective because it will bring reduced errors, lower cost of maintenance and less time to insights. The other end of the impact would be on utilisation of the insights resulted from data analysis. This would most likely be the next sweet spot where a keen understanding of business strategy would come into play to make real business decisions.

Business analysis that we know as of today is a much-advanced version of what it initially was scoped to deliver. Today, business analysis attempts to solve the data challenge by identifying the right data and analysing it to solve business problems. While the future looks complex, we can expect some real innovation and market disruptions from business analysis. 

Reframing The Culture Of Organizational Change

Posted on by Imarticus Learning
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Companies are placing a much larger emphasis on culture in the workplace, policies for efficient smart work is overtaking long hours and unhealthy employee health. This change places a large emphasis on the use of technology, the framework of cultural change and the link between the two. A cultural emphasis on change can be challenging to implement in the digital age without the right form of the framework in place. This is why understanding organisational structures and setting a digital framework for cultural shifts becomes essential.

Cultural Reference

A huge part of the culture is based on predictive reasoning, the market is full of culture references. Companies like Venmo are a key example of understanding cultural references and implementing change through software, the company recognized the need for cashless pay shares in small purchases, something groups could access with ease without complicating the calculations of who pays how much per bill or receipt. Venmo offered a solution to one person’s credit card bearing the expense of charges while others chipped in with cash by linking a banking system to a virtual database that offered real-time cashless sharing. This framework is a prime example of organizational change in culture in general society but the same principle could be used in theory within the organizational structures within a company.

Through this theory, companies could also reframe the culture of change in more than a monetary sense. Changing the way you communicate within a society could also change, de-personalizing the communication links through official channels by creating autonomous networks can create random networks of interactions, this can help combat corruption by disempowering the agencies from having the capacity to incur personal gain by enforcing technology to act in the place of personal judgement.

The Future

The world is currently balancing a schism of policy shifts to shape the mindset of a generation, parts of this include the fight for privacy and security, the link between enforcement of policy and human error and many other agenda-based culture shifts. During this time, the growth of tech frameworks for change is altering the dynamic of the conversation. The shift from archaic technology to more efficient systems is now creating predictive algorithms that can shape how tomorrow looks to the generation of today. Schools are using visual aids through digital platforms to impart wisdom more than the past, using technology like AI, medical agencies are quickly transforming the role of the differently abled.

Similarly, AI is now entering the public space through government means. South Korea has implemented an AI-based transaction system known as T-Money to interact with public transport pay, this has created a transparent system of transactions between the transit agencies and the public. This framework shift for cultural development is creating a dynamic of rapid change in both how companies and governments operate.

What Do We Need?

For new frameworks and technologies to impact positive change, heavy investment in R&D and in the training of professionals for maintaining the development of technology is required. Similarly, dedicated networks of oversight to ensure error-free functions of the technology and systems of checks and balances both in government and inside companies are required. This means a radical change in the way organisations function requires the thought of these agencies to keep up with the technological evolution of policy implementation and change. This includes understanding the complex nature of change using technology and reserving a manner of liability to the resistance of change.

In summary, it can be said that the use of technology to reframe the culture of change is possible in various outlets of public and private life or within companies, this however, requires a shift in the organizational structure of a company and the evolution of the thought process within departments within organizations. Using technology to change culture can lead to more transparency, empower the public and create equal work environments. It also is an expensive affair that requires heavy investment in R&D and in training specialists to maintain and manage the framework created to change culture.

What Is Organisational Change Management?

Posted on by Imarticus Learning
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Organisational change management is a systematic approach to managing the effects of new business models, changes in organisational structure or the change in the culture of the organisation. A framework for organisational change becomes inevitable as it guides the people in the organisation to learn and adapt to the new behavior and skills.

Being transparent about the change about to take place, setting good communication tools and being proactive about change keeps the interests of the stakeholders intact, and they provide co-operation through the process of implementation of organisational change.

Successful organisational change management should incorporate the following:

• Understanding the vision of change and not being competitive to initiate the change.
• Efficient leadership who can communicate the vision for the proposed change and its association with the organisational objectives
• Changes expected in the working of employees due to the implementation of change.
• Having a concrete plan to depict the success rate of the change. Frequent monitoring and measuring of the implemented change to make sure if the change has fulfilled its intended objectives.
• Having organisational change management approaches enables in a smooth transition of individuals and the organisation when bringing about a change.

The process of organisational change management: First and the foremost step in the change management courses is to clearly define the change and its connection with the goals of the organisation.

Once the change is defined you need access to the impact of such a change at various levels of the organisation. Developing communication tools will ease out the process of change management in Organization through the levels of organisational structure and towards the employees.

Effective communication strategies must include timely and incremental communication of important messages regarding the change. Employees need to be properly trained and made competent by equipping them with the necessary skills and knowledge for successful change management.

Keep evaluating your change management for determining its efficiency in attaining the organisational goals.

Future of change management:
It is expected to have a meteoric rise in the Future of change management as increasing understanding and application of change is getting technical and complicated. In future, the organisation that fails to adapt to change is less likely to survive.

Hence, change management in an organisation is an inevitable part of a successful organisation. Innovation is the key to stay in the market, and hence constant improvements in the products and services will help in thriving through change. In future passionate change, leadership teams within an enterprise will be the ones responsible for a successful change.

Conclusion
Being focused and building the momentum for change through all levels of the organisation is crucial. Being creative and expecting a change can make a huge difference with respect to avoiding the change.

Shared vision and shared approach of the management and staff will be a vital point in handling change. So, fasten your seat belts and drive your organisation to the path of success by adopting the right change in the organisation.

10 Wrong Answers to Common Change Management Questions: Do You Know the Right Ones?

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

Reading Time: 3 minutesThe ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus once proclaimed – “Embrace Change: It is the only constant in life”, and he was not the only great who thought that. After spending years studying nature, the universe, the natural law, all the ancients known for their wisdom and invention had similar things to say. “You cannot step twice into the same river”, said Plato. “Everything flows.”, said, Aristotle.
While few of the above quotes come from a people perspective, other come from a scientific perspective. Change is the natural order of the world. And to embrace change is essential for survival. This is especially true in the modern context of the IT industry. People and processes but continually evolve and change to suit the market and consumer expectations. Only this would enable a company to survive and thrive.
All About Change Management
While change management is a critical factor for any organization, few get it right. The main concepts to learn about change management are Assessing, preparing, planning, implementing and sustaining the change.
However, for change to be effective below are also factors to consider:
How to Effectively Manage Communication of Change?
While starting to learn about change management, it is evident that communication is key. With the advent of technology, Change is often communicated via email or voice recordings. While this reaches a broader audience, it might not be as effective as a face to face discussion as the employee get an opportunity to react to the change and to register his comments on it. Communication must be personal and must convey to the employee what is at stake if he does not embrace the change and what are the advantages if he does.
How to Manage Resistance to Change?
The key factor to resistance to change must be understood. Employees who are heavily invested in the current way of doing it find it hard to accept. The employees who are resisting change must be heard out, and if required, the change proposal must be reworked to suit the needs of the company, product and employees. If there is a lesson to be learnt about change management, it is that Alignment to the new policy is mandatory.
      How to Manage disruptive technology in the marketplace?
Technology evolves rapidly. You can become obsolete at the blink of the eye unless you evolve with the market. While it is ok to respond to the changing market conditions, the important thing we must learn about change management is that companies and processes must be discovery and technology driven rather than knowledge driven.
How to manage alternate ways for the company to generate revenue?
While licensing seems good for business, business models these days offer free developer version and license only the enterprise versions. The latter is a better option as more people have the competence to embrace this software. The important thing about change management is to assess the expectation of the consumer community and to gauge the competitor’s strategy to redefine yours; else you will no longer be earning as much revenue as you did last year.
How to manage changing customer expectation?
The good thing about change management is that it requires constant input from the industry about changing needs and demands of the customer. Instead of reactively looking for solutions to problems, it is better to anticipate change and prepare for it proactively.
Constant evaluation of change
After the implementation, are the results in line with expectations of the market? Complacency cannot set in as continuous tweaks are constantly necessary to keep ahead.
How to bring about the change?
Constant R&D can bring about change management in the entire society. Often technology has brought change to the society and not vice-versa. Vision is a must for all companies.
Believe and Invest in Change
To bring everyone on board is a top-down approach which involves the entire leadership team. For it to succeed would mean working together as a team.
How to drive change?
Create a sense of urgency. An essential factor to learn about change management is the timeline. Execution on time is vital for all strategies to succeed.

7 Things About Change Management You’ll Kick Yourself for Not Knowing

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

Reading Time: 3 minutesChange management is one such art which an organization needs to implement properly in order to grow. Now, a business organization needs to evolve in each and every time. The changes in a business organization depend on various factors such as:

  • Market Conditions
  • Customer Demands
  • Technologies
  • Input Costs
  • Competition

A company needs to adapt itself in these changing scenarios otherwise, it cannot grow. They need to continuously re-evaluate their business models and enquire about the aptness of the tactics and strategies they are applying in order to reach their long-term goals.
What is Change Management?
Change management is all about carefully and thoughtfully making changes in the working of an organization. However, not every people in your organization will be ready to accept changes. When you tell them to do things which they have been doing in a certain way to do in a different way, they will find it hard to accept it and get confused about it. Many companies face uncertainty during this change. If your company is facing the same thing then here 7 change management guide you will kick yourself for not knowing.

  1. Communicate The Risks Of Not Changing

When you communicate about the risk of not changing to your employees then they will understand aptly as to why they need to change and keep evolving. To keep themselves at the top of their work, they need to keep evolving. If you can make them understand this then you will be able to apply change management guide successfully.

  1. Involve Your Team In Decision Making

When you involve your team while making an important decision, they seem to become more and more responsible for their work. They will feel that the company is also listening to what they want. This is very important in order to gain the trust of your employees. This will be the base on which you can apply change management guide successfully without any uncertainty and chaos among your employees.

  1. Minimize The Uncertainty

With the change in the working of your company, one thing is certain and that is there will be uncertainty in the minds of your employees. That is why you need to communicate with your employees in a way that the uncertainty in their mind will get eliminated. This is also an effective change management guide.

  1. Celebrate Success

This is an important step in implementing the change management guide successfully. Celebrating the successful application of each change and celebrating those changes will make your employees believe that the changes you have made are going in a positive direction.

  1. Explain The Reason For The Change

If you don’t explain why you are changing the working of your company, your employees will stay in the shadow of doubt and fail to understand why the change is necessary. Thus, you have to explain it properly to your employees. It is a change management guide that you should follow.

  1. Be Transparent

You need to make sure that your employees know every information regarding the change. When there is a communication gap, they might feel that you are plotting something terrible. So, be transparent to your employees as much as possible.

  1. You Need To Lead The Change

Remember that the change in your organization will be less scary for your employees when you will be driving that change. So, show your leadership skills by leading the change as it will help your employees to get clarity about the change.
So, next time when you are changing the working of your organization to cope up with the changing scenarios of the market, keep these 7 change management guide in mind in order to apply the changes successfully.