Situation
Our client was a leading provider of electricity, natural gas, and home services across North America. Over the past several years, the business has been characterized by:
• Rapid growth – organic and through acquisition
• A need to streamline processes and clarify responsibilities
Within this context, the company had undertaken a major transformation initiative to address operational improvement requirements. The company’s eventual implementation of transformation initiative recommendations were projected to result in:
• Significant changes in processes
• Potential standardization of processes across the company – to reduce complexity and maximize operational efficiencies.
• Potential centralization of some processes across the company – to obtain economies of scale
• Potential organizational changes resulting from changed processes or centralization
As such the eventual implementation of recommendations needed to anticipate and manage any reactions to change by any groups or individuals. Thus, there were a number of Change Management needs that required planning for.
Requirement
Schroeder & Schroeder was commissioned to provide change management and change capacity planning activities, focusing on the following in connection with the business optimization effort being carried out:
• A detailed Stakeholder Analysis that would identify individuals, groups and departments, and would analyze the impact of the transformation initiative on these stakeholders
• Development of a Change Management Strategy that would include recommendations for tactics that could be potentially integrated with those already in progress
• Recommendations for a project governance structure that may include elements such as a Working Committee and Change Network
• Development of an implementation plan for any additional change management tactics that are recommended and accepted
Challenges
The main challenges we faced on this project included:
• A large complex project with many stakeholders
• Uncertainty around which elements of the transformation needed to take priority
• Uncertainty around who had what authorities for the Change Management aspects within the transformation initiative
Actions
After analyzing the project requirements, our consultants performed the following actions:
1. Collected input on the transformation initiative requirements – conducted surveys and interviews with transformation initiative project leads and selected company management.
2. Transformation Project Inventory – developed a complete inventory of all planned or potentially foreseen transformation projects that may have an impact on the company. Project interdependency scans and tools were used to identify and monitor potential impacts on the company’s stakeholders involved in the transformation initiative activities.
3. Conducted a Readiness Assessment – grouped the change readiness of the company into 4 categories: stakeholder analysis, stakeholder readiness assessment, shared service model change readiness, and organizational context change readiness in order to fully understand the business impact of the change initiative.
4. Conducted a Stakeholder Capacity Assessment – performed stakeholder capacity assessment and used monitoring tools to assist in determining the optimal timing of implementing the transformation initiative change among specific stakeholder groups.
5. Performed Stakeholder Analysis and Business Optimization Impacts – provided a detailed Stakeholder Analysis that identified individuals, groups and departments, and analyzed the impact of the transformation initiative on these stakeholders.
6. Established Change Management Resources and Governance Structure – developed a Change Management governance structure that reflected the current Business Optimization PMO structure, various change management levers and related strategies and resource pools, and the involvement of change leaders within in the business.
7. Delivered Change Management Recommendations – established a Change Management Strategy that included recommendations for tactics that could be potentially integrated with those already in progress and a high level implementation plan.
Results
At the end of the project, a comprehensive Change Management strategy and implementation plan, that specified the context for change and involved all key resources and stakeholders, was established. The Change Management Strategy included the following elements:
• A leadership strategy that supported Executives and Managers as change leaders by developing appropriate change leadership skills and mechanisms designed to ensure that critical change risks were effectively managed.
• A competency development strategy that helped employees acquire the necessary competencies to execute the business strategy and ensure that training of impacted company staff was effectively managed.
• An organizational design and structure strategy that maximized operational efficiencies and outcomes and provided a basis for appropriate placement and training of staff in new evolving roles and structures.
• A high level communications strategy that ensured that the company would send the right messages at the right time and that communication activities were appropriately managed.
• A compensation, benefits and rewards strategy that appropriately linked rewards to the company’s key success factors/business results, controlled fixed compensation costs and attracted highly qualified applicants.
• A performance management strategy that ensured expectations between all parties were clear and shared, that performance objectives were achieved, and that client problems, needs, and implications were clearly understood.
• A staffing and deployment strategy that provided a basis for fairly and efficiently placing people where they would be the most effective, provided a basis for appropriately training new staff in evolving roles, and highlighted potential staffing issues that could be further managed and resolved.
At the conclusion of the project all the key success factors had been achieved, and the client was highly satisfied with the project deliverables and the value added by Schroeder & Schroeder Inc.