What if we're not a Fortune 50? Ways to navigate change management for the rest of us

During any given week, I have lots of conversations with small and mid-sized organizational leaders as they contemplate transitioning to a new system and, inevitably, we end up talking about change management. While much of the research around change management is for large, for-profit entities, many of the practices and tools can scale well for smaller technology transformations. 

Starting with the assumption that you're leading a project that: A) impacts one or more departments (ex. moving to a new donor database would impact development, finance and the executive director), and B) you'll be working on a project timeline of more than 8 weeks, here are some techniques that can help insure change without overburdening the project team or process.

• Determine the project team and roles - Even at a small organization, transformation planning should include explicit assignment of roles. Roles aren't the same as job titles, although there can be some overlap. Start with designating the executive sponsor, project lead, department stakeholders and SMEs (subject matter experts). This can be created and maintained in a simple spreadsheet, with a lightweight, RACI-esque matrix. Here's a template if you need a place to start. The template includes a column for expected team member time commitment and a column to track if this time commitment has been formally supported by their direct supervisor. You can expand to do a traditional RACI matrix, if that's right for your project, or you can choose to keep it lean.
  

• Develop a concise statement on how the project serves the mission - This is two sentences, max*. Your statement should be simple language that everyone can remember. A example would be: "STEPS is focused on the welfare of families in Carbon County. We expect to serve 25% more clients in the next five years, and moving to a new system/away from the legacy system will make this possible." If you can't come up with a statement like this, you should rethink investing in the project. Conversely, if you can meet the stated goal with the legacy system/process, you should reevaluate why you're making a move. When your team finds themselves deep in the middle of User Acceptance Testing, they will need a reminder of why they're doing this.
  

• Assess the project team and mindset - Until recently, much of the change management research was focused on top-down, "command and control" management styles that assumed perfect adherence to a prescribed set of steps. In small nonprofits, the management structure is traditionally flat and the culture is much more collaborative, with inputs and influence from staff being regularly synthesized into organizational decisions. If you've been using the same legacy fundraising system for the past 15 years, and have team members with lengthy tenures, they most likely have some strong feelings about the transition and work ahead. This is where it's good to do some reflection and perspective taking as the project lead along with the executive sponsor, so you can balance urgency of change with empathy. Which team members will be champions, resisters or neutral participants? Using that informal assessment, think about specific engagement or inclusion strategies to help them feel greater ownership and commitment to the project's success. Set reminders for yourself as the project lead to check in on changes in mindset and modify your approach as needed. 
  

• Get your executive sponsor out front - If you're a project lead, you need regular meetings between yourself and the executive sponsor for the project, so establish that cadence from the start. You can also use these meetings to drive regular updates from the executive sponsor to the team and end users. If your CFO is the sponsor, and is not particularly keen on crafting emails, provide them with talking points or forward a status update to them and have them provide a preamble in their own voice. In a smaller project, aim for a message/email from the sponsor just before kickoff, after UAT, at go live (see next bullet for the importance of not declaring victory at go live!) and every 60 days after go-live, until adoption is complete. Executive sponsor messages should hit on these key points:

  • Their support of the project and team

  • What's at-stake (with a clear tie to the organizational mission or strategic plan)

  • A recognition of achievements to-date (this is a great opportunity for team or individual acknowledgements)

  • A realistic expectation of the work remaining, and

  • When the organization can next expect an update or to be asked to assist
    

• Treat the go-live as the middle - The team has committed hours of time to get here and go-live has arrived. While it's important to celebrate milestones, don't let up: you're still in the "messy middle" of the change management process. Adoption of the system is critical in the weeks and months that follow, and project leads and executive sponsors should set the expectation that this period is an active part of the project, and will still need time and focus, including weekly meetings, training and refinements. Join team meetings as the project lead to allow users to surface frustrations or concerns, schedule short surveys (many systems allow you do to this in the system) and develop and monitor adoption-specific dashboards to help you identify any individuals or departments that need help or focus. This post originally appeared on Goat Rodeo.