The aim of this toolkit is to provide local authorities who adopt LAWS products with guidance as to how best structure and prepare their organisations to support the operation of the new technology.

A risk many authorities face as they adopt the LAWS products is to view the implementation process as a purely technical one. However, implementing any of the LAWS products is not purely about implementing a new piece of technology.

There are many activities that need to be completed to ensure the smooth transition from how things were done before, to how they are done once the new technology is in place.

There is a host of literature available on Change Management and the importance of it as you migrate from being one organisation to another as a result of implementing new technology.

This section does not intend to cover every aspect of this very broad topic. However, it does seek to provide practical advice about managing an organisation through a transition period such as the adoption of new tools like the LAWS products.

Change initiatives

Any change initiative typically has four key components:

Strategy
Drives the change
Processes
The new processes/changed processes required to enable the achievement of the strategy
Technology
New technical tools to support the processes required to enable the achievement of the strategy
People
The changes required to the organisation (teams, roles, skills) as a result of the new processes and technology

A change initiative is typically managed as a project. Projects have a number of strands that need to take place to ensure that the processes, technology and people aspects of the change happen successfully. The “people” strands are the focus of this section.

What is change management?

Change management is a phrase that is used often, and it means different things to different people.

For the purposes of this section, change management is viewed as the component that encompasses the “people” aspects of a change initiative.

These concepts and tools will help you to manage the transition period while you implement the LAWS products.

Three key perspectives of change, each as important as each other, need to be understood in order to effectively manage organisational transition:

Those who are approving the change pushing the change / supplying the change
Those who are the recipients of change / pulling the change/ demanding the change
Those who are implementing the change / making the change happen

Perspectives of change

Change – the management view

(Board/ Members/ Heads of Services)

The managers’ view of a proposed change initiative will be results driven.

The primary concerns for management will include:

When can the change be completed?
How much benefit will be realised?
How will this change impact our financial performance?
What investment is required?
How will the change impact our customers?

If the answers to these five questions are favourable, it is likely that the decision makers will go ahead with the initiative.

Change – the recipients view

(Employees)

The recipients view of change initiatives is very different to the management view of change initiatives.

Many employees lack the broader context or knowledge of change, and do not have the same accountabilities for the organisation’s performance as the managers.

Employees reactions are likely to be personal:

What does this change mean for me?
Is my job going to change?
Do I need to learn new skills?
Do I need to use another new system?

Change – the implementers view

(Project Manager/Team)

The project team are those who need to design and implement the change initiative. They are likely to have their own agenda and are accountable to the management team who requested/approved the change initiative initially.

If they do not manage the change properly, with the management team, (balancing the demand and creating the supply, whilst keeping to their own agenda), the change initiative may fail and unfortunate business outcomes may realise themselves.

Employees will resist the change
Highly skilled and valued staff may leave the organisation
Critical projects get delayed
Customers are impacted indirectly via upset employees
Productivity declines

The “push and pull” of change

The “push” of change

Change initiatives within organisations are often driven top-down.

Most change initiatives are driven by strategic reasons, such as:

To improve customer service
To drive costs down
To assist with the achievement of targets

This is perfectly normal, however it implies that change initiatives are often decided/approved at Board room/Senior Management level, or may be initiated by the IT department.

This is not “wrong”, but can result in some dynamics that require close management for the initiative be successful.

The change initiative is likely to impact not only the technology used within the organisation, but also the processes used by people in the organisation and therefore the people who work in the organisation.

This can often result in the organisation feeling that the change is being “pushed” onto them.

These Migration Guidelines will look at the some of the activities and tools that can be applied to manage the “push” side of change.

The “pull” of change

It has been noted that many change initiatives within organisations are driven top-down (i.e. a “push” approach to change). This results in a requirement to create a “pull” for change – i.e. use tools and techniques that make the people within the organisation understand why the change is taking place, how it impacts them, what the benefits of it are and make them want to help the change initiative be successful.

Change is more successful and sustainable if the “pull” for change has been created.

This does not happen by itself!

These Migration Guidelines will look at some of the activities and tools that can be used to create a “pull” for change.

Barriers to change

Barriers to change need to be identified by those implementing the change. Examples of barriers to change may be:

Organisational culture obstacles e.g. a mindset of “change never really happens here” or “we don’t trust these new technologies, they never work”
Lack of strong leadership/sponsorship
The reasons for the change are not clear e.g. no strong business case/ strategic drivers/ political drivers
The market (your customers) may not want the change/ respond to it well e.g. your customers do not want to use the internet/ email for services even though for you there are positive business reasons for doing this (i.e. to meet your e-government targets)

Managing the “valley of despair”

This concept centres around the fact that a change programme is typically focused on increasing performance in a certain area of the business (e.g. migrating services onto the web via transactional services, to relieve current volumes, to aid in meeting targets and to improve customer service).

A well accepted phenomenon of change is that performance usually decreases before it increases. This is due to factors such as:

Employees being fearful/not confident in their use of new technologies and processes
Impacted parties not being aware or knowledgeable enough about the change
Post-implementation technical glitches
Cultural resistance to change

Change management tools and techniques can assist in decreasing the “valley of despair”, both the breadth (1; duration) of it, and the width (2; drop in performance/productivity) of it. (The numbers refer to the diagram below.)

The goal of change management

The goal of change management is to:

Assist in overcoming the barriers to change
Minimise the impact on productivity
Avoid unnecessary turnover or loss of valued employees
Eliminate any adverse impact on your customers
Achieve the desired business outcomes as soon as possible

Change management tools and techniques

The “people” aspect of change programmes is typically the most neglected area, with the least budget allocated to getting it right. However, if done properly, the results can be outstanding: Change that is embraced by employees, and therefore sustainable.

This section goes into more detail about the areas that should be given due focus.

Leadership & sponsorship

Leadership and sponsorship encompass the senior management commitment to any change initiative.

Why is leadership and sponsorship important? Without appropriate leadership and sponsorship guiding the change initiative, helping to communicate key messages about the initiative, it is likely not to be taken seriously and is likely to fail.

Leadership of the project may assume different forms; there may be direct leadership and indirect leadership. e.g. The Chief Executive of the council may provide the strategic leadership for the change, but not be directly involved in the project, whilst the project manager may provide leadership to the project team to ensure that the change programme gets done.

Similarly, sponsorship of the project may assume different forms. e.g. the Members/ Chief Executive of the authority may sponsor the project financially, but not be directly involved in it, but the project manager may act as the project sponsor on a day to day basis, representing it’s interests in many different forums.

Strong leadership and sponsorship are critical to ensuring that the change is driven throughout the organisation. It will ensure that appropriate budget, resources, skills, time and priority are given to the project. Without it the project is likely to fail.

What should you be doing?

Ensure that you have someone who is deemed credible throughout the organisation who is the “figure head” leader for the project. This is someone who will “walk the talk”.

Ensure that you have the appropriate sponsors (advocates) of the project throughout the organisation (e.g. representatives from senior management, from departments that are affected by the change. These are people who understand the “big picture” of the change and will actively endorse it, and will make time for project activities.

Involve both the leader and sponsor in the project activities and use them to assist execute your communication plan.

Organisation and human performance

Organisation and Human Performance involves creating the organisation structure that will best support the new way of working (technology and processes) in a way that the performance of people will be maximised.

It includes:

Design of the organisation to support the new technology and processes, including the required roles, jobs and skills
Design of performance metrics for the new roles and jobs (individual performance measures)
Migration of the current organisation to the new one (e.g. recruiting new people or re-shaping existing people’s roles)

Many organisations do not explicitly include the organisational impact of any new implementation into their project plans. As a result, when the new technology and processes are available for use, the people who are supposed to use them are not sure how their jobs have changed if at all. Many organisations then end up “playing catch up” and assigning new responsibilities to existing people at the last minute.

Another implication of not thinking through the organisational impact is that the required roles and jobs evolve once the new technology and processes are in, which can result in the solution being less than optimal as it has not been thought through properly up front.

What should you be doing?

Design the roles/jobs to support the implementation of new systems and processes
Design the key performance measures for the roles/jobs that will support the implementation of new systems and processes
Assess whether or not you have the skills required to support the new systems and processes
Assess your capacity requirements – how many more/less people will you need (refer to the capacity section for more details)
Assess whether or not you will need to recruit new people into the organisation or whether you can assimilate the change into existing roles and jobs
If you need to recruit people, defining what the recruitment strategy should be
Develop a migration plan – identifying who within the organisation can fulfil a new role, and how and when they will assume the new role/job and responsibilities

Culture

Culture encompasses the values, beliefs and behaviours of an organisation. When organisations undergo change initiatives there is often a “knock-on” effect to the culture of the organisation. e.g. it may mean that employees need to behave more proactively/ in a more customer focused manner/ be measured more rigorously to ensure high performance.

Additionally, cultural resistance is typically one of the biggest barriers to achieving successful change. e.g. if there is a history of failed implementations, employees may be cynical about this one being successful and therefore not co-operative; employees may be sceptical about any change and what it means to their jobs; decision making within the organisation may be very slow and therefore may impact the project teams ability to deliver the project on time.

Organisational culture is important to consider during change initiatives for at least two reasons:

It may be a barrier to implementing the change project on time, within budget
It may be a barrier in terms of getting employees to accept the change and adopt new ways of working

What should you be doing?

Understand the mindset of the people you are “pushing” the change onto
Identify the potential cultural barriers to change that may impact the success of the change project
Proactively manage the cultural barriers during the project life cycle. e.g.
Holding workshops to allow people to voice their concerns about the change
Hold consultative sessions that enable people to provide input into the change and therefore feel part of it
Identify the organisational culture that is desired once the change has taken place
Determine the changes to culture needed from where the culture is today, to where it needs to be once the change has taken place
Put in place plans to engender the desired culture
Typically this encompasses all other project activities, from the way in which processes are designed, to the new roles defined, to the communication messages sent out, to the way the training is conducted, etc. All project activities should be geared to fostering the ultimately desired organisational culture

Training

Training encompasses all the training that needs to take place to ensure that all employees who are competent and confident in the use of the new technology and new processes.

Without good training on not only the new technology and processes, but also the behaviour changes required to support them, the “valley of despair” is likely to be long in duration and have a big impact on productivity.

If the training is inadequate, the end-users of the new technology and processes are not likely to feel confident using them, or they will use them incorrectly or not at all. These will in turn result in things taking longer to do than before the change was implemented, and overall performance/productivity decreasing.

The training lifecycle is a useful tool for any training team to use to plan the training initiative for the changes. Planning the training should not wait to the last minute. It should be a component of the project that is allocated sufficient time and budget upfront.

What should you be doing?

Identify the roles, and associated skills that are required once the new processes and technology are in place
Identify the roles and skills that exist in the organisation today
Determine the training need – the difference/gap between 1 and 2
Define the training curriculum for each role, including process, system and soft skill training (e.g. customer care skills) as required
Once you have determined the training curriculum for each role, you are able to determine the best delivery mechanism for each part of it. e.g. systems training lends itself to hands-on training, whereas customer care skills training may be best delivered via facilitated workshops and role plays.
Develop the training material for each section of the curriculum. This may be done in one of many ways; e.g. by the trainers, by departmental staff (subject matter experts) with the guidance of trainers, or it may be outsourced to an external vendor
Organise the logistics and training environment. Different parts of the training curriculum may have different requirements in terms of physical requirements. e.g. hands-on systems training will require a room with computers in it, that are specially configured to a technical training environment. This typically requires significant effort to establish. However, a facilitated workshop will only require a room. The actual logistics of training course (i.e. sending out invitations, ensuring everyone required attends, doing follow up sessions for those who are unable to attend/sick on a given day can take a lot of time. Ensure that there is someone available to take on these logistics
Train the trainer, if required. This may not be part of your training strategy, as you may be outsourcing the training to a vendor, or your trainers may be intimately involved in the development of the training material. However, there may be times when you need to train up your trainers in the training material
Conduct the training; this will be the execution of your training plan
Evaluate the training; evaluation of the training sessions is important to gather. This will give you a good indication as to whether the training has achieved it’s objectives. It will inform you as to how you may improve for subsequent sessions and where you may need to do follow up training sessions, or on-the-job-training. It will also help you identify any gaps in your training curriculum, that will feed back into the overall training cycle.

Communication

Communication encompasses ensuring that all impacted (directly or indirectly) parties to the change initiative are informed about the change at key points in the transition process.

Once you have identified all the parties that are either directly or indirectly impacted by the change initiative (your key audiences), you can map them against the “change curve” to guide your communication planning.

You may wish to move different audiences along the change curve over time e.g. start by making employees aware of what is going on, and move them toward ownership throughout the life cycle of the project
You will not want all audiences to reach “ownership” – it may be enough to have an audience at “awareness” e.g. residents

For each identified audience, you need to determine where you would like them to be placed along the “change curve”. Do you want them to adopt a position of:

Awareness
You would like these audiences to simply be aware of what change you are making within your authority
Understanding
A step on from “awareness”, you would like these audiences to develop an understanding of the changes you are making within your authority – including what you are doing, why, when and for what purpose
Buy-in
A step on from “understanding”, you would like these audiences to be in a position where they “buy-in” to the change. That is to say that they understand what it is, why it is happening etc, and actually think it is a good idea and are willing to accept it and support it
Sponsorship
A step on from “buy-in”, you would like these audiences to actually sponsor the change – that is, become public advocates of the changes you are making within your authority
Ownership
A step on from “sponsorship”, you would like these audiences to own the change you are making, use the new technology and processes, be accountable and responsible for the success of the change

Many organisations do not plan their communication with impacted parties and as a result when the new technology and processes are implemented, no-one understands it, nor how they should change their behaviour. Employees may resist the changes, and customers may not understand what they need to do differently (if anything).

Good communication is one of the most constructive mechanisms for overcoming barriers to change that arise because of the organisational culture.

Without proactively managing the communication surrounding the changes, long term sustainability is unlikely.

What should you be doing?

Allocate budget to the project communications
Identify someone on the project to “own” the communication plan, to ensure that it is given due time and effort throughout the project lifecycle
(This may be someone from your marketing team who works alongside the project team. It may not be a full time role and this will be dependent on the scale of the change project, how many parties are impacted, etc)
Identify your key audiences (both directly and indirectly impacted parties)
Determine where you would like each audience to be on the “change curve” (as this will guide you approach to communicating with them)
Develop a communication plan
(see example template on the next page)
Ensure the timely execution of the communication plan
Involve as many people in your communications as is required
Make good use of your leaders and sponsors – messages coming from people with high credibility are typically the most internalised by audiences

Template communication plan

Using this template will enable you to plan and manage the communication effort for your project in a proactive manner. (The template is also available in word format).

Transition planning

Transition planning is the planning required to mobilise the organisation from the way they work today, to the way they need to work from the day the new processes and technology are in place

In the weeks/days prior to the technology going live and being ready for use as the enabler of the new processes, the different strands of the project come closer together – i.e. technology, process and people strands.

Detailed transition planning from an organisational perspective will include activities that directly impact staff within the organisation, e.g. final communications, liaison with technical teams to install applications / migrate data with minimum disruption to business as usual, final training sessions, organising hands on support for the first days of go-live.

Should good organisational transition planning not happen the new technology may go in, and staff are not aware of it, or how their roles/jobs have changed and this can lead to mis-use or non-use of the new technology and processes.

What should you be doing?

Organise pre “go-live” activities
Activities may include moving desks, having new systems installed on staff computers, etc. Staff involved in the change will have been communicated to, and trained in the new processes and systems, but will need to know what to expect on the day of “go-live”. They also know what day that is going to happen, and what needs to happen prior to it. The planning and co-ordination around this needs to happen with as little disruption to the staff’s day jobs as possible. This will require close co-ordination with the technical team of the project
Organise post “go-live” support”
Arrange to have trainers available to support the staff, or at the least ensure that staff know where to receive support on the first few days of “go-live”. This is an effective mechanism for minimising the levels of disruption caused by the change

Key to successful change

Managing the organisational side of a change initiative requires time, focus, planning, and effort. It can make all the difference to the sustainability of the change.

More often than not though, not enough effort, time and money is dedicated to the “people” side of an implementation, and it is just considered as “new technology”, with the organisational impact taking priority only when it is too late. However, it is clear that the implementation of new technology and more often than not new processes too, is going to have an impact on the people working in the organisation.

This section aims to outline the areas on which you can focus throughout the project to prepare your organisation for the change that is being implemented; be it the implementation of APLAWS, Community modules or transactional services.

Attached is a checklist of all of the activities you can complete during a change project to prepare your business for the change, thereby ensuring sustainability.

(see Migration Guidelines Checklist