PM ADVISORY:

A Blueprint for Successful Organizational Process Change

By Christopher Lidaka, MBA, PMP
USA

Think back to a time when you observed a problem in your organization and developed a more attractive solution. Believing it was the most efficient and thoughtful approach to resolving a problem plaguing the organization, you began to immediately roll out the change. Surprisingly, the change was met with questions and team members seemed unwilling to adopt the new process. Does this sound familiar? Experienced change agents know that with change comes resistance. There are entire books devoted to this subject. This guide explains some of the basic foundations to successful process change that can help leaders and change agents effectively guide their change from inception to implementation. Without over simplifying the task of changing an organization, these are simple techniques that I have used for years and provide a phased approach to the realization of success.

Identifying Initial Support during Inception

It is inevitable human nature to resist changes to the norm. Therefore, if an approach to organizational change is made with the assumption that it will be resisted; a change agent can start the process of acceptance by anticipating common roadblocks and building management support early. It is important to remove the belief that the idea is a perfect solution and understand just like any project, a foundation will need to be built to support the change across an organization.

As a first step, it is important to analyze the solution and determine which manager or organization leaders would benefit the most from the solution that you are proposing. Without performing this analysis, there will always be a hard sell of the change to the organization. Through every change there will always come a tipping point where momentum will be needed to keep the idea progressing at various stages…

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About the Author Christopher Lidaka Author Christopher Lidaka, PMP is a project manager for AT&T eCommerce Consulting. He has extensive experience managing complex enterprise level software development initiatives and developing project turnaround strategies in the software, financial services, and banking industries. Previous to AT&T, Christopher worked for IBM Software Group as a project manager and software engineer. He is a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) and has earned his Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. In addition, Christopher holds a Master of Business Administration from University of Maryland University College and a Bachelor of Computer Science from Binghamton University. Mr. Lidaka can be reached at clidaka@gmail.com.