Start off your project with Organization Change Management in mind to avoid company wide chaos.
When executing a project or OKR, the project or OKR leads are often heads down focused in delivering the final product. While the focus is important, communicating the upcoming changes earily in the game is important to avoid internal/ external chaos.
What is organization Change Management?
Organization change management (OCM) is the communication of changes in products or services delivered to internal or external customers as result of the completion a project.
For example
- Change in customer offering like a cellphone package offering, insurance policy changes.
- Internal operation procedure changes like change a customer ordering app where the app menu and procedures to complete the order on the app will change.
When do you initiate OCM?
Answer is: At the beginning of the project.
Work with your stakeholders or PR department to create a communication plan. Set time, content and audience as to when the communication will be sent out.
For example
For External Customers –
Give them a heads up
- As we rollout the new application which is a significant improvement of the old one, the old application will sunset in 8 months. More communication to the customer in coming months to guide them how to upgrade to the new app.
For Internal Customers –
- Expect the customer ordering app menu to change and the process to enter a customer order to change.
- There will be training session T – 2 months train all customer service reps how to use the new customer ordering app.
Remember nobody wants to be notified at the last minute.
In Conclusion
- Work with your project stakeholders, PR or organization change management department from the start of the project
- Create a communication plan
- Identify when, what message and what audience to communicate to
Only by doing timeline communication, will you be able to avoid chaos
