Integrating Project and Change Management tagged:

Integrating Project and Change Management

Posted by in Business Transformation, Debate, Delivery & Execution, Education & Training, Leadership, Project Management, Transformation Tools & Techniques

On April 27, 2010 project & change management leaders came together in Las Vegas to discuss how and why project management and change management are integrated.

I recently had the great honor of speaking as a part of a panel at the 2010 Global Change Management conference hosted by Prosci ( www.prosci.com ) and the Association of Change Management Professionals (
www.acmp.info ). My esteemed fellow panelists were from Oracle, the Brighton Leadership Group, & the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and in spite of our varied industry backgrounds, we shared several perspectives on this subject. Whether you are a project manager or a change manager at heart, I think this quick excerpt from our perspective will resonate with your experiences:

  • Know your environment and begin your integration building on core competency. Where is your organizational maturity: Are you stronger in project management or change management? Build on what is already working well; learn lessons from what is not successful
  • Everyone must understand why the integration is happening and what it will accomplish. Answer the question, “What does success look like?”
  • Don’t disband the change team when the project “goes live” some resources need to support the change and manage resistance
  • Integration is not meant to be a tug-of-war
  • Project success depends more on stakeholder perception than on meeting project goals
  • Project completion doesn’t mean everything was accepted
  • Never, never, never stop learning
  • Stay 5 steps ahead of the change
  • Get all stakeholders involved; both supporters and resisters

We had a lively discussion with great participation from the audience including many Global and Fortune 500 companies. In the end, I would assert to you

  • While all surgeons are doctors, not all doctors are surgeons; While all change managers are project managers, not all project managers are change managers, and
  • Like the London tube: “Mind the Gap” – the gap in knowledge and skills. Knowledge of project or change management does not mean you are skilled at either, AND knowledge is a great start.

My thanks and appreciation goes out to my fellow panelists and the 350+ conference attendees for your participation and engagement at the conference.

Stay tuned for more discussion on this topic. In the meantime, what do you think? Agree? Disagree? Why? Leave a Comment.

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