Aggregating Success Factors for Change Management

During a cloud project, change management activities sometimes must be planned and delivered in a short period of time, ensuring they keep pace with the high technical implementation speed. This can lead to pressure and a lack of quality in the preparation and execution of the respective activities. Therefore, it's advisable to step back from the hectic project work from time to time and systematically reflect on the factors for a successful change management delivery. This reflection process provides guidance, helps to not get lost in the day-to-day business, prevents common mistakes, and supports the change manager in keeping the overall project objectives in mind. Furthermore, regularly reflecting on one’s own activities from a distance helps to further professionalize a change manager.

After the completion of the first wave of the 4S project, Paul will take over more change management tasks in the upcoming waves. To be well prepared, he asks Sandra for her overall recommendations for a successful change management delivery based on her extensive practical experience. Sandra decides to structure her advice according to the dimensions of SAP’s comprehensive change management framework. This framework consists of six dimensions, supporting the entire implementation lifecycle by addressing all relevant change management action areas.

With the change enablement dimension managed by a designated learning and enablement team in the 4S project, Sandra directs her attention toward the other five dimensions. She prepares short videos for Paul, summarizing and explaining her key recommendations for each dimension. Additionally, she schedules a call with Paul to discuss her overall advice for a successful change management delivery.

Change strategy outlines the direction of the organizational change management activities for the SAP cloud project, embracing all necessary actions to establish change management effectively. The dimension includes the change assessment, the definition of the necessary roles and responsibilities for change management, and the alignment of the overall approach and scope with project management. At times, the key elements of the change management set-up are consolidated into a change concept. Furthermore, the change plan also belongs to the change strategy dimension.

In the following video, Sandra talks about her change strategy recommendations.

Change leadership involves overseeing all relevant individual stakeholders and stakeholder groups to foster a positive attitude towards the cloud project and to minimize resistance. It subsumes the identification, analysis, and management of stakeholders. In addition, this dimension includes the definition of a change network strategy and the continuous management of the change network to involve the impacted business departments.

Play the video to learn more about Sandra’s advice for the change leadership dimension.

Change communication aims to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time. The first activity is to analyze the existing communication channels and the communication needs of the various stakeholder groups. Based on the insights gained, a communication plan is developed, executed and regularly updated.

Listen to Sandra’s recommendations for a successful change communication delivery.

Change realization aims to holistically identify the change impacts linked with the SAP cloud project and make them tangible for the impacted stakeholders. The dimension includes both high-level and detailed change impact analysis and activities aimed at supporting the organizational transition, such as facilitating the role mapping process.

Discover success factors for conducting change realization activities in the video below.

Change effectiveness includes all activities used to assess the impact of change management efforts and to monitor success criteria and key performance indicators. Activities such as pulse checks, business readiness assessments, lessons learned workshops, and planning and conducting user adoption analyses fall into the change effectiveness dimension.

Watch the following video to find out which recommendations Sandra gives for the change effectiveness dimension.

To complete the knowledge transfer, Sandra schedules a call with Paul to discuss the overall success factors for change management.

Explore Sandra’s advice in the video below.

After having accompanied Sandra and Paul through the first wave of the 4S project, what are your personal recommendations for delivering change management in the cloud context?

Take 10 minutes to complete exercise 41 in your workbook.