Don’t Initiate Change without Considering these 4 Best Practices

If you’ve worked in change management for a number of years, you’ve most likely heard the dreaded statistic that 70% of change management initiatives fail. For the utility industry, this is especially daunting considering the amount of change in policy, customer engagement, and technology requirements we are currently bombarded with every day.

To help improve the success of your next change management project, here are four best practices our Milestone Project Management Office (PMO) has found to stand out from the rest:

Determine your utility’s capability to change

While there are common components of a change management program, each utility and project is unique. Identifying stakeholders and assessing the capability of each group to seek to understand, accept, and follow new business processes will help a utility proactively address potential points of setback before they occur.

Understand your people, and why they may resist change

It’s true that to manage something, a person must understand it.  We have been able to help utility executive sponsors position internal resources for change management success by helping he or she understand reasons people inherently resist change and ways to address each factor.

Communicate consistently and omni-channel

Similar to a utility’s need to reach customers on multiple channels, utility employees have also come to expect information on a variety of platforms. Not only sharing information but gathering input throughout the process gives employees a sense of ownership and encouragement to become part of the solution.

Measure and share results

Establishing project milestones and measuring progress against KPIs is crucial to completing a successful utility change management project. Just as important is sharing those results and actionable next steps among project teams to encourage cohesive effort and input.

Before you begin your next utility change management project for new business processes involving people and technology, be sure to refer to these best practices. For templates or additional expertise, contact us to help position your team for success.

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