Be the Digital Change Agent for your organization

Businesses in the 21^st Century still straddle the great digital divide. Even before this pandemic, we had workers on one side of the line working 24/7 from virtual offices, while others were working in factories and offices in jobs that depended on having a human interfacing directly with other humans or with machines.  On one side, we have companies with processes that are highly automated, while on the other side of the divide we have manual processes.  The global pandemic has only exacerbated these digital divisions.

In this ever competitive job market, the ever growing use of digital tools and the internet-of-things to increase connectivity and productivity, Change Agents are driving transformation in how we do business.  Change Agents are often early adopters of digital trends.  Many will start as advocates for specific technologies and, over time, develop into experienced business transformers.  They recognize the impact of digital transformation and are driven to help their organizations adapt.  Digital Change Agents are naturally passionate about, and interested in, technology and how it can transform the way we work.

Are you a Digital Change Agent in your organization?  And if you are, how do you succeed in adapting your organization and business processes to leverage digital technologies?  One way of doing this is by building your Digital Change Agent Network.  When building your Digital Change Agent Network here are the characteristics to look for:

• Desire to help others as part of the team
• Capacity (time) to help
• Respected by peers
• Expertise in subject/functional area or system

Some nice-to-have characteristics: existing superuser; knows the organization/ industry well; seen as a go-to source for help; fast learner; strong communicator; and/or training/coaching/listening skills.

Where do Change Agents come from? Change agents should be members of the stakeholder groups who will be receiving or implementing the strategy, project, or change. Change leaders typically reside in the business (as opposed to IT for technical projects). Change agents can also be external to the company, such as advisors who have expertise in the business area or system.  These external change agents can also bring specific expertise in business transformation management techniques, tools and processes.

How do you achieve digital change?

1. Get executive support – This is pretty much a prerequisite to any transformation initiative. If you’re in IT, it will help to have allies from the business side. The C-Suite can add weight behind your strategies, and your peers in marketing, sales, finance, etc., can help you “sell” them to your internal customers.
2. Interact with people – Technology experts tend to be introverts. If you’re one of them, you’re going to have to break out of your comfort zone. There is no substitute for talking to the people who will be using the technologies you deploy. It’s the only way to gauge the level of their resistance and address the underlying causes.
3. Speak their language – Working across the digital / technical divide means that you need to adjust your communication style. Remember, Jane in finance may be brilliant in her area, but if you start speaking in acronyms and cryptic terminology you may lose her quickly – and maybe even permanently.
4. Have a plan – Share your vision for what digital transformation means to the organization and how it will help you achieve your collective goals.
5. Keep it doable – Help your internal customers understand how your path to digital transformation will affect them personally. How will they still be able to do their job faster with less hassle? Make fewer mistakes? Spend less time at the office?
6.  Address their concerns – If you start talking artificial intelligence and machine learning, people will think “layoffs.” Help them see that doing more with less is about helping everyone perform their role to the best of their abilities and not about scaling back.
7. Go slowly at first – You need to assess the organization’s openness to change and then create a plan that lets people set a comfortable pace. With system implementation projects, and Agile approach is recommended.
8. Choose a champion – There’ll be at least one end user in the business that shares your passion for change. They can be instrumental in helping others manage the transformation. Champions are typically natural teachers, other-oriented, and well-liked by their peers.

Companies need to value Change Agents and have solid retention plans for these individuals.  Agents can become targets for poaching, by internal groups and by other companies. Change Agents need to have a development plan that provides a plan for increasing responsibility to encourage change agents to remain in their role. This journey should lead the individual, post project, to a senior role in the organization or the company's permanent continuous-improvement group. This can be a much bigger incentive than cash for Change Agents. Having Change Agents in regular exposure to senior leadership for coaching and development is also a huge motivator for these types of individuals.

Finally, using an external Change Agent often helps solve problems by simply bringing in a new perspective and approach to organizational change. A Change Management consultant can help illuminate problems and find solutions before they begin affecting the workplace, and in the process help develop internal Change Agents and Champions that will drive sustainable performance improvement and efficiencies.

When IT Projects get in the Way of Business Transformation

IT projects are initiated when business identifies a need to change or improve their processes. Many process improvement or business transformation initiatives have an IT component. A company I worked with recently that was looking for an IT solution to help them drive improvements in their global procurement group. The key driver was a need to make operations more efficient to support aggressive business growth objectives. Essentially this was a business transformation project. The IT component in this case was a key part of the success of the project. The IT project would deliver more effective transaction system for procurement and better information for decision making.

Given the potential benefits to the business of these projects, it is not hard to get business support and sponsorship, as well as engagement of resources from the business side. However, expectations are normally high, and a clear understanding by the business of the rigor and methodology around IT projects is not always understood. The implementation of an enterprise IT system of this scale needs to follow a methodology that ensures that the rest of the systems are not impacted, and that good IT and project governance is followed.

So what happens when the requirements imposed by good IT governance slow down the delivery of the benefits of the business transformation project? Furthermore, how often do we see IT procedures and policies used in the name of good IT governance, that do not make sense from a business point of view? Does project methodology constrain business process improvement?

Good project governance around IT projects reduce risk. At the same time, they transfer some of 'ownership' of the solution from the business to IT; reduce the level of engagement of business; and extend project timelines and cost. Balancing business expectations with IT governance is a challenge.

Here are some of the key project aspects that we addressed to tackle this challenge on our project.

- Employed an iterative project approach. This ensures that small successes can be delivered to the business, and subsequent work can build on each project deliverable.
- Clear communications and business engagement. This manages expectations realistically, as well as ensures that project team stays close to business needs.
- Well defined and communicated project milestones supported by a well maintained project plan.
- Strong functional team leads who understand business processes and requirements; the technologies being deployed; and good IT governance, methodologies and tools.

Making the Business Impact Matrix the foundation of a Change Management Program

What is a Business Impact Matrix (BIM)?  The BIM is the output of a thorough assessment of change impact on the business processes, people/organization and systems.  Defining change means documenting the current situation and the future situation, then assessing the change that this means to each impacted group.  Proposed actions for making this change successful means understanding the risks of not making the change.  These actions need to occur to manage risk of change.  The BIM assessment should also idntify the opportunities for the business of each change.

So the Key Elements of the BIM are:

• Defined Change.
• Identified Impacted Groups
• Risks of not Changing
• Actions to address Risks
• Opportunities of Change

Actions will translate into a Organizational Change Management Plan that include communication, solution design reviews, user acceptance testing, user documentation, end user training, and user support.  In a multi-phase project, these actions need to be aligned by project phase.

Opportunities will support the Value Proposition that needs to be part of the communication around the change.  The BIM will help guide the Value Proposition by impacted group, making communication to specific audiences more effective.

ERP Systems Production Support's role in Continuous Improvement

"As you wander on through life, whatever may be your goal,

keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole."

Deborah Osgood, Chief Architect and Cofounder of BUZGate.org

I recently came across a good article on ITtoolbox Blogs entitled Building a "SAP Support Model". The author, Bob White, outlines a step by step approach for building an ERP support model. This article was SAP-centric. This model also aims to support and solve the technical issues that you would find. Great if you are looking to only support your IT investment.
The question is, having made such a great investment in your system, and then this ongoing cost of supporting your application, how can you sweat this asset to drive real business benefit and continuous business improvement?

The answer lies in understanding the Continuous Business Improvement cycle for ERP systems. This cycle of

1. Adopting (the ERP system);
2. Sustaining (customizing, implementing and supporting the ERP system); and
3. Exploiting (driving business benefit from your ERP system)

This is what aligns technology-based business improvement to business strategy. The illustration above shows this cycle more clearly. Once the ERP system has been implemented, and is stablised with an effective support model (as the article above describes it); then it is time to make System Support a cornerstone of initiatives to drive real business benefits.

How does System Support help drive continuous improvement?

• Great support data gathered from users that will point to improvement opportunities.
• Issues identified by System Support are related directly to the ERP system. Any changes to address these issues will exploit the system capabilities - 'sweat the asset'.
• System Support team are often well positioned between Solution Managers who understand the system capabilities; the users who identify opportunities for improvement; and the deployment teams who can make the changes happen.

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How can you apply this to smaller businesses? Look into the capabilities of your current applications and the needs of your users to identify opportunities to drive productivity and improvement via automation in your business. No need to reinvent the wheel. Use what you have.Keep your eye on the doughnut around and not on the hole ...