LaMarsh and Associates - "Case for Change," December 2007

		Governance: an Enabler for Successful Change Organizations have long known that proactive change management enables results. It ensures the people affected by change are prepared for and involved in the change every step of the way and will therefore be more likely to accept it. It is a mitigation strategy to reduce the risk of resistance to inter-linked changes in people, culture, structure and process. Less well-known, however, is a practice that can make change management even more successful: effective governance. We define governance as the set of processes, policies and relationships among the roles in a disciplined structure that oversee the organization's changes. As organizations continue to become more complex and sophisticated, it is critical to apply governance principles to any change to ensure the implementation process itself is structured and successful and to allow for scalability, flexibility and effective collaboration across several changes. Governance is valuable on simple projects or large, multi-change initiatives. Interestingly, a recent LaMarsh & Associates survey indicated formal governance practices are not being integrated as widely as one might expect: only 24% of respondents have defined roles and responsibilities for sponsors of change, 26% have defined roles for change agents, 25% have a Program Management Office in place and 29% have established a Change Management Office. The survey did show that many of the organizations want to implement governance practices in the near future. Integrating change management discipline and tools with governance practices reduces risk and enables organizations to achieve success in implementing change. Rigorous governance practices: Articulate and define the roles of people managing the change (sponsors, change agents, the project team, steering committee, etc.). Roles can be quite different, but they are interdependent and can be leveraged across the organization. It is critical to clarify and negotiate upfront those roles and responsibilities to help each party fulfill his/her expectations and set them up for success. Give change agents and sponsors a set of systems, processes and best practices to manage change, which will reduce resistance among the targets - those people who will be most affected by change and whose acceptance is critical for its success. Clarify the linkages and relationships between multiple changes, which is critical as change rarely happens in isolation. Good governance must orchestrate the linkages and relationships to other changes and their own individual governance structures. The end result of good governance is a more efficient and effective process that improves on the desired return-on-investment and that paves the way for future changes as needed. Become a "Case for Change" subscriber and receive e-mail alerts whenever we publish future issues. Next article >> Newsletter home page >>
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