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Understand and apply the change management discipline effectively and successfully

  • Article

Change management is a fundamental part of our toolbox and mindset for Dynamics 365 implementation projects, just like process focus and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). However, we believe that change management should be applied with a sense of proportionality to the risk and complexity. Apply it in a way that is tailored both to the individual organizational reality and to the specific changes that derive from business application implementation projects.

In this section, we dive directly into that area, demystify and unhype the change management discipline, and show you how to apply change management appropriately, effectively, and successfully.

Lessons learned

It's a widely embraced fact of our industry that implementation projects can go wrong. This fact sometimes seems to loom over us as we embark on our business application journey. It affects the selection process and creates distrust in the relationships between parties of interest. It can drag out decision making, and it can also poison the climate in the implementation project itself and therefore become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In the words of Al-Lee Bourke (Prosci.com), "It has been said that 25% of tech projects fail outright, 20% to 50% show no ROI, and up to 50% need massive reworking when finished."

With the Success by Design framework, we can disrupt these implied stats.

Change management for business applications

Change management for business application projects is a small corner of a large and well-documented change management discipline.

In general, change management practices and theorists apply their methods to any kind of change. Change management practices, such as Prosci's practices, do indeed work for any project, from IT projects, to city-scale infrastructure change projects, to mergers and acquisitions of Fortune 500 companies.

Note

Prosci, Microsoft's preferred approach and the leading change management certification organization in North America, is generally accepted as the go-to standard practice.

We won't dissect the fundamentals of change management in this section. In our experience, there are some specific challenges that implementers and organizations struggle with when they manage changes in business application implementations. Here are some questions that we have heard many times:

  • "How do we leap from the very theoretical, one-size-fits-all approaches and models of modern change management to the reality in our business and IT department offices, to make hands-on use of this discipline?"
  • "How do I align the change management activities with budget, time, and resource constraints?"
  • "How much change management is really needed in my project?"
  • "Where should I focus my change management activities?"

In this section, we seek to start at a more hands-on level than most textbooks and models.

Over long careers in the industry, members of our FastTrack team have seen the extremes. We see projects that invest in costly ways to prevent and manage theoretical problems that are related to changes that never arise. We call this approach the "Too much theory" trap. However, just as often, we see implementation teams that are convinced that a training and communication plan in the form of a PowerPoint presentation represents all the change management that is needed for their project. We see them do nothing to actually address the sometimes real risk to projects. We call this approach the "We are already doing change management" trap. We even see some projects write off change management completely. We call this approach the "We don't need change management" trap.

Note

We believe that change management is important for a successful outcome. We believe that it should be applied at the right time, proportionally, and in a way that is directly applicable to business application implementation projects. Finally, we believe that change management should focus on project areas where change poses a risk, and that it should be applied by people who understand the specifics and recognize the pitfalls of the changes that business application projects bring with them.

In this section, we connect the dots between all the other Success by Design themes and the practical application of change management for Dynamics 365 implementation projects.

In the articles in this section, we go through actionable items that help manage change throughout the phases that are defined in the Success by Design framework:

  • Initiate
  • Implement
  • Prepare
  • Operate

Through examples and clear guidance, we cover what implementation teams can do throughout the project to ensure a fast implementation, a smooth transition, great adoption, and outcomes that are in line with expectations.

  • Initiate
  • Implement
  • Prepare
  • Operate

Note

In these actionable items, we refer to the person or people who are responsible for change management as the change manager.

When you take inspiration from the actionable items in this section, remember to apply change management activities in proportion to the size, complexity, and risk that exists in the organization and the project.

Next steps