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Change Management Processes Keith Harrison-Broninski, Role Modellers, UK INTRODUCTION Organizations of all types and sizes are investigating the use of techniques and tools to improve the management of dynamic, complex processes. While the introduction of tools for Social BPM and Adaptive Case Management has allowed some progress, there is still an urgent need to support and improve the management of change itself, which covers a huge range of critical organizational activity - implementing a Lean or Six Sigma programme, introducing matrix management practices, adopting cloud technologies, restructuring after a merger or acquisition, and so on. A mainstream project management approach does not allow the patterns common to different change processes to be identified and improved, and neither the workflow-based nor the case-based approach to process definition is applicable to change management. In the flowchart-centric model of the workflow-based approach, processes are considered to be a sequence of steps governed by branch points and conditional loops, in which exceptional cases are handled by spawning new discussion threads on demand. This places the human interactions that are critical to change management outside of the process itself. In the document- and decision-centric model of the case-based approach, processes are not structured in advance, but carried out ad-hoc according to the judgement of the skilled knowledge workers involved, optionally with the aid of business rules to check compliance. This does not provide enough structure to plan and resource high-level work such as organizational change, or support work that crosses organizational boundaries. This paper explores a third process description approach, Human Interaction Management (HIM), which provides the means to integrate both workflow- and case-based approaches into simple, high-level work processes based on business-oriented principles (effective teams, structured communication, building knowledge, effective use of time, and dynamic re-planning). HIM allows non-technical people to create and execute collaborative Plans, optionally based on standard templates open to continuous improvement. HIM Plans and sub-Plans flex as necessary while retaining structure, can be visualized using familiar project management techniques such as GANTT Charts, and are able to cross organizational boundaries without special configuration. HIM provides the opportunity to use change management and other highlevel management activities as a means of integrating multiple approaches to process management into strategy-led operations. Activities in a HIM Plan that are highly structured or automated can be handled via a workflowbased sub-process, and Activities in a HIM Plan that are document- or decision-centric can be handled via a case-based sub-process. Further, HIM enables integration of social technologies into work processes at multiple levels, since a HIM Plan provides a goal-oriented context for messaging and information exchange.
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CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES CHANGE IS THE NEW NORMAL Today’s dynamic work environment is causing organizations to reframe the traditional view of what “normal” is. We are witnessing the effects of globalization, technology advances, complex multinational organizations, more frequent partnering across national borders and company boundaries – just to mention a few of the enablers and accelerators of change. No longer will companies have the luxury of expecting day-to-day operations to fall into a static or predictable pattern that is interrupted only occasionally by short bursts of change. To prosper, leaders will need to abandon such outdated notions of change. In reality, the new normal is continuous change – not the absence of change. [IBM 2008] IBM Corporation are saying that change has become an operational issue – not a one-off activity, carried out every now and then in response to events, but rather a daily activity that must be planned, resourced and managed. From an organizational perspective, this means that change management is a capability, which must be continuously improved. However, the bestknown approaches to continuous improvement, Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma, known collectively by the Japanese term “kaizen”, cannot be applied to change management. Lean Manufacturing focuses on the improvement of efficiency: removing unreasonable work (“muri”), improving flow (“mura”) and reducing waste (“muda”). Six Sigma focuses on the reduction of defects (or rather, on reducing the causes of defects), minimizing variation in output by using statistical techniques in order to achieve financial targets. Neither efficiency nor defect level are valid measures of success in change management, which is about defining goals, both strategic and tactical, and then aligning and supporting people in sustained movement towards these goals. In other words, change management requires effective human interaction across boundaries, both internal boundaries (departments in a company, or agencies of a government department) and external boundaries (customers, suppliers and other partners – even, in some cases, competitors). Further, the nature of change means it is fundamentally about innovation – and a common innovation is to alter the nature of such boundaries.
BUILDING CHANGE MANAGEMENT CAPABILITY In order to build change management capability in an organization, it is necessary to identify those aspects of change that are repeatable. In other words, it is necessary to describe change from a process perspective, rather than, for example, using mainstream project management techniques. The processes of change must be described not only so as to allow for flexible crossing of boundaries and for innovation, as described above, but also so as to obtain understanding and agreement from all stakeholders, many of whom will not have a technical background or be supportive of a technicallyoriented approach to process description. In modern business practice, there are 3 dominant paradigms for the description of processes: 1. Business Process Management (BPM) [Fingar 2002] 2. Adaptive Case Management (ACM) [Swenson 2010] 3. Human Interaction Management (HIM) [Harrison-Broninski 2005] Each of these paradigms is considered below in relation to description of change management processes.
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CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT "[BPM] Processes are described as the predefined sequences of activities with decisions (gateways) to direct the sequence along alternative paths or for iterations. These models are effective for well-defined, repeatable processes." [OMG 2009] BPM is aimed at the automation of routine work. Typical BPM use cases include: Manufacturing Order fulfilment Logistics Finance Human Resources BPM is a systems-led approach to process description that aims to automate work as far as possible, and treats collaboration as an exception. BPM notations typically allow definition of one-way messages with a single recipient, rather than persistent communication channels involving multiple people. A recent development is “Social BPM", in which tools use email, instant messaging or some other communication technique to resolve an issue or exceptional case by breaking out of the process itself to introduce a complementary discussion thread. However, human interactions in Social BPM are external to, rather than central to, the main flow of activity and hence are not open to process improvement. One feature of BPM that appears to be relevant to change management is support for “Public” and “Private” processes to deal with cross-boundary collaboration. Public processes describe the conversations between organizations in terms of messages passed, and Private processes describe the work internal to each organization that creates and consumes the messages (and ultimately delivers value). However, this approach has 3 major weaknesses with respect to change management and other high-level management processes. First, it is necessary to decide at the start where the boundaries between Public and Private are to be placed. This means that work cannot be divided among organizations flexibly over time, but must be allocated once and for all at the start, and thereafter remain behind closed walls. Second, the essence of the approach is to hide rather than to share – to maintain an atmosphere of defensive privacy rather than to open the kimono and expose the details of business operations to partners. It is becoming widely recognized that open-ness is a key factor in business success. Not only is demand pull more efficient than supply push (as Lean practitioners have known for decades) but, more generally, open-ness makes for better, closer business relationships as business practices evolve. Third, the mutual inter-dependence of Public and Private Processes makes the structure as a whole fragile, with poor tolerance for change. An internal change to a Private process may invalidate related Public Processes, and vice-versa, without there being any obvious way of detecting the problem. In general, having two separate types of process, only some of which are shared, makes it harder to create dynamic, responsive partnerships that flex with business circumstances.
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CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES Public and Private processes are valuable if the business processes with which you are concerned are highly automated and repetitive, but unsuitable if you need to manage cross-boundary processes that are dynamic and collaborative, such as those of change management.
ADAPTIVE CASE MANAGEMENT "The emphasis of a case management process is on maintenance of records and support for human decision-making and activities” [OMG 2009] ACM allows people to assemble a case file ad-hoc, restricted by business rules that ensure compliance. Typical ACM use cases include: Licensing Insurance application and claim processing Medical diagnosis Mortgage processing Customer problem resolution Invoice discrepancy handling Equipment maintenance ACM is a point solution for knowledge work, in which skilled people solve problems by creating documents and data in the repository of a single organization, with compliance enforced via business rules defined for that organization. ACM does not provide the structure necessary to plan and resource high-level work such as organizational change, or support work that crosses organizational boundaries. ACM cases are assembled ad-hoc during execution, and have a centralized structure that is antithetical to cross-boundary collaboration.
HUMAN INTERACTION MANAGEMENT HIM allows non-technical people to create and execute collaborative Plans for the achievement of individual and shared goals, optionally based on standard templates open to continuous improvement. HIM Plans and sub-Plans flex as necessary while retaining structure, can be visualized using familiar project management techniques such as GANTT Charts, and are able to cross organizational boundaries without special configuration. [HarrisonBroninski 2005] HIM allows people from multiple organizations to play Roles to provide Deliverables in different Stages of a Plan, communicating purposefully and replanning on the fly as the work progresses. Typical HIM use cases include: Research & Development Marketing Complex sales Project management Merger & Acquisition Organizational change HIM is a simple, non-technical way to structure complex work that involves innovation and crosses boundaries. Business people create and improve HIM Plan templates to provide helpful, scalable, flexible and repeatable structure for their own working activities. Critically for high-level work such as change management, HIM is not based on a command-and-control approach in which a single organization maintains a task sequence or repository. Rather, HIM is based on five principles:
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CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Effective team building Structured communication Knowledge creation Empowered time management Collaborative, real-time planning
HELPFUL, SCALABLE, FLEXIBLE AND REPEATABLE STRUCTURE
To implement the principles of HIM, Plans are structured as follows: • A Plan has an overall Goal and multiple (possibly concurrent) Stages with separate sub-Goals. • In each Stage, people play Roles with separate responsibilities, resulting in the provision of Deliverables. • Plan members negotiate via Stage-specific communication channels to progress and evolve the Plan during usage. • A Deliverable may be produced via sub-Plans and used as an Input by other Roles. • A Plan is made either ad-hoc or from a template. Any Plan can be turned into a template for future Plans, thus enabling re-use and improvement of collaborative work. • Enterprise resources are included in a Plan by defining a Task that invokes a Web service, URL, workflow or case. Communication thereafter can be bi-directional. • The Plan owner manages the work in a Plan, adjusting use of Deliverables and approving Stage/Deliverable statuses as necessary. Business people readily take to this approach and see its advantages. For example, deployment of a Human Interaction Management System (HIMS – the process server for HIM Plans) during 2010 by the world’s third largest employer, the UK National Health Service, “enabled non-technical business users to transform processes previously modelled as complex, static flowcharts into simple, dynamic Plans.” [HumanEdj 2010]
CROSS-BOUNDARY COLLABORATION
As well as providing support for high-level innovation activities, HIM also supports work by people from multiple organizations. A network of HIM Plans may cross any organizational boundaries without special configuration. From a management point of view, the basic information boundaries in a Plan are Stages. All (and only) participants in a particular Stage may see data, documents and messages for that Stage, irrespective of the organizations for which they work. You see what you need to see in order to fulfill your responsibilities, no more and no less. Hence it is possible to design processes and sub-processes without needing to decide which organization will perform each part of the work. The work can be allocated flexibly during execution without need to adjust the process or to worry about data protection issues. From a technology point of view, HIM mandates that each participant in a Plan has their own copy of the Plan, containing the details that they need (and are permitted) to access. Hence the function of a HIMS is entirely different from that of a BPM or ACM System. Rather than maintaining the
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CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES state of a process, and moving it on automatically when appropriate, a HIMS acts to synchronize the copies of a Plan held by each participant. This means that each person in a Plan can use a different HIMS, hosted by their own organization – just as each person in an email conversation can use a different email server. A HIM Plan is not a “process instance” or “case file”, hosted and controlled by a single organization. Rather, a HIM Plan is a means of making collaborative activity visible and synchronizing the work carried out. Each person in a HIM Plan has their own copy, which they access via their own HIMS. They can even take part in the Plan via regular email. Just like email, their copy of the Plan is automatically synchronized with the copies held by their colleagues. The information they have access to, and that they share with others, depends on the Stages in which they participate. It is also possible to share the existence of documents or data without sharing the details. A HIM Plan user can create, view, maintain and delete information not only internal to the Plan or in their own HIMS database, but in any repository, access to which may or may not be available to other participants. In fact, a HIMS is a Multi-Agent System designed around human interaction, in which Plans are synchronized between different HIMS instances using a standard Agent Control Language. It is possible to configure HIMS Plans to include automated activities and even entirely automated Roles. However, a user is quite unaware of this, since their HIMS updates their Plans constantly and automatically in the background.
HIM GIVES STRUCTURE TO CHANGE The structure of high-level collaborative work such as change management evolves through negotiation between its participants. HIM supports this by allowing the Stages, Roles, Deliverables and Activities in a Plan to be refined and extended during execution. Sub-Plans can also be added and removed as required. Further, a Plan can be re-used as a template, providing a foundation for continuous improvement. However, this begs the question of how to improve a HIM Plan. What are the criteria for successful human interactions? In particular, what are the criteria for successful change management?
CHANGE AIMS To support the definition of effective Plans, a simple, universal business change methodology is associated with HIM. This is known as Goal-Oriented Organization Design (GOOD). GOOD is based on the premise that there are four generic “Change Aims” that apply to any kind of organization and any kind of change: 1. Ensure that work meets stakeholder needs 2. Deliver results into a business-as-usual environment 3. Maximize benefits from outcomes 4. Minimize costs associated with delivery These Change Aims give rise to 3 Stages (Design, Delivery and Optimization) in which a set of related Roles at Strategic and Executive level collaborate to produce a Process Architecture, associated Business Motivation Model, and
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CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES derived Benefits Profiles, and then engage with stakeholders to deliver an ongoing programme of effective, continuous business change.
STAGES OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT The Stages of GOOD and the associated Roles are listed below, and their relationship to one another indicated in Figure 1. The deliverables from each Stage are discussed in following sections. 1. Design Scope Definition Strategic Stakeholder Management Benefits Definition 2. Delivery Requirements Management Executive Stakeholder Management Operational Transition Risk Management 3. Optimization Marketing & Communications Benefits Realization
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Figure 1: GOOD Stages and Roles
GOOD STRATEGIC CONTROL There are three main deliverables from the first Stage of GOOD:
The Scope Definition Role is responsible for delivering a Process Architecture. This is a diagram identifying the “Essential Business Entities” of an organization and the corresponding “Units of Work”. Originating in the RIVA methodology [Ould 2005], a Process Architecture describes the complete domain of an organization’s activities. The Strategic Stakeholder Management Role is responsible for delivering a Business Motivation Model (BMM). This identifies the “Ends” an organization wishes to achieve, the “Means” by which they
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intend to do so, the “Influencers” of these Ends and Means, and the “Assessments” made by the Influencers. BMM is an OMG standard [OMG 2010]. In GOOD, a Process Architecture is used as the basis for creating a BMM. The Benefits Definition Role is responsible for delivering Benefits Profiles for a planned set of changes. These measure and optimize business value from the proposed activities in order to support the achievement of successful outcomes. Benefits Profiles are used widely in UK government [OGC 2005]. In GOOD, a BMM is used as the basis for defining Benefits Profiles.
GOOD EXECUTIVE CONTROL There are a large number of deliverables from the second and third Stages of GOOD, which are typically customized for each organization implementing the methodology depending on their concerns. A typical set of concerns is outlined below for each Executive Control Stage. Typical GOOD Design Stage Concerns by Role
Requirements Management o Sources Government Industry Customers Suppliers Partners Internal o Business Model Domain Model Systems Statuses Process Architecture Lifecycles o Review o Retention o Ownership o Sharing o Consistency o Migration Cleansing o Deletion Organizational Structure Security Model Actor Catalogue Business Use Cases Process Diagrams Issue Log Executive Stakeholder Management o End-user Identification o Relationship building Knowledge transfer In Out
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CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES Interaction management Internal Between stakeholders o Management needs Resources Information Operational Transition o Infrastructure Business process design Information domain Roles and responsibilities User characteristics Interaction channels Activities and Tasks Business rules Systems Internal Interfaces Data migration o Cleansing Communications E-mail Web Telephony Fax Other? (snail mail, etc) Real estate o Implementation Management structure Business process execution People Resourcing Training Performance Internal External Risk Management o Dependencies Deliverables Timescales Resources o Compliance o Perception Benefits Operational Staff Typical GOOD Optimization Stage Concerns by Role
Marketing and Communications o Context analysis Government Industry
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CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES Customers Suppliers Partners Internal o Promotional plan Vision Goals Objectives Mission Strategy Policy o Coordinated communications Implementation On-going evaluation Benefits Realization o Benefits To Operations Mapping o Stakeholder Benefits Assessment Plans Measurement techniques Tracking and reporting processes System impacts o Promised Outcome Monitoring Review points Audit o Cross-cutting Issues o Effort Prioritisation Support o Business Case Benefit profiles Including dis-benefits Assumptions Full discussion of the above concerns is beyond the scope of this paper.
INTEGRATING GOOD WITH OPERATIONS Change management processes must be integrated with the underpinning operational activities in order to streamline their execution, monitoring and support by managers. Typically this means integrating HIM Plans with BPM workflows, with ACM cases, and with other enterprise resources such as Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems and social technologies. HIM Plans interoperate and integrate with other standard forms of process technology. A HIM Plan can initiate, and be initiated by, a workflow process and communicate bi-directionally thereafter. Similarly, a HIM Plan can initiate a case and utilize its information artefacts. HIM Plans may create, view, maintain and delete documents in ECM systems. A HIMS provides goal-oriented instant messaging and data/document exchange, and can integrate with other social technologies. In many ways a HIMS is the natural top layer of an enterprise process stack, and point of integration with the organization's intranet. HIM Plans are based on a common sense, non-technical approach (Stages, Roles and Deliverables) that is easy to understand, and a HIMS provides familiar views of current and planned activity such as GANTT Charts and resource allocations.
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CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES CONCLUSIONS HIM provides a simple and effective way of designing collaborative work processes to which business people immediately relate, and of which they naturally feel in control. HIM Plans are particularly supportive of high-level work such as change management since not only do they flex to support innovation while retaining helpful structure but also cross organizational boundaries without special configuration. HIMS Plans are based on creation and sharing of knowledge in a structured way. Business people find the structure they provide - Roles in different Stages providing Deliverables - more intuitive than working according to a flowchart, and more supportive of high-level work than construction of a case file. Information boundaries within a network of HIM Plans are separate from organizational boundaries, making a network of Plans fully adaptive to work that spans multiple departments, agencies and organizations. Participants in a particular Plan may use separate process servers, just as participants in an email conversation may use separate email servers. People in a Plan retain ownership of their own data and can choose how and when to share it. Email became the dominant technology for business collaboration not only because it is flexible, but because participants share the same tools yet can use their own servers. You can send an email to someone without connecting to their email server directly, or even needing to know what server they use. As organizations seek to replace email with a process-oriented approach to collaboration, it is necessary both to establish the right balance between flexibility and structure, and to retain the key advantage of email – its decentralized nature. HIM is uniquely suited to a business landscape in which connect-andcollaborate is taking over from command-and-control as the basis for competitive advantage. HIM Plans provide the basis for continuous improvement of critical organizational activities such as change management, and integrate naturally with other process management techniques such as workflow and Case Management to support organizations that aim to become fully process-oriented from top to bottom.
REFERENCES (Fingar 2002) Howard Smith and Peter Fingar. Business Process Management: The Third Wave. Meghan-Kiffer Press, 2002. (Harrison-Broninski 2005) Keith Harrison-Broninski. Human Interactions: How people really work and how they can be helped to work better. Meghan-Kiffer Press, 2005. (HumanEdj 2010) http://rolemodellers.com/humanedj.html. (IBM 2008) IBM Corporation. Making Change Work. IBM Global Business Services, 2008. (OGC 2005) Office of Government Commerce (www.ogc.gov.uk). Managing Benefits: An Overview. Andy Honeywood, 2005. (OMG 2009) Object Management Group. Case Management Process Modeling (CMPM) Request For Proposal. OMG Document: Bmi/2009-09-23. (OMG 2010) Object Management Group. Business Motivation Model Version 1.1. OMG Document: formal/2010-05-01.
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CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES (Ould 2005) Martyn Ould. Business Process Management: A rigorous approach. Meghan-Kiffer Press, 2005. (Swenson 2010) Keith D. Swenson. Mastering The Unpredictable: How Adaptive Case Management Will Revolutionize The Way that Knowledge Workers Get Things Done. Meghan-Kiffer Press, 2010. EXAMPLE OF INDEX Adaptive Case Management, 1, 2 Agent Control Language, 6 automation of routine work, 3 Business Process Management, 2 Change Aims, 6 change management, 1, 2 change management capability, 2 cloud, 1 collaborative Plans, 4 Collaborative, real-time planning, 5 Deliverables, 4 Effective team building, 5 Email, 12 Empowered time management, 5 GANTT Charts, 1, 4 Goal-Oriented Organization Design, 6 GOOD, 6 HIM, 1 HIM principles, 4 human interaction, 2 Human Interaction Management, 1, 2
Human Interaction Management System, 5 innovation, 2 kaizen, 2 Knowledge creation, 5 Lean, 1 Lean Manufacturing, 2 matrix management, 1 muda, 2 Multi-Agent System, 6 mura, 2 muri, 2 organizational boundaries, 4, 5 Plan, 4 project management, 1, 2 Public and Private processes, 3 Roles, 4 Six Sigma, 1, 2 Social BPM, 1, 3 social technologies, 1 Stages, 4 Structured communication, 5 Typical ACM use cases, 4 Typical BPM use cases, 3 Typical HIM use cases, 4
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