The one constant in the world we live in today is that nothing is constant.  Change is never ending and seems to be coming at us faster and faster in every aspect of our lives. Change is achievable and manageable through organizational change management for businesses right now. Who would have imagined that in the first part of 2020, most of the world would be forced into a world, where at least temporarily, there were no restaurants and most would instantly be thrust into a remote work model?

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Luckily, despite COVID-19, there are still projects to be completed and the challenges to those projects still require firms to adapt to change and companies to implement organizational change management.  In some ways, now more than ever.  In today’s changed world, is it still possible to have projects that are smart and healthy?

For over 28 years, Clarkston Consulting has been helping clients achieve success in their IT projects. We’ve learned many lessons from the fallout of the dot-com bubble.  We’ve added to those lessons during the Y2K period of change anticipation.  We’ve learned how to recover from devastating losses after 9/11.

Through the past 28 years of ups and downs, Clarkston has honed its ability to help our clients run smart and healthy projects. When we talk about smart projects, we are referring to a project that is professionally run.  Projects that have a proven methodology and approach.  Projects that have a solid project plan and where the budgets are accurately tracked.  These things ensure that a project gets delivered on-time and on-budget.

When we talk about healthy projects, we are talking about striving for projects with minimal internal politics and hidden agendas.  Projects with minimal confusion about what we are doing and why. Healthy projects have teams that have high morale and who are highly productive.  And finally, healthy projects have low team member turnover.

Organizational Change Management

The keys to creating a smart and healthy project are: 
1) Building a cohesive project leadership team:  Make sure you have leadership alignment.  Ensure stakeholders are engaged and support the team when challenges arise.  Have each other’s back.

2) Create project clarity:  Ensure that everyone on the team knows their roles and responsibilities.  Ensure the team knows what they need to do and when it needs to be completed.  Follow up on any questions the team has.

3) Over-communicate clarity:  Make sure there is consistency in all communications to the team. Communication needs to flow in all directions, downward, laterally and upward and it needs to happen on a regular basis.

4) Reinforce clarity: Build the right team with the right team members.  Onboard them to give them the information they need.  Make sure to build team member recognition into the fabric of the project.  Constantly evaluate how the team is performing and working together.  Hopefully, it is not necessary, but be prepared to make changes to the team if needed.

If you would like to learn more about how Clarkston achieves these things during projects, feel free to subscribe to the Clarkston Insights.

If you’re interested in viewing a related presentation, listen to CEO of Bull City Talent Group, Kyle Montgomery discuss the advantages of a healthy project below.

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Contributions by Eileen George and Skip Berry