When organizations invest in business changes of any kind, the intent is to get a level of return that exceeds the investment. Why bother otherwise? Yet time and time again we hear of organizations that claim success simply on the basis that the intended change is launched, or up and running. If no sustained behavior change has occurred, the organization should seriously question the value of their investment. 

 

 

A need to do something different from the way it is done today is the essence of business change. This means that we need people to do something different. No technology, no new process, no new organization structure has real meaning or value unless it is the driver of new human behavior. The value of the investment is derived from the value of the behavior change. 

 

So when organizations install a business change, but don’t sufficiently focus on the corresponding behavior change, the end result is completely predictable. It’s a common operating pattern, and what we term as the difference between Installation versus Implementation.

 

This operating pattern rewards activity over results. It’s reinforcing to be able to check-off a series of “accomplishments”, but if these same accomplishments are not being measured in the context of behavior change, we have fallen short both as a project team and as an organization. Behavior change matters a lot.

 

 

In order to change the pattern we have to change our organizational mindset. With an implementation mindset, the goal must include behavior change. To reach the goal, we must first define the business change in behavioral terms very early on.

 

When we work with a project team in a facilitated Project JumpStart session, the outcome is a clear definition of the business change in terms of 5 critical success metrics: on time, on budget, with all business, technical and human objectives met. We work with the team to define these human objectives (the desired new behaviors) very early on in the project lifecycle, and equally importantly, we don’t consider the project to be completed until these behavior changes occur.

 

The reason the typical project chartering process is insufficient now becomes apparent: it doesn’t go far enough in the definition of the desired behavior change. That’s why the first step of the Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM) is so critically important—without a compelling and complete definition of the change we are unlikely to be successful in getting to Return on Investment.

 

 

Can the project team achieve behavior change on its own? The answer is no, because the project team can’t deliver the needed behavioral reinforcements. These reinforcements can only be directed by what we call reinforcing Sponsors. What project teams must do, then, is develop a strong partnership with the line business through use of change agents. Line business managers must share responsibility and accountability for driving behavior change and project success.