Change Management, sometimes the underestimated process

How many companies fail because of lack of change management (CM)?

Some of them underestimate it, some others do not know it exist and a big number of them that do not want to pay for it.

This last fact is more common than you think. People see value on a SAP consultant, on a Wintel operator and understand the value they produce, so they are fine paying for them.

I do not know why some people underestimate the value of a change manager and the positive effect it has on the projects. I have the feedback of a client that tells me that the CM activities are responsibility of the project manager; I agree for the small projects this is something that can be delegated on the project manager or the architect, but for complex projects or transitional projects is a key element.

I worked on a project where at the end of the inception phase, once the statement of work and the approach was defined, during the first analysis of required resources, the PM of the client told me that the change manager role was not required, that all in the plan was very clear, that all the milestones and activities where clear, why do we need a CM? Very simple my friend, the development of that complex solution with so many modules, functionality, versions and people involved require to have the right control of the software and the evolution that is having across the project.

IT projects have objectives and they are typically aligned with business objectives. The business projects require a clear management of the changes that the project team or the organization wants to implement. The lack of control of the changes and their measure is one of the most common reasons because a business project is not completed successfully.

On the other side there is other type of project approach where the CM is considered as a key asset during the whole life-cycle. If you read agile principles or SCRUM practices, you will see as there is a clear management of the changes.

I have seen people asking themselves why a project was delayed or over budgeted, with the milestones uncompleted, and in some of these times the lack management of the change is the cause.