Being Agile in Business Change
When working in business change, we more often than not, have to work with moving targets, due to needs, desires and cultures of the company frequently changing. Often priorities will shift, maybe employees are looking for an area in which they can create communities and conversation across the business, or a director has highlighted the need to switch and be using a secure file storage area sooner.
“To ensure that we get the best results when focusing on product adoption, we plan and work in an agile way, catering to the needs of the project and its stakeholders.”
What is agile project management?
Agile is traditionally an iterative approach to managing and delivering projects. Within an agile project, you will have several iterations or incremental steps throughout. The stages are cyclical and iterative, making sure that plans are constantly being revised and adjusted as well as considering lessons learnt from previous stages.
So, in what ways do we ensure we continue to be agile during our change projects?
1. Customised approach for different departments and teams within the business
Different areas of the business work in different ways, have different needs and require different levels of attention, so we make sure that within our planning we leave room for the customisation of the adoption approach for each team. So that once we engage with them and get to know their level of understanding and enthusiasm for the project, we can establish the level of engagement they need.
2. Phased Rollout
Depending on the product, the time for both technical readiness and adoption will be different. We have to ensure that we strategically plan to cater the time needed to be change-ready for each product, often this means a phased approach needs to be implemented, whether that be product by product or areas by area.
3. Change Freeze
As we all know, plans alter, Go Live dates may be pushed back, when plans are being rearranged, we have to take into account if it will still remain a good time for the group of people to get access to these products. For example, it may be that the finance team are next on the list to go live but due to many reasons it would now mean that they would get the product in April, we all know not to interfere with the finance team at the end of the tax year! Knowing when you need to freeze the change and switch around your plans is key to adoption success.
4. Change agent updates and engagement
It is important to keep updating and informing your champions and influencers with the latest news and project updates. It helps to be transparent; no one likes thinking something is going to happen and then it doesn’t or being rushed into something new. Make sure you regularly update those involved to avoid shock, distrust, and annoyance to the project, which would create a negative feeling towards the change. We aim to keep everyone positive and exciting about the new products.
Case Study Example of How we were Agile…
The Adoption of Microsoft365 in the organisation
Within current circumstances, there is no denying that adopting agile in projects could be the answer for your business. With our consultancy service, we can help you run projects smoother, apply agile project management to your projects seamlessly, and achieve your project deliverables on time, within the project budget.
Contact us today for more information.
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