Change management and project management – what is the difference?

What are the differences between the worlds of change management and project management? What does life look like on either side of the equation, and where do the tensions lie? Kate Ward, Head of Change Management at King’s College London, and veteran project management expert Adrian Dooley give their perspectives – and point out where the common ground lies.

Kate Ward: “Change management focuses on the people side”

“Project management is focused on what needs to be delivered, when and within which parameters. Change management is equally structured, focused on the people side, who is impacted, what’s changing for them and how we enable behavioural change. One manages the scope; the other manages the shift.

“However, change management is perceived too often as something to be ‘covered off’ through a communications plan, a training session and/or a stakeholder briefing. But most organisational change isn’t just complicated, it is complex. Complicated change can be planned and controlled; complex change involves people, behaviours, beliefs and cultural norms. It requires flexibility, emotional intelligence and sustained engagement. A linear plan won’t navigate it; a data-driven, person-centred, adaptive approach will.

“Despite its growing maturity, change management is still often perceived as supporting delivery, rather than helping shape it. Yet without meaningful adoption, delivery is unlikely to result in the intended benefits. A better shared understanding of what effective change management entails – its purpose, principles and strategic value – can help move the conversation from activity to outcomes.

“Change management brings approaches grounded in behavioural science, enterprise capability-building and human-centred design. But these methods only work when they are applied early, consistently and with influence. Importantly, while change professionals help guide the process, it is leaders and teams within the business who ultimately own the change. Our role is to equip and enable them to succeed.

“If we want to realise the full value of transformation, change and project professionals must function as strategic partners – not just sequential contributors, but equal ones. This collaboration should not be an afterthought; it should be built in by design.”

Adrian Dooley: “The ultimate objective of project management is to deliver benefits”

“In project management, the ultimate objective is to deliver benefits. This starts with outputs (products or services) that are used to create an outcome. The outcome is then used to accumulate benefits. And that’s where the fun begins. To get from output to benefit, people often have to change the way they work and adopt new practices. It’s where human nature gets in the way.

“A project manager who is charged with realising benefits has responsibility for managing change. Of course, having responsibility for something doesn’t mean you have to do it yourself. The project manager may have a change manager on the team to manage the tricky human nature stuff.

“Conversely, a change manager is very focused on helping people through difficult change that they resist, and sees project outputs as simply a means to an end. They just need project managers to deliver the outputs so that they can get on with the important stuff. Maybe they see projects (the ‘simple’ job of delivering outputs) as a component of their change management objectives.

“I suspect you may now be tempted down the ‘now you’re talking about programmes’ line of thought. Both project and change managers are just cogs in the programme management machine, but that’s a debate for another time.

“So, is one discipline a subset of the other? Ultimately it comes down to who is accountable for realising the benefits. If the project manager is the accountable person, then they are also responsible for ensuring the necessary change is achieved (possibly via a change manager). If the change manager is accountable, then they are also responsible for procuring the necessary outputs (probably via project managers).

“So, it depends. Decide how you want to set up the governance of the work; pay your money and make your choice.”