Enabling Change SIG Newsletter
December 2015


Contents:

Introduction from the Chair
Research
Internal Collaboration
Industry Change Practitioner Groups
Recent and planned events

 

 

 

 

Introduction from the Chair: Martin Taylor

A lot has happened since the last Newsletter, with progress being made in all areas of our Business Plan; interviews with organisations for our Research project, communication and discussion with most other SIG’s and Branches, meetings of our Industry Change Practitioner groups and a number of well-attended Events have all taken place.

November was a particularly busy month as I undertook a presentation to the Nationwide Building Society change forum on top tips for successful change, chaired the second meeting of our Public Services change practitioner group, attended our “Changing your Ways” event and attended the AGM and World Café event of the British Computer Society.

We are working well with the Open University and have two events organised in 2016 (see below) and are in discussion with the British Computer Society change group about collaborating on events and white papers. We believe this collaborative approach both within the APM and with other organisations is the way forward in developing the Change Community and improve how we manage and deliver programmes and projects to achieve successful change.

If you have suggestions for improving what the Enabling Change SIG is doing please make contact through our micro-site on the APM website.

APM Research Project Update: Development of diagnostic tool – Parag Gogate

This project is now well underway and the research team have interviewed the minimum number of organisations required. This will be followed by online survey questionnaire that will enable the research team to get insight into the change management climate and culture of participating organisations. All responses will be kept strictly confidential and the participating organisations will get a complimentary report on the state of play and culture.

This exciting research is being funded by APM and will produce an efficient and effective measurement and diagnostic method to quickly explore and identify behavioural obstacles in relation to readiness/resistance to change. This diagnostic tool will enable practitioners to take necessary action to minimise change impact, maximise productivity and will aid in building an effective Behavioural Risk Assessment extending best practice.

For further details please contact Parag Gogate on parag.gogate@arcusfm.com

Find out more about the research here: https://www.apm.org.uk/enabling-change

Internal Collaboration – Elisabeth Goodman

Why have a Theme on Internal Collaboration?

Managing change touches a lot of activities addressed by the other SIGs within the APM, and vice versa. Similarly, branch events often bear some relation to managing change.

In recent months I have been reaching out to other SIGs, and to Branches to:

  1. Foster understanding of the remit of our SIG, promote it and encourage, if relevant, members of other branches and SIGs to join our SIG.
  2. Explore, develop and exploit synergies between our SIG, and other SIGs that could result in joint events, and other joint activities e.g. in the form of ideas, materials, white papers for us to consider in developing our own resources for members; events that we could participate in; opportunities to contribute to their ideas / materials.
  3. Look for opportunities for our SIG to participate in events organised by branches right across APM’s geographical coverage.
  4. Bring back information from the other SIGs and branches that would be useful to inform our SIG’s strategy and activities.

How are things going?

I have already had very positive conversations with eight out of the thirteen SIGs, and seven out of the thirteen branches. I, and other members of our SIG, have been participating in events, and scheduling others for both this and the next financial year. We have also been discussing opportunities to review or provide input to other SIGs’ publications.

Examples of recent events include:

I will be continuing to reach out to the remaining SIGs and branches with whom I have not yet spoken. In the meantime, if anyone reading this newsletter is keen to explore further collaborations, do please get in touch with me.

Spark Collaboration – a new tool to help you collaborate with other change practitioners

Most of those reading this Newsletter should by now have seen one or two of our communications about this. But in case you haven’t, here is a link to the full description on our website https://www.apm.org.uk/news/spark-collaboration-new-tool-help-you-network-other-change-practitioners

To summarise:

Spark Collaboration builds upon the success of the Randomised Coffee Trials initiative at Nesta, the UK innovation foundation. It enables those who choose to use it, to register for serendipitous ‘match-making’ with others who have registered. Once a month you will be matched with another member of the network, at which point you can choose whether to arrange to ‘meet’ with them, either face-to-face, over the phone, by Skype, or indeed by any other means.

At the time of writing, twenty people have already registered on the site, with more joining each week. The first ‘match’ was made on 2nd November, and we are keen to hear and share testimonials of people’s experiences.
Our intent is to pilot Spark for 6 months, and then write up a report on its use, as well as decide whether to continue to make it available to our members.

If you would like to participate in this networking pilot, please register your interest here.
Please also feel free to contact Elisabeth Goodman if you have any further questions.

Industry Change Practitioner Groups – Bob Thomas

The Enabling Change SIG continues to develop and run its industry focused Change Practitioner Groups. Over the past 3 months, the Nationwide, the House of Commons and the Arts Council have further strengthened the existing “Financial Services” and “Public Services” groups. The Transportation group progresses well with an aim to also add into its group a major Freight Distributor. In addition, a new “Utilities” group has been created which includes within it organisations such as KPMG Sustainability; Energy Networks Association and Ineos along with consultants who have worked for energy organisations such as DECC, National Grid and Ofgem. The first introductory meeting of this new Utilities group is planned to take place during this December.

Though attending numbers at current group meetings continues to challenge their development and rate of ideas and outputs, progress continues within the three current Change Practitioner groups to identify their specific key change challenges. Transportation including: TfL; Network Rail; Arriva; Heathrow Airport; Maersk Link along with a Brighton Univ Professor Academic and Author Esther Cameron – have already approved a TOR, identified over 50 barriers to change and during this month will hold one day event at Heathrow to determine how these identified change themes link together. Whereas Public Services made up of members from the British Council; HMRC; NHS; House of Commons and the Arts Council plus a Director from PwC are together still finalising their TOR, having appreciated to date what a highly complex, difficult and challenging change environment they operate in. The Financial Services group with members from the Bank of America, Thomson Reuters, Nationwide, and an Ex Bank of England Change Consultant, a Trader Performance Coach, and an Insurance Programme Manager along with a Professor from Cass Business School –initially focused on discretionary and non-discretionary change projects across the two main drivers of technology and regulation. Their current focus is to determine what reasons can be learnt from “Change Failures”.

It is proposed that once the Utilities Change Practitioners group is up and running that a new “Not for Profit Organisations” (NFPO) Change Practitioner group will then be established.

Recent Events – John Gillett

Apart from the events we have run jointly with other SiGs or Branches as mentioned above we ran a very well attended event entitled “Enabling Change with Agility, Velocity and Flexibility” on 29th September in London.

The presenter was Henry Cohen, Interim CIO for Telegraph Media Group, and his presentation scored an average of 4.8 out of 5. Henry gave us a fascinating talk on how he had changed the culture of IT at TMG such that by using Agile methodologies they are now really focused on meeting the ever more demanding needs of this technology enabled, fast paced, business.

Methods & Standards – “Changing your Ways” event

Around 50 people joined us at the Turner & Townsend Offices in London on Tuesday 17th November for a chance to look at the work that the Methods & Standards Theme of the SIG have been doing over the past 18 months.

The event aimed to simplify some of the complexity associated with transitioning a programme, organisation or culture from the current state to the desired future state – using Change Management.

The attendees were a mixture of those relatively new to change management and those with more experience. The session focused on the SIG’s Methods and Standards Theme Team work that had been so far and focused on reference materials like the common vocabulary. This made all attendees aware of what we currently have and started them thinking about what they would like to see and get out of the Theme.

A lot of work has been done looking at the myriad of change management methodologies that are out there and it was useful to get the attendees feedback on what they have used and how successful it was. The session was very interactive and the attendees were given the opportunity to discuss what they would like to see the SIG focusing on in the future in break out groups.

The Methods & Standards Theme Team gathered some great feedback and some focus areas that will help shape the agenda for the next 12 – 18 months. Thank you to everyone who attended the event and we look forward to seeing you at more events in the future. Our thanks go to Hannah Melville, Donna Unitt and Jason Williams for their hard work in bringing all the material together in one place for your guidance, which should help save time as you go about your change activities. You can find the materials on our microsite at the following link: https://www.apm.org.uk/news/enabling-change-sig-capabilities-and-methods-pillar

Planned Events – John Gillett

In the New Year we have the following events scheduled in the first quarter:

On the 14th January we are running an internal event with the Open University entitled “Keeping Programmes on Track and Teams Inspired during Change” and this will be followed by a Webinar open to all on 3rd February, where the presenters will discuss the Open University’s approach to change https://www.apm.org.uk/event/degrees-change-open-university-webinar

On 28th January we are presenting at a joint event, with Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Branch in Leeds, entitled “Common factors for Managing Successful Change” https://www.apm.org.uk/event/common-factors-managing-successful-change

Tuesday 2nd February will see a fascinating event entitled “How to take the ‘pulse’ of groups and the organisation during times of change?” held at Holiday Inn Coventry. https://www.apm.org.uk/event/how-take-pulse-groups-and-organisation-during-times-change

On 24th February we have a full day event organised with the Planning, Monitoring & Control SIG looking at “Planning for Change” and there is a special early-bird rate for those who book for this event by 31st December 2015 https://www.apm.org.uk/event/planning-change

We have some other events in the planning stages and we will keep you updated as they solidify. Of course if there are some particular Change related topics you would like us to cover or if indeed you would like to speak at one of our future events from your experience then do get in touch.

Please feel free to circulate this Newsletter to your colleagues in Change and do encourage them to join the Enabling Change SIG. It is free to join the SIG group, even if you are not an APM member and then you will be kept up to date on all of our activities. Simply register (or log in - if already registered) on the www.apm.org.uk website and indicate whether you are one of the following:
I am a member of APM
I am an employee of a corporate member
I am not a member of APM or emploed by an APM corporate member

We look forward to seeing you and your colleagues at one or more of our future events.

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