Gartner Update: The People Side

Massive changes coming:

IT organizations are becoming change saturated. Both home and work. In next 20 years will experience the world going through peak oil production of all time.

• Medicare/Medicaid big change. Baby boomers drawing down

• Social security

• Subdivisions/developments gated by water resources.

• Question. As a manager, how do I manage the people side of these kinds of changes.

Framework of change:
Why, what, who? Are we changing.

If we can’t get the people to achieve the change then we can’t be successful.

The gating factor on change is no longer technology (has it ever been? Chris) – it is people’s ability to handle/absorb change.

If our success in technology is gated by our ability to manage the people side of change then we had better figure it out. It was very disappointing to see in the target audience here at the Gartner conference how little effect current change management initiatives have had.

Key points are that as we knew, Executive sponsorship of change is vital. However executive sponsorship isn’t just “show up for the kickoff and sign the checks”. It really must embody active involvement. Even more worrying is that, again in the audience at the session, that most attendees don’t have a “structured approach”, nor proper communication plans.

It has been our experience that change management is viewed by the technical teams as “touchy feely, unnecessary, gets in the way.” Changing that perception is a change management in its own right. That being recognized, the whole “Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and reinforcement” cycle. The presenters thesis is that all change goes through this cycle. So if we attempt to encourage the technical teams just by giving them Knowledge, we are entering the cycle too early. We need to find ways to get Awareness and Desire enshrined.