Project Portfolio Management: A View From The Management Trenches

6.4. CONTROLLING THE IMPACT OF CHANGE

"John, I'm glad you find this useful. But I'm not quite finished yet. Clearly, once you present your findings to your CEO, she'll look to you for recommendations on ways to reduce the impact of all the change on the organization."

"Yes, you're right there. But I think the answers are pretty obvious, aren't they? Rescheduling project rollout dates, rescoping projects, or minimizing the groups who are impacted by any changes are things that come to mind immediately. Oh, and cancelling them completely, though I imagine that's not a popular option!"

Bill laughed. "Yes, you could say that, though what this approach does allow you to do is propose the cancellation of a small, low-priority project that just happens to have big change impact. What you'll find is that it's not always the big high-priority projects that cause the most 'change stress' in an organization—which is a very good thing, I hasten to add.

"But let's just take a step back for a moment. You asked me up front how you could work out just how much change is acceptable for an organization. To answer that, I tend to follow industry best-practice recommendations, which can be summarized as follows: Anything up to 10 percent change is experienced by people as good. They feel that their organization is not static and is moving with, or just ahead of, the market. Change of 10 to 25 percent change feels challenging—people feel that their organization is undergoing significant change and ...