Project Portfolio Management: A View From The Management Trenches

6.2. TYPES OF CHANGE

"John, tell me one thing. How many projects are you running right now in your portfolio?"

Without even pausing to check his numbers, John fired back, "Ninety-seven projects within nineteen portfolio programs, and eighteen divisional programs."

"Okay, so there's a lot going on. Before we delve into these projects, let's just take a step back and think about change and how people cope with it. I presume you'd agree that there are different types of change?"

"Sure—it goes without saying that the change involved in using an upgraded version of, say, Microsoft Office is nothing compared to what someone has to go through when they're required to stop performing a task manually and instead use a new ERP system."

"Exactly," replied Bill. "So, what we need to do is classify the type of change. When doing this I recommend four categories, each with an escalating impact on your people. The change with lowest impact is what I call Affiliation Change. Basically, this means a change in someone's relationship—whether organizational, like a change to their reporting structure, or physical, like a change in their location. These are relatively low impact (of course, there are exceptions, but usually these are as a result of a combination with the other change types)."

John was making notes. "Got it—affiliation change: low impact."

"Next in terms of impact comes what I call task change. This is any change that relates to the way someone does their work and could include new ...