Thought Leadership Articles

    Four Ways to Manage Complex Change Projects

    Dec 10, 2018 | Posted by Michael Campbell

    Changes in every aspect of life are accelerating and business operating models are constantly being challenged and redefined.

    The advancements in technology are transforming workplaces, not just in Asia but around the world, and these are only going to continue to progress in the coming years. These advancements are bringing about larger, more complex changes which impact an entire business infrastructure and the way employees are expected to work forever.

    Many organisations set bold aspirations, but few are able to design and execute wide-ranging change programmes that deliver substantial and sustained performance improvement. The challenge is twofold: managing the implementation of many different change initiatives and keeping the organisations energy levels high during a process that can take years.

    Increasingly complex changes require more experienced, more advanced change practitioners to lead and facilitate change more effectively.  Learn more about how CMC Partnership Asia can assist you in further your change management career with our Experienced Practitioner Programme.

    To start you on your journey to becoming a more experienced change practitioner, we've compiled four ways to approach a complex change within your organisation to increase the likelihood of a successful implementation.


    Create an inclusive vision for the project

    Since large-scale complex transformations can take years to complete, it’s vital that everyone in the organisation understands the end-goal of the change project and are kept up-to-date with the progress. Not only will this reassure them that the project is on the right track but also affirms that any contribution they make towards the project is valuable.

    Build ownership for the change among employees at all levels

    A lack of buy-in, skepticism, or outright resistance can all stop your change initiative in its tracks. Following on from the previous point, ensuring you create a strong sense of ownership around your change project allows those impacted to feel that they have a duty to making sure it is implemented as seamlessly as possible for minor business disruption to their work life. So how you you create this ownership at all organisational levels? 

    Measure improvements in overall health, not just performance

    Rather than just focusing on traditional business KPIs to effectively track the progress and success of your change project, you must also consider the overall health of the change project to allow you to assess the progress of the project and deflect any warning signs before it’s too late. 

    Asking questions such as: "Has our change delivered its organisational results?" or "Have our employees really changed their ways of working?"  and "Have we used change management techniques in a best practice manner throughout the change?" can help you quantify and measure how the people side of the change has been effectively managed within your project and your target ROI delivered.

    Test and learn before scaling up

    When implementing complex change, it is unlikely that your change project will succeed from the outset. To minimise disruption within the business, deploying your change to one group of employees or a single department ensures that you're not faced with numerous challenges which may result in the change being disregarded, and you can tackle teething issues before the change is rolled out to the entire business. Build on success. 

    Begin effectively managing complex change projects with CMC Partnership Asia

    Evolving and expanding change requires expanding and advanced skill sets from change management resources. An advanced change practitioner brings a higher-level of value to help manage complex changes more efficiently and with higher levels of effectiveness.

    Collaborate with and learn from other experienced change management practitioners with the Prosci Experienced Practitioner Programme. Through case studies, complex change scenarios (agile, Lean, Six Sigma etc) and seminal change management literature, participants of the program will develop an enhanced perspective on how to effectively adapt change management within their organisation. 

    Download our course brochure to discover why our Prosci Experienced Practitioner Programme is right for your change management needs.

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