Andy Nurumov

Author: Andrew Nurumov

Your organization is a living organism. Responsibility of CEO is to make it as adaptable as possible at rapid change speed of environment. Naturally, a company does not have the processes for change management and without these processes it would not develop properly and cease to exist very quickly. And one or several innovative departments do not change the situation.

I typically implemented one spreadsheet to standardize Change Management in a company:
1. Each row is called a Business Product – this is the list of key changes in your operations, go-to market, hiring, etc. activities that influence on main KPIs of your organization. In the beginning you could have just an Excel spreadsheet  
2. Each Business Product have «Client» and «Executor». «Client» defines requirements. «Executor» is CEO of business product and everyone is responsible for help to his success. 
3. New Business Products are approved by CEO of organization. 
4. There is no any change management projects outside of this list. It allows to control resources and to have focus for organization. Likewise, employees minimize work activities except their direct KPIs and list of Business Products in which they have one of two roles.

Some consultants take million dollars for project to organize change management in organization. But for CEO it is one day to sketch and determine an action plan. And after this – communicate. The earlier you focus on the issue, the less costly the implementation will be.

Bonus point: you support more flat organization culture by this implementation and develop leadership among managers and individual contributors in your organization.

Practical Advice depends on your current role in organization:

– Executive: Be a leader – standardize Change Management in your organization. After implementations – communicate proactively to shape culture in the right way. Later – delegate one of your manager to be the holder of process.

– Manager: Be holder of list of Business Products as early as possible. If in your organization there is no such process – ask your executive supervisor that he/she implements it with your manual work help.

– Individual Contributor: Be a leader of some Business Products and execute proactively. The more you execute, the higher probability you will be promoted.