Change Portfolio Management – what is it?
Change Portfolio Management trainer Therese Walsh is interviewed by Jane Judd
“If each change initiative looks healthy in isolation, yet the combined change load is causing overwhelm and risk, Change Portfolio Management is the answer.”
Therese refers to a course she facilitated a couple of weeks prior, where participants are managing up to 80 different initiatives. None are connected. They are all being individually managed – sometimes it is not even volume that is the issue – It is lack of clarity.
So how does Change Portfolio Management help?
- It is the solution to the symptom or the cause
- It grows your change muscle
- It gives an organisational view of change, a collective view that allows programme teams and senior business leaders to make the right decisions on prioritisation and phasing
- It should always link change back to the business strategy
- In change fit organisations, change is continuous and part of what we do every day
How is it different from change management?
- Change Management is both a process and a function performed by Change Professionals and business leaders alike. It helps people understand why the change is needed, what is expected and when it will happen, while providing the support they need to succeed. That remains vital.
- Change Portfolio Management applies when your organisation is running many changes at once across functions, locations and teams
- Change Portfolio Management takes an enterprise-wide view of change
- It looks across multiple initiatives happening at the same time and considers their combined impact, risk and the organisation’s overall capacity for change
- It applies a broader lens
- Change management asks:
- Will people successfully make this change?
- Will they change how they work?
- Change Portfolio Management asks:
- Should people be taking on this change now? Do they have capacity?
- What toll will it have on individuals?
It is not a case of choosing one over the other. It is about how both practices work together to give a complete picture of change.
New language Change Managers are hearing
A word of caution – new terms may not be fully understood by others, so use them with care.
-
Change impact
The scale of the impact on a person, organisation or business
-
Change collision
This is what happens when multiple changes are happening at once. There is potential for them to collide. Individually, initiatives might show green, but collectively they could show red if the following are in play:
-
- Are you are asking too much of delivery resources?
- Are you are asking those receiving the change to think differently and adopt different initiatives at the same time?
- From a sponsor perspective, does each initiative get the attention it deserves?
Business success is going to be at risk if there are too many collisions.
-
Change impost
The emotional toll that too many changes at once can have on individuals. E.g. the impact of a new IT solution, with having a new boss, or moving to a new team, and what happens when those land together.
-
Change fatigue and change fitness
Change fatigue describes employees feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, confused, and ties it back to volume and pace.
Change fitness is where employees become adaptive to continuous change and have the skills and mindset to balance daily operations with participating in and implementing change.
It is empowering to talk about change fitness as an alternative to change fatigue.
What Change Portfolio Management looks like in practice
- Change Portfolio Management allows you to view current and pipeline activity, gather it, define it, and have it all in one place
- This provides transparency across the organisation
- It is data driven
- It creates a collaborative view risk, and allows it to be mitigated
Once you have collected the data, it allows you to gather key insights to share. Those insights enable leaders to lead and make the best decisions on priority and pace.
Leaders do not enjoy hearing employees are frustrated, unhappy, not embracing the change, and not engaging. Previously, Change Practitioners did not have the data or insights to allow leaders to make the right decisions. Change Portfolio Management enables leaders to make the right decisions because you present the information in a way that is factual and helpful.
It is not won and done. It is continuous. It evolves. There is a process you follow: collecting the data, analysing the data, sharing the data, making decisions, then going back at it again.
Some initiatives complete and others start, so the portfolio makeup is not necessarily the same at different points in time.
How does Change Portfolio Management tie in with strategic change maturity?
To move to change fitness, and to have a change fit organisation, you need transparency and visibility of what is actually happening across the enterprise. You also have to have the capability spread across the enterprise to respond effectively to continuous change. Change Portfolio Management covers both of those areas.
Building change capability and creating the conditions for continuous change forms part of the programmes.
Practical framing you can take straight into leadership conversations:
- Transparency and visibility across the enterprise
- Capability spread across the enterprise to respond effectively
- A move from fatigue language to fitness outcomes
Do you need a central function and where does responsibility sit?
Yes and no – it depends on where the organisation is at. To achieve success at enterprise level, it needs central focus. It can take time to get there, and it is okay to start small.
It is not the role of Change Portfolio Managers to make the decisions. That is the role of business leaders. The role of Change Portfolio Managers is to present the data and tell the story in a way that gives leaders what they need to make the decisions.
What data and metrics are useful?
The data is not hugely different from the data you collect as a Change Manager, but you are rolling it up e.g.
- Change impact assessment data on the scale of the change
- Data on business readiness for change
- Stakeholder workshops and feedback on how people are feeling about the change
- Delivery roadmaps viewed with a people lens, focusing on where people are impacted
- Heat maps, while noting they are often a start point, not the finish point
Change Portfolio Management, must it work in sync with delivery?
- The perfect marriage
- In a perfect world, delivery teams focus on the delivery and technical aspects, keeping cost and scope defined
- Someone at the table brings the people view and people lens
- Together they are the perfect partnership
- One should not and cannot operate without the other
Take what you need now. Then watch the full session in the member hub
Therese and Jane give you language for what you already see: pace, volume, collisions, overload, and the people toll.
They also give you a practical frame you can use immediately:
- Build transparency and visibility across the enterprise
- Roll up change data to create insights leaders can act on
- Enable leaders to make decisions on priority and pace
- Move from Change fatigue to Change fitness and the capability to respond effectively to continuous change
For the full set of definitions, the extended Q and A, and the deeper practical application, head to the member hub to watch the full session.
🎬 Members can watch the webinar on the MEMBER HUB
🤔 Not a member yet? Now is a great time to JOIN HERE NOW
