AheadMG understand the importance of strong change leadership in helping organisations achieve their strategic goals.
Using decades of experience in managing complex, transformational change initiatives, we recognise that a plug and play change process that works for all, is not yet a reality. Here at AheadMG we have taken time to ensure we have a robust framework and toolkit that enables best of breed MI and visibility whilst driving efficiency and predictability into all aspects of the change lifecycle. All this whilst having the flexibility to integrate with existing governance structures regardless of the size and complexity.
That’s why we believe our approach stands out.
Change management is often referred to as a non-producer role which should therefore be reduced as far as possible in order to remove variable overheads from delivery costs. What we see when working with our clients contradicts this view. Individuals who are effective in change management roles, drive down the overall cost and increase the predictability of change programmes. We make this possible using our expert blend of stakeholder & RAIDD management, subject matter expertise and our ability to refocus teams onto critical path decisions and activities.
Change managers should be uniquely placed to bridge the gap between senior stakeholders, corporate governance and delivery organisations and be able to use a blend of techniques to ensure the two-way information flow is clear and appropriate to drive the best outcome, as efficiently as possible. AheadMG always ensure individuals have the right mix of experience and interpersonal skills to ensure they deliver for the client.
Successful change management, like many other management roles lies in being able to understand the overall surrounding context to help to steer teams in the right direction, support and remove roadblocks and shield teams from unnecessary distractions.
In recent years we have developed a change charter or ‘handbook’ to do just that. It can be easily tailored to suit the requirements of organisational structures whether complex (with multiple legal entities, forums and layers) or smaller simple structures. Focusing on enabling faster decision making, ensuring clear role definitions and deep understanding of the change process from executive level down. It was developed after working with multiple organisations who had failed to manage a transition of methodologies from Waterfall to Agile. In all cases we found a mismatch with corporate governance/funding cycles and the desire to shift to a test and learn development model driven by OKRs. This has caused significant challenges with change inertia, throw-away cost and unpredictability. This highlights one of the many requirements for strong change leadership.
This handbook works alongside all change methodologies whether you adopt a modern change practice such as SAFE® or a more traditional, waterfall approach (or anything in-between). Originally intended as a stop gap to allow a smoother transition to a fully Agile model, we have seen it grow and persist as the main change reference document for a number of years for a division of a UK PLC despite significant changes in structures and people. The change handbook makes it easy for change organisations to tailor existing frameworks to suit them, to train and communicate tooling, RACI and methodology.
In a world where companies are looking to tech giants for improvements in methodology, we believe strong change management is as important as it has always been and, for now at least, it’s here to stay.