Embracing Change: Proven Strategies from The Road of Consulting

By: RPI Tech Connect   April 23, 2024

ERP implementations are technical in nature, but because of how disruptive they are for business users, they’re also people projects. To help organizations manage the people-side of ERPs, we’re diving into the crucial world of change management.

In this episode of RPI Tech Connect, join RPI’s Sarah Concannon and Daniel Jenab for an exploration of what change management entails and why it holds such significance in determining ERP project success. Daniel and Sarah share real-world stories from the road of consulting and the power change management has on increasing user adoption, minimizing project setbacks, and improving processes. Tune in as we identify practical strategies for embracing change effectively.

Interested in listening to this episode on another streaming platform? Check out our directories.

Meet Today’s Guest, Sarah Concannon

As a core member of the Strategic Services practice, Sarah Concannon specializes in managing RPI’s strategic automation engagements. She has over a decade’s experience supporting, leading, and managing supply chain process improvement initiatives. Initiatives Sarah has built a reputation of success with include Purchase Order confirmation automation, item master and vendor master cleanses, Accounts Payable process optimization, and her personal favorite, vendor return and credit memo processing.

Sarah is also a Prosci-certified Change Practitioner, an experienced technical writer, and has a wide variety of documentation skills including top notch deliverables for instruction manuals, Change Management Plans, Training Strategies and materials, company policies, and job aids. In addition to her Infor Lawson expertise, Sarah also has years of experience supporting partnership and client facing engagements with GHX products including Procure, NuVia, and CCXpert.

Meet Today’s Guest, Daniel Jenab

Daniel Jenab began his journey with RPI Consultants in 2018 as a Project Coordinator and quickly graduated to Project Manager. Daniel has overseen large process automation implementations for RPI’s Content & Process Automation practice, utilizing a variety of Kofax, Hyland, and Infor Solutions. Over the course of three years, he delivered many successful projects across a wide variety of industries, with a keen focus on healthcare.

In 2021, Daniel added change management consulting services to the long list of skills that make him an asset to RPI’s PMO practice. He has since become a Prosci-certified Change Practitioner and has led successful change management strategies on several multi-tenant Infor CloudSuite implementations. Before joining the consulting field, Daniel worked as a Congressional Liaison for a non-profit in Washington D.C. while obtaining his Masters degree from George Washington University in Communications Management, with an emphasis in Organizational Communication.

Meet Your Host, Chris Arey

Chris Arey is an experienced B2B marketing professional with nearly a decade of working in content creation, copywriting, SEO, website architecture, corporate branding, and social media. Beginning his career as an analyst before making a lateral move into marketing, he combines analytical thinking with creative flair—two fundamental principles required in marketing.

With a Bachelor’s degree in English and certifications from the Digital Marketing Institute and HubSpot, Chris has spearheaded impactful content marketing initiatives, participated in corporate re-branding efforts, and collaborated with celebrity influencers. He has also worked with award-winning PR professionals to create unique, compelling campaigns that drove brand recognition and revenue growth for his previous employers.

Chris’ versatility is highlighted by his experience working across different industries, including HR, Tech, SaaS, and Consulting.

About RPI Tech Connect

RPI Tech Connect is the go-to podcast for catching up on the dynamic world of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Join us as we discuss the future of ERPs, covering everything from best practices and organizational change to seamless cloud migration and optimizing applications. Plus, we’ll share predictions and insights of what to expect in the future world of ERPs.

RPI Tech Connect delivers relevant, valuable information in a digestible format. Through candid, genuine conversations and stories from the world of consulting, we aim to provide actionable steps to help you elevate your organization’s ERP. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or new to the ERP scene, our podcast ensures you’re well-equipped for success.

Tune in as we explore tips and tricks in the field of ERP consulting each week and subscribe to RPI Tech Connect below.

Transcript

Chris (00:00)
Change is hard, and that’s especially true in the realm of work. But with the right resources and frame of mind, change can be exciting. In this episode, we’re taking a closer look at change management and the role it plays in supporting major ERP projects.

Chris (00:02)
Hello, and thanks for stopping by. This is RPI Tech Connect, and I’m your host, Chris Ari. Today, we’re exploring the big topic of change management. And to help us understand the important topic, we’ve got two of RPI’s finest, Daniel Jenab and Sarah Concannon. Welcome, guys. Thanks for hopping on. How are we doing today?

Daniel (00:25)
Doing well, Chris. How bout yourself?

Chris (00:27)
Good man. So happy to have you both here. If you wouldn’t mind just sharing a little bit about yourselves before we jump in.

Daniel (00:35)
Yeah, absolutely. I’ll go first there if that’s okay. And I do want to apologize to anyone listening to this if my voice is a little hoarse. My hometown Kansas City Chiefs did just recently repeat as Super Bowl champions and the parties were awesome. They were electric, as Travis Kelci would say. But getting into my introductions, of course, my name is Daniel Jenab, as Chris said.

I’ve been an RPI for little over five and a half years now. I am a Prosci certified change manager. My role at RPI is organizational change management consultant. That said, I do wear a couple of different hats. I dabble in project management and also in some customer success as well. Based out of our Kansas City office, obviously a huge chiefs fan and a little…

Fun fact about myself, I’m actually in two book clubs, one as a discussion leader and the other as a participator. And it’s a lot of fun, big fan of them.

Chris (01:47)
Thanks, Daniel. And congratulations on your victory.

Daniel (01:50)
Ah, thank you. I had a huge part to play in that game, of course.

Sarah (01:52)
Thank you.

Chris (01:54)
Hahaha

Sarah (01:59)
Hello, my name is Sarah Concannon. I have been with RPI for seven years now, as of this month, so that’s very exciting. I have worn lots of different hats since joining the company seven years ago and came to change management by way of functional consulting and project management.

and I’m also Prosci-certified, just as Daniel is. And yeah, really kind of excited to be getting an opportunity to talk about change management and share some tips and just some of our experiences with change management and delivering that to clients for the projects that we are doing for them because I find it really useful.

Even in my personal life, we’ll probably get into that a little bit. I’m coming to you today from Chicago. I have three young kids, and I actually use change management models and tactics on them. So it works. Yeah, not only in your professional life, but also in your personal life, change management can be useful.

Daniel (03:08)
Hehehehe

Chris (03:10)
I can’t wait to hear more about that. Yeah.

Sarah (03:20)
bringing a very well-rounded perspective on the application of change management to you all today.

Chris (03:27)
Awesome. Well, thank you both so much for hopping on the program today. I’m excited to get into change management and I thought, you know, a good place to start, you know, we’ve heard this term now, and I’m wondering if we can just simply define what is change management.

Daniel (03:46)
Yeah, so it’s actually kind of interesting because the definition isn’t as obvious as you think. And certain people when saying change management refer to something very different than what Sarah and I are consulting on. So first there’s what’s known as kind of technical change management. And that’s a company’s process for ensuring updates to your system, essentially.

go through appropriate testing and approval channels. Right? It’s keeping the data integrity of your system high, preventing bad data or bad updates, moving into a production environment. And what Sarah and I do is we really focus on the functional change management. And the definition of that is basically a combination of processes, tools, and techniques.

used to manage the people side of change and we can underline, bold, italicize people side of change as much and as big as possible. So you used to manage the people side of change in order to achieve desired organizational outcomes.

Sarah, kind of a dictionary definition there and anything else you’d like to supplement that with.

Chris (05:01)
Nice.

Sarah (05:08)
Yeah, I mean, obviously we’re emphasizing the people part. And you can force people to change, right? But when we’re talking about some of these large projects that have wide-ranging impacts, and the scope of the change is really significant, and you have different stakeholder groups who are involved and are impacted by some of these things that are going to be changing.

It’s really taking those impacts into consideration. And change management is just anything that you might be doing to kind of mitigate those change impacts and help people have an easier and faster time adapting to whatever is changing. Because all of these changes that we make, in business and in our personal lives, hopefully.

We’re doing it because we get something out of it. There’s some value proposition or set of benefits that we expect to receive, whether that’s gains or whether it’s a resolution of a pain point or anything of that nature. You’re doing it to achieve a better future state than you have in the current state. So there are good reasons for these changes.

But it’s not always easy for the individuals who are impacted by these changes and who need to make changes themselves to kind of connect the dots between the effort that they might have to go through to do something differently in the future. And what they’re going to get out of it on the other side. And so a lot of change management is just kind of helping to connect individuals to

the vision for a particular project, for the value propositions associated with that project, helping them see why this is worth doing.

Chris (07:06)
Got it, I love that. And you both mentioned that a lot of your consulting deals around the people side of change management. And so I imagine that’s in response to humans by nature being resistant to change, is that right?

Sarah (07:26)
Absolutely. That’s the knee jerk reaction, right? And I try to maintain a sense of humility and I’m always sharing with our clients that I am not any less averse to change than anybody else just because I have a certification from Prosci as a change practitioner. It doesn’t make me like it more. It just means that I have a model and a framework and a set of tools and tactics.

that I can apply to help me manage my own changes more easily and more quickly. And that benefits me as well. So, you might think as a change manager or as change managers, Daniel and I might believe that every project should have change management on it and that should be included in the scope.

and it’s something that clients should be investing in. That’s not quite the case. And again, it all comes back to that dependency on people. Whether or not you really need to have change management involved in your project, it doesn’t just have to do with kind of the nature and the scope of the change, but it has to really do with whether or not and how much it’s impacting human behavior.

whether or not anybody needs to change what they’re doing as a result of what’s happening. So we like to borrow this example from ProSci that they use. And they’re kind of talking about if you were going to install, say, motion sensor lighting in your conference rooms, that is a change. But it is not a change that requires any adaptation.

from the human beings using that conference room. You walk in, the light goes on, you walk out, nobody moves for a little while, the light goes off. They don’t really need to do anything differently. And you could compare that to something like implementing a recycling and composting system in your office space where you can put the bins in, but if people aren’t using them as you intend, if they’re not changing their behavior from throwing everything in the trash.

Chris (09:22)
Thanks for watching!

Sarah (09:46)
then there’s no point and you’re not going to be successful in that effort. So it really kind of comes down to a consideration of, you know, do people have to change as a result of whatever is going on? Who has to change? How much? What are those impacts? What do we need to do? What can we do to support those people in making those changes as quickly and easily as possible?

Chris (10:12)
I really like you making that distinction there too about, you know, just because there’s something new that’s happening doesn’t mean it requires these additional resources for, you know, seeing that it’s as effective as it could be. And I also appreciate how honest you were there about like, yes, you’re a change practitioner and consultant, but that doesn’t mean it makes change any easier. It’s just, well, maybe it does. It doesn’t make you like it anymore, I guess is how you frame it.

Sarah (10:39)
Right.

Daniel (10:39)
I would actually make the argument that because Sarah and I work with change for our careers, right, and because we know so much about it, most likely we’re going to be more resistant to changes in our personal life through internal initiatives, or at least we’re…

We know the questions to ask, right? And what needs to be communicated when a change initiative happens.

Sarah (11:12)
I think it’s more a matter of we pick up on the things that aren’t happening. As far as feeling supported through change management efforts when there’s a change. I think we have a more acute awareness, maybe of the things that could be happening to support those changes but aren’t. And maybe a little bit of like a higher frustration point.

Chris (11:17)
Uggghh.

Daniel (11:34)
speak for yourself, I am, I am resistant. I am a loud resistor. I like, I like my routines.

Chris (11:36)
This is how this could be going.

Sarah (11:42)
Uhhh… Heheh

Chris (11:42)
So actually, here’s a, I think this is a great point here. So when is it, when is a good time, like within like a, you know big project or ERP implementation, when is it applicable to have change management resources and what does a project look like without them?

Daniel (12:07)
Yeah, so I think Sarah touched on it really well previously. And what’s so important is looking at that people-dependent ROI. So there’s, of course, the great example of the trash cans or the automatic lights. But if we want to take an example of projects that we may do with direct roles, something like a server migration, for example, where nothing is changing from an end user perspective.

Sarah (12:07)
That’s a great question.

Daniel (12:36)
there might be a new link, but you also might be able to spoof a link so that users are clicking on the same thing. And if your ROI is something like saving money on infrastructure costs or saving money on license costs, for example, then that’s a great example of a project that may not need a change manager. But then again, something like implementing a new approval structure or new approval flows.

definitely are going to want the change manager in the project, dedicated and engaged as early as possible in the project. There’s a great statistic by Prosci, where I believe it’s you are six times more likely to meet or exceed your stated project objectives if you have excellent change management on your projects.

Sarah (13:14)
Yeah, really right from kick-off.

Chris (13:14)
Which is-

Daniel (13:32)
compared to if you had change management that was either ranked as poor or if you didn’t have any change management. And of course, as Sarah said, the objectives are why we do the projects, correct?

Sarah (13:47)
Yep. And I think it’s one of those, it kind of just made me think of, you know, when a, I don’t even know if this is true, but you know, somewhere at some point I heard by the time you realize that you’re really thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. And I think that applies to change management on projects too, because, you know, we’re always trying to emphasize

starting as early as possible in the project so that change management delivery can really be fully integrated into the project delivery and supporting those project stakeholders from the beginning because what we see for clients who might opt to either not engage change management support for their project or who are kind of under investing

in the change management component is that by the time they’re feeling the effects of the lack of change management support on the engagement, you have a real uphill battle ahead of you because it’s probably a feeling that you’re having because you’re encountering resistance. You’re kind of seeing those side effects or symptoms of not having that change management support. And it takes a lot of effort.

if you wait until you’re kind of feeling the, the downside of not engaging that change management component, you know, then it’s a matter of, you can’t be proactive anymore. You’re coming at it from being behind the ball and you’re playing catch up. And that’s really difficult to do when we’re talking about human beings who are already saddled with.

responsibilities related to the project on top of their normal day-to-day jobs that they need to do still. And then, you know, you’re gonna come in kind of late in the game and try and also be engaging them in these change management activities. And it’s never as effective as if you had just kind of gotten ahead of things and engaged in those change management.

activities and fully integrated into your project delivery from the get-go.

Daniel (16:13)
Yeah, and something that I have personally witnessed actually as a project manager, leading several projects where they’re probably, it would have been nice to have change management on some of these projects. And like Sarah said, what I found out and what kind of made me want to switch my career path basically from project manager to change manager was

was behind the eight ball a lot, particularly when it comes to outreach. Right, because you’re so busy managing the project in the day to day, getting the technical side of things knocked out, getting the build of the system, getting any development work, getting all that testing and all of that project specific training schedule. But I wasn’t really able to pull myself away from the trees to see the larger forest. And.

And forest here I’m referring to as the organizational context of the project. So, you know, yes, the team is working on an awesome solution, and the solution is going to be hugely beneficial to the organization. But we didn’t have an organizational communication plan just because that wasn’t necessarily part of the project. And we’re approaching Go-Live and like, oh, we should.

talk to the marketing team on the client? Is there a communications team? Is there a marketing team? How can we get the word out about this? And that really made getting the news out to the end users hard. And what’s funny is, okay, we talk to marketing, we use our client contacts, we get approval from marketing, and then we realize we don’t have a clear project vision statement, right? So what’s in it for me from a true end user perspective as well as…

hey, clear, bite-sized, single sentence, why the organization is doing this project. So get our heads together and do that. And then it’s like, well, okay, that’s a sentence. We need some more organizational value propositions. How are we going to tie the value of the project to what the end users are going to be actually using it for? And then you get to go live and we don’t really have that developed network

of organizational leaders that could act as change agents that are calming down their employees, that are knowledge resources and experts helping to kind of root out resistance at the base and help guide their employees to where they should go. And it just makes that crucial part of the project that is already so sensitive and so stressful just that much harder. And it took longer to get to where we want it to be.

because those kind of supporting secondary tasks were not really planned for in advance because we didn’t have somebody dedicated to thinking and planning about that.

Chris (19:16)
I appreciate you sharing that, Daniel. And I think you kind of alluded to it there in your story, in your career path there, but I’m hoping maybe for clarity purposes, you could kind of define the difference between a project management and change management. It sounds like you’ve made it clear, but I want you to, you got two sentences. Can you do it?

Daniel (19:38)
Project management focuses on the technical delivery of the project. Timeline, scope, budget, design, development, build. Change management focuses on the people. Engagement, adoption, usage.

Sarah (19:38)
Thank you.

Chris (19:52)
Got it.

That’s great. I learned something new now. Thank you.

Sarah (19:57)
Yeah. And we kind of picture it like a triangle, this relationship between project management, change management, and project leadership on the client side that kind of forms this very solid, sturdy trifecta of a group of people collaborating to ensure successful outcomes on the project.

Daniel (19:58)
Hehehe

Chris (20:24)
And are there any, I’m sure, you know, in both of yours time as change professionals, have you been a part of a project where, you know, change management came in too late and like the project suffered because of it? And if so, like how did you, how do you move forward like that? Is it just hard? You just grit and bear it?

Sarah (20:46)
Yeah, it’s just hard. It is. It’s true. Yeah, I mean, it’s always better late than never, right? But it is very difficult when you’re coming in late to the game because not only does that mean that you’re not building upon or you don’t have anything kind of preceding that to build upon for change management, but it also means that you have not established those relationships of trust.

Daniel (20:47)
Hehehehehehe

Sarah (21:16)
that lead people to want to buy in and engage in what you’re doing. If folks are already kind of cynical and they feel like their perspective has not been considered, they’re not always willing to trust you to come in. They don’t know you. Maybe they’re doubtful of the effectiveness of what it is that you’re trying to do with providing change management support.

Um, so it’s kind of like your hurdles are doubled because, you know, not only are you trying to play catch up with change management activities, um, but you also, you don’t have those existing relationships and that sense of trust to leverage as you try to do these things kind of late in the game. Um, so, you know, I wish I had some like…

tricks up my sleeve or some magic that would help in those situations. I would never want to dissuade someone from engaging in change management or investing in change management simply because they didn’t start at the very beginning. But it definitely is more difficult. I don’t know if you have a different perspective on that, Daniel, that you want to share.

Chris (22:11)
Thank you.

Daniel (22:35)
Um, I would agree completely with everything you said. Um, it’s.

Sarah (22:41)
Well, good. Ha ha ha.

Chris (22:42)
Good, that’s great. You guys are on the same page.

Daniel (22:44)
Yeah, it’s one of those things where a lot of times our effectiveness as change managers is directly tied to the quality of our client relationships. And it’s so hard to build those relationships and build that trust if we’re coming in late. And odds are if we’re coming in late, the client has seen an issue and we’re being brought in to try and correct something.

So it’s not even starting from a ground zero, it’s starting from behind, right? And it’s trying to work to catch our way up.

Chris (23:24)
Yeah, I love that you both mentioned, it’s something I think that is just fundamental in working relationships period, but it’s this element of trust, right? Without it, like it’s just an uphill battle and you’re facing resistance everywhere you look. But we are getting close to the end of today’s segment. Before we wrap up though, I’d like to ask you both the same question, I’ll be curious to see how you answer it. Maybe it’ll be the same, maybe it’ll be different.

Sarah (23:33)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (23:52)
But if you could offer today’s audience one piece of advice about change management, what would it be? Sarah, we can start with you.

Sarah (24:03)
So one piece of advice, well, aside from checking out our webinars and things like that, that are available online for free related to change management, exactly. They’re all very good and I feel that way because I participated in them. But I would say for anybody kind of looking to maybe dip their toe into change management,

Daniel (24:09)
Hehehehehehe

Chris (24:13)
Marketing plug.

Daniel (24:17)
Can you put the link in postscript?

Sarah (24:34)
I would send them to Prosci. Prosci has a lot of materials and content that is available with, you know, no commitment of any kind. Things that they kind of put out there for the good of the change management community. And I would familiarize yourself with the Adcar framework, which is something

Daniel (24:59)
Thanks for watching!

Sarah (25:01)
that Prosci has developed and it’s really just five sequential steps for successful change. And this is kind of where me applying this in my personal life, even with my children, kind of comes in. Because it is a very accessible framework that breaks these steps down into digestible bits. And it’s…

kind of just walks you through how change management starts out with understanding or being aware of the need to make a change in the first place. And then you move on to desire to actually engage in making that change. The K in ADCAR is knowledge. So do you know how to change? And how to adapt to whatever is going on?

A is ability, that’s second A. So not only do you know how to make the change, but are you able to do that? Can you demonstrate a proficiency or an ability to do that? Because, you know, I know how to eat healthily. Am I always able to do it? Not so much. And then finally, the R is reinforcement. So, you know, you’ve transitioned successfully.

Chris (26:17)
That’s a great point there.

Sarah (26:30)
You’re enjoying these benefits for making the change. How do you avoid backsliding? How do you reinforce that change so that you’re sustaining it and you’re not only able to sustain your benefits there, but you’re hopefully able to build on that and grow them further going into the future. So I just think that AgCard is a really accessible framework.

Um, and again, like I use ad-car on my children. It works, you know, it’s, it’s putting yourself in the mindset of, um, just breaking down a particular change and what might someone need, uh, in the way of support to successfully adapt to that change and adopt whatever it is that you’re, you’re looking for them to do differently.

Chris (27:22)
Awesome. That’s great. Daniel?

Daniel (27:26)
So, it’s gonna be really funny for my little notes, right? So my notes for my one takeaway tip, the sentence is literally, Adcar blueprints are great. That’s absolutely hilarious. Sarah gave a perfect description of Adcar blueprints. So I’m going to pivot. That is my true…

Chris (27:30)
Ha ha

Hahaha

Sarah (27:49)
just here to tee you up.

Daniel (27:54)
A tip or takeaway, though, is follow an Adcar Blueprint, get activities associated with each of the particular change elements, have some timelines there alongside the activities, and the odds are putting that plan in place will help you succeed in your change. That said, if we’re taking Adcar Blueprints away, what I would probably recommend…

Chris (27:57)
Got it.

Daniel (28:21)
would be putting together some sort of organizational communication plan and specifically thinking change management for ERP projects. Right? So we have our project communication plan, which delineates how we communicate within the project team and about how we report issues, risks, those kinds of things. A change communication plan is really…

a plan that carries us through the project sequentially, phase by phase, and lists the messages that we want to be sent, the specific audience or impact groups that we want to reach out to, what communication vehicle we use, what particular channel are we going to be using, a company’s intranet site, for example, are we going to be using email, do we have departmental.

web pages that we can direct people to. And getting all of that in place from the project launch announcement to our senior leaders and executives, people that need to be in the know ahead of the larger user body, all the way through stuff like Go Live toolkits and reinforcement plans, I think is incredibly important and is something that is going to very much pay dividends as we get into.

the further busier stages of the project. Having something like that just to follow and execute on is going to be very helpful.

Chris (29:56)
And I imagine this is something that RPI can help with. Is that right, Daniel? Great, great. Well, this is great advice from both of you. Thank you so much for your time. It’s been interesting to hear about the world of change management. I know that I learned a lot today. For those of you tuning in, if you have a question about today’s episode or you’re interested in learning more about change management, you can reach out to us at podcast at rpic.com.

Daniel (30:00)
Absolutely.

Chris (30:24)
Again, that’s podcast at rpic.com. Thank you so much for joining us and we’ll catch you next time. Thanks guys.

Daniel Jenab (30:33)
Thanks so much, Chris.

Sarah (30:33)
Thank you.