Course - Change Management: Getting Started
Posted by Kevin Miller
Updated: October 13, 2022
Released: August 19, 2020
Full Course: View on Pluralsight
Have you ever experienced a poorly executed change at work? In this course, Change Management: Getting Started, you’ll learn all about managing the people side of change. First, you’ll explore the basics of change management and why it's so important. Next, you’ll discover how change management relates to project management. Finally, you’ll delve into the seven concepts of change management, as defined by the ACMP (Association of Change Management Professionals). When you’re finished with this course, you’ll have the skills and knowledge of change management concepts needed to continue your change management education and be prepared for the change management concept questions on the CCMP exam.
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Defining Change Management
Let's get started with defining what change management is and why it is important. Prior to a change, you are in what is known as the current state. It is how things are at the time a change is initiated. The current state is the status quo. It's the starting point.
For example, think about an oven in a restaurant that takes 10 minutes to cook a meal and is large enough to cook two meals at a time. This may be fine for years. As the restaurant gains more customers, though, the oven is going to limit how many meals can be served at any given time. Currently, our fictional restaurant can serve 12 meals per hour, but what happens when 20 people show up for lunch? No business owner wants to turn customers away. Clearly, something needs to improve.
After verifying there is enough seating, staff, and food in the building, the restaurant owner realizes the oven is the limiting factor to how many people can be served in a short timeframe and purchases a new oven that takes only 5 minutes to cook a meal and is large enough to cook 3 meals at a time. Now, the restaurant can serve up to 36 people per hour, a triple capacity.
The improvement is known as the benefit of a change. It's what every business owner is chasing when they decide to change something. It is the reason for a change. In this example, the benefit is quantitative and measurable. But benefits can also be qualitative and unmeasurable. Simply purchasing and installing the new oven, though, does not provide the benefit. Serving 36 customers per hour is possible with the new oven. But if the chefs don't know how to properly use it, they may not even be able to serve the 12 customers per hour that the old oven afforded them. Without any training or practice time on the new oven, stress is quickly going to pile up on the chefs because they want to succeed, but don't know how. With training on the new oven and even a little bit of practice time, the chefs will have the skills needed for the restaurant to realize the benefit of purchasing the new oven.
Once the benefit is realized, only then have you reached the future state, which is an improvement over the current state. The transition from the current state to the future state is how we define a change.
Now, it would be great if every chef was excited about the new oven and wanted to learn how to use it right away. Unfortunately, even with advanced training and some practice time, some chefs may still not want to use the new oven. Some may be afraid of failing since they knew every little detail about the old oven and were efficient in using it, even though they complained about it every day about it being too slow. Others may be close to retirement and simply not want to make the effort to learn anything new. Some of the unhappy chefs will say they are going to use the new oven but fall back to using the old oven when no one is looking. And unfortunately, some may even quit their job to go work at a different restaurant that has the same old oven they are familiar with.
Change management addresses all of these scenarios because change management is all about managing the people side of change. In order to reach the future state where the benefit of the change is realized, the chefs need to change the way they think and behave. I already discussed how they will need to learn the controls of the new oven and practice their new skills. However, they will also need to change their approach to preparing meals since the new oven will cook them faster, and they won't want to burn the food by leaving it in for too long. They will also need to embrace the idea that they can now serve more customers in the same amount of time.
While at first, having a new, faster oven may just seem like it creates more work, the restaurant's increased growth as a result of the new work could mean more job security, more opportunities for advancement, and higher salaries for all of the chefs. It could also mean the restaurant does not go out of business since it's able to keep up with the competition. In the end, the chefs may not even have more work to do if the restaurant decides to add a couple of new chefs to the team to keep up with the increased demand. Adoption of the change is what is needed to realize the benefits and make it to the future state. Adoption occurs when people accept the new way of working and demonstrate their buy-in with their actions.
Change Management for the Individual
Finally, change management efforts address and manage an individual's leadership and sponsorship needs. It's no secret that successful changes are led from the top. Not with an iron fist, but with communication and understanding of individuals' needs. Almost every individual impacted by a change will not have an ear to the project sponsor. The change manager does. Every individual impacted by a change should have the ear of their manager, but that doesn't mean their manager is willing to listen. Change managers ensure the individual's manager has the tools necessary to help their team and knows how and when to properly communicate with their team. Change managers can only succeed when individuals succeed in their personal transitions. And for that to happen, people must have active sponsorship and leadership, so you can trust that change managers will do their best to procure the right amount of participation from those two key roles.
Benefits of Getting Certified
Obtaining an industry-recognized certification results in peer recognition and higher earning potential. Once you pass an industry-recognized certification exam, you will have more confidence in your ability to do the job you have now or the job you want to obtain. You will also be more confident in life because you'll know you have the ability to learn something new and commit yourself to reaching a goal. You will be able to have more intelligent conversations with other discipline experts and interviewers without sounding phony or ignorantly dismissing the credential as just a piece of paper.
In the end, everyone's motivation for pursuing a certification is personal. For me, confidence is king and is my main motivator. I like to erase doubt in my decisions. But I'm not going to lie. The extra money I earn runs a close second. If you are not interested in obtaining a certification, but are instead looking to hire someone new, you should aim for the best. Industry‑recognized certifications ensure credential holders have experience, knowledge, and commitment. As a hiring manager, you can use that to your advantage. Certification holders should jump to the top of your stack of resumes. You can also save time in interviews by skipping basic questions in favor of more challenging questions. If you encounter someone who is not certified and is not currently pursuing it, ask why. While there are a lot of knowledgeable people out there without certifications, a red flag should be raised if an interviewee dismisses a certification or claims he or she doesn't have enough time to pursue it. There are plenty of excuses to not take an extra step or not go the extra mile. If a candidate gives you excuses in an interview, you can be sure you will receive more once they start working for you. Don't shortchange your organization. If you find someone you really like who isn't certified, hire them at a discount, and then immediately put them on a path to get certified. In fact, as a resource manager, you should consider having everyone on your team obtain all relevant certifications. It ensures your team is made up of top talent who are knowledgeable about current industry standards and best practices and have the dedication to take that extra step.
CCMP vs. PMP
Compare the almost 2000 worldwide CCMPs to the over 1.2 million worldwide PMPs. This may lead you to think the CCMP is not valuable or that the PMP is a more worthy goal if you are looking to add a certification to your resume. Well, I've done the research and laid out all of my findings in this 2020 article. Here are the key points to consider:
As I mentioned previously, the CCMP exam was released in 2016, but the PMP exam was released all the way back in 1984. That's a 32-year head start. It took the PMP nine years to reach 1000 credential holders. By contrast, the CCMP was able to reach that same mark in only five years. This shows the CCMP's growth trajectory is much faster than the PMPs.
If you are looking to land a job as a project manager, the pool of competition is huge, as there are over 1.2 million certified people qualified for that same job. However, if you're looking to land a job as a change manager, there are less than 2000 certified people from whom the employer can choose. CCMP holders stand out from the competition for change manager jobs more than PMP holders stand out from the competition for project manager jobs simply because there are fewer of them. While both disciplines have been around for a long time, the project management discipline is more established in business. The change management discipline, however, is growing at an extremely fast rate. Even as recent as 10 years ago, there were very few roles with the title of change manager or offices of change management at larger organizations, but now change manager jobs are popping up all over the place, and CMOs are becoming commonplace. Because the CCMP is still young, there is a higher risk of obtaining it since not everyone is looking for CCMP holders yet. However, there is also a higher reward as there is so little competition for the opportunities that arise. As you can see, there is potential for a lot of people to get in on the ground floor of this very rewarding career path. So, how can you obtain the CCMP? First, ensure change management is a discipline that interests you. If you find yourself more interested in the technical aspects of delivering a change, I recommend pursuing the PMP, which is the industry standard for project managers. Casey Ayers has an entire series of courses on Pluralsight and has helped countless people obtain the PMP credential and become better project managers. If you are more interested in the people side of change and the adoption of changes, or you already have the PMP, the CCMP is the next logical step.