Hello all! I am working through the 6 meta trends in the change management data section of Prosci Chief Innovation Officer Tim Creasey’s post titled Change Management Trends Outlook 2024 and Beyond. The post is based off of Prosci’s Best Practices in Change Management – 12th Edition research.

As Tim’s post points out, the organization started conducting specific research on change management trends in 2013. From 2013-2023, six meta trends materialized in the data.

• Converging people, culture, and strategy
• Adopting Agile
• Increasing Awareness of the need for change management
• Leveraging technology
• Building organizational change capability
• Integrating change management and project management

So far, I’ve looked at building organizational change capability, increasing awareness of the need for change management, integrating change management and project management, and converging people, culture, and strategy. This week’s trend is…

Adopting Agile

Tim’s post mentions that this was the top trend in 2019. Prosci conducted a dedicated research study in 2018 on the intersection of agile and change management—how to bring them together in a more iterative and adaptive approach to change.

He says, “It’s been interesting over the last four years to watch the dogmatic nature of Agile methodologies evolve as the pandemic made all change iterative and adaptive out of necessity. We’re seeing evidence of this in technology projects and initiatives, as well as adopting more flexibility and agility in the ways we work.”

As a Prosci® Certified Change Practitioner who is also a Project Management Institute (PMI) Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP)® and a Certified Scrum Master (CSM)® this trend is very interesting to me.

While there are so many interesting ways to take the conversation about practicing change management on an Agile project, I keep coming back to two tenants of the Agile Manifesto:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Responding to change over following a plan

I keep coming back to two tenants of the Agile Manifesto: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Responding to change over following a plan.

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

In the change management discipline, we have lots of processes/tools.

• Change magnitude assessment
• Stakeholder analysis
• Business readiness
• Risk assessment
• Change strategy
• Change plan
• Comms plan
• Training plan
• And on, and on, and on….

If you’re familiar with the Agile Manifesto, you know that this tenant doesn’t mean these processes and tools are bad or unimportant. It does mean, though, that they are less important than individuals and interactions.

I think that sometimes I (and maybe we) get caught up in the processes, tools, templates and buzz words and forget that interacting with other human beings is at the heart of what we do.

If we have to choose to lean one way or the other in our change management practice, this Agile tenant counsels us to lean into individuals and interactions over processes and tools.

Responding to change over following a plan

To me, this Agile tenant is closely related to the one we just covered. That tenant acknowledged that having processes and tools (including a plan) is important. This tenant acknowledged that following a plan you created is also important.

That tenant also acknowledged that while having processes and tools (including a plan) is important, it is less important than individuals and interactions. This tenant reminds us that while it’s important to follow our plan it’s more important to be in the present moment/situation with our fellow human beings, being responsive to what’s happening.

I think that sometimes I (and maybe we) get caught up in “planning my work and working my plan” and meeting my deliverables. I forget that being flexible and able to respond in the moment is exactly what we want the people we work with to do. In fact, if they struggle to do that, we often label them as “resistant to change”.

If we have to choose to lean one way or the other in our change management practice, this Agile tenant counsels us to lean into responding to change over following a plan.

Closing thoughts

I want to hear from you! I am quite curious to hear in what ways, if at all, your change management practice is different when working on an Agile project vs. a Waterfall or hybrid project.

Please post your thoughts and comments below. Let’s help each other become the best change management practitioners and enthusiasts we can be!

Thank you for reading. Until next time, take care and keep up the good work!

Mike