Whether it’s in response to the Procurement Act, systems changes or restructuring, change management is another skill that needs to firmly sit within finance and procurement leaders’ management toolkit.

How you guide your teams through changes, will directly affect project outcomes and have a considerable impact on ROI. It is certainly true that those who pay consideration to how change is managed within the organisation will reap greater rewards.

Here we share our top tips to get it right.

Understand the context for change

You need to have a thorough understanding of the nature of your organisation and the way it functions across disciplines before embarking on any changes, including internal and external customers, service users and suppliers.  Legacy processes and systems need to be fully considered and understood.

The starting position can often be fragmented or ‘silo’ based but it is important to view all processes as a whole. Try to avoid focussing on one particular process or department alone, it’s important to look at where you want to improve in relation to overall strategy. What is it that the organisation is trying to achieve in the long term?

Determine your goals and don’t be constrained by current thinking

Determining your primary goals at the outset and benchmarking these against best practice and industry leaders, enables you to target areas for improvement, create your business case, and then monitor against these targets on a continuous basis.

There is a need for compliance and transparency throughout. Choose which processes are most important, analyse the present case, and don’t be constrained by current thinking.  Always keep in mind the strategic goal and plan your journey towards this, taking the organisation with you.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

All change programmes need to be built on solid foundations.  There has to be a compelling reason for the change, and this must be communicated clearly and in a genuine manner.  It is important not to criticise earlier processes or ways of working, but give a firm reason why change is needed and how this will benefit the organisation as a whole.  Be consistent with your message at all times.

At the outset, it can be useful to create teams to share best practice knowledge and to define how the end result will look.  This will enable people to engage with the project at an earlier stage, making it easier to share information, define requirements and provide direction.

Choose your advocates wisely

It is vital that senior management clearly understand the nature of the project and the changes involved, and that they are made integral to the communication plan.  Realise that you will need to talk to individuals who are affected by the change in very different ways.  That requires practice and understanding.

Always respond to questions, make time for groups and individuals. Plan regular project meetings.  Those who contribute to the change and feel included, will be more likely to embrace it.  Identify those people who are strong advocates for the change; they may sit in unlikely roles and not traditionally seem like candidates, but they offer a powerful voice to support communications throughout the wider business.

Take responsibility (Don’t simply brand people as ‘resistant to change’)

It is essential that the project owners take responsibility for stakeholders’ reactions.  It is too easy to blame or discourage people who don’t readily understand the need for change. If anyone feels out of line with the project goals, try not to criticise them, but seek out ways in which you can communicate with them more effectively and change your approach accordingly.  The project team needs to understand and accept their responsibility to the individual. Create tangible targets for them and spend time clarifying and discussing these.  Once the business case is approved, inform people with timelines, face-to-face briefings and one-to-one support.

Communicating change early in an open and honest way, helps to manage uncertainty and generates positive participation of those involved.  Doing so reduces project risk, increases adoption and significantly improves ROI.

There will always be challenges when handling a project – the solution is to deal with them positively.  Be aware that you might need extra resources. Ensure these are part of the plan so everyone is aware of this at the outset.

Unified language

When breaking down silos, its important to make sure the language and terminology you use is readily understood by all participants. Ask people outside of your own department if there are any acronyms, phrases, or processes that seem unfamiliar to them before communicating more widely. We’re often guilty of taking background knowledge for granted, even when change programmes affect people outside of our own field of expertise.

Milestones and KPIs

Understand and communicate the progress steps required to take you to the end result. You’re effectively coaching the organisation on the journey. Communicate the plan, the rationale and how individuals contribute to shared progress. Given clear instructions and measurable targets at each stage. This also provides the opportunity to acknowledge effort and avoids simplification of tasks or timescales.

Test in the field

Where change is related to systems, make sure you are gaining feedback from a variety of end users. Often testing is run with expert users, who have been educated in the new solution and have a process-oriented approach to their work and the new system.

Once you’ve tested with proficient users, take time to trial with users in the field and in different roles. This also provides an opportunity to test documentation and support materials in the real world, to see if they answer typical questions – this will help enormously with the wider rollout. This is particularly important where you have a solution being adopted across multiple departments.

If not handled well, roll-out can be plagued with misunderstandings not witnessed in trials with established users, resulting in poor and low adoption in the field – which in turn affects the internal reputation of the change programme, makes people more resistant, and is detrimental to project outcomes.

Celebrate success

Celebrate achievements and milestones, for individuals and teams as a whole.  Be creative in the way you communicate and celebrate stages along the journey.  Take time to thank all individuals involved and showcase their success across the business. After all people invest a great deal of their professional and personal energy into these projects and that deserves to be acknowledged.

In summary, a successful project requires a clear rationale; the support and involvement of everyone involved; communication and consistency of message; and the commitment to dig deep and support each other during challenging times.  Be prepared to work with changes as they emerge, but never lose sight of your objective.