Lean Change Management to manage change and innovate

Some people like to think of change as linear. In this context, the idea of planning, executing, and completing a project causes an illusory feeling that we have everything under control. However, we know that in practice change is synonymous with uncertainty. Therefore, Lean Change Management (LCM) can be a good strategy to make room for change, through a safe, effective, and innovative approach. One of the few certainties we have in life is that the world is constantly changing. Business is no different, and facilitating the change process can be a challenge for companies and startups. Just like Digital Transformation, Change Management has become a mandatory requirement for anyone who wants to stay alive in the current market, which is made up of countless data, stimuli, and offers. However, traditional Change Management as disseminated by the Project Management Institute (PMI) seems to no longer meet the needs of a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world.

Validating Change Process

Lean Change Management is a lean change management model developed by Jason Little. The approach proposes to manage change in an agile way, with tools, modern ideas, and skills from multiple areas of activity. For the author, life is a great experiment and feedback is an important ally to drive organizational advances. According to Little, when he wrote the book Lean Change Management: Innovative practices for managing organizational change, the original intention was to portray the working methods in the organization in which he worked as an Agile Coach, guiding a department of 300 people in the adoption of the Agile Method. However, throughout this process, the author discovered that there was a lot of complexity in contemporary companies and, therefore, changing with the help of simple and linear tools was not possible. Around that time, in 2011, the Lean Startup approach, created by Eric Ries, emerged and revolutionized the way new products are created. Influenced by this book, Little began to wonder if it was not possible to apply this same concept to rethink the validation of the change process as well. With this in mind and thinking about how to facilitate this interaction, in 2014 he created the Lean Change Management approach. As many of us want to promote changes that others do not, the model needed to be adaptable to different contexts, after all, each change process is unique. Therefore, to elaborate the strategic vision, the approach suggests answering the Strategic Change Canvas. In it, it is possible to indicate the vision and importance of the change that must be made, in addition to metrics of success and progress – and, of course, the impacts that the change will have on people, departments, and processes.

Strategic Change Canvas. Source: https://leanchange.org/

5 Universal Dimensions of Change

To guide us through this journey, Little defined the five dimensions that help us drive change:

Cause and Purpose: what is urgent for you may not be for the other, and this situation can generate stress among team members. However, when we come together for a collective purpose, we are more likely to move towards a solution in a light and collaborative way.
Significant Dialogue: Communication is very important in the change process. When working with complex changes, it is necessary to create an environment conducive to dialogue, where practices from the Lean Change Management model and the Agile Manifesto are important tools.
Response to Change: resisting change and innovation can be common in some companies, especially in more traditional ones, and this is one of the reasons why the Agile Method can fail during its adoption process. If people are very resistant to change, it can also mean that they do not feel invited to participate in this moment of company transformation. Remember that being inclusive and diverse is crucial.
Co-creation: to make everyone believe and accept change, it is necessary to empower people. The Culture of Collaboration is essential to promote understanding and alignment among all. For this, it is necessary to make room for people to co-create together.
Experimentation: it is necessary to run experiments instead of tasks. It’s not possible to predict what will happen with complex changes, which is why trusting cycles of experimentation and feedback is so important. Only in this way can you modify and adapt plans as you go along.

Lean Change Management X Traditional Change Management

But, after all, what are the main differences between Lean Change Management and Traditional Change Management? We know that our brain does not manage uncertainty very well, since human beings prefer to know in advance where they are and where they are going, and this happens in all aspects of our lives. Therefore, we can say that the main difference between the two approaches is precisely the fact that one of them seeks certainty, while the other prioritizes experimentation and rapid learning. In traditional management, it is customary to start a project, convince the stakeholders to accept the change and then start executing the plan. In this model, the work schedule is long and the consultant is considered “Mr. Know-it-All”. In Lean Change Management, the alignment process is continuous, since no one will be aligned to the change at the same time and at the same intensity. In this model, there is an understanding that changes are complex and, therefore, it is important to make room for learning. In addition, the work is developed in short cycles, which makes it possible to evolve little by little. For Karina Hartmann, Head of Product and Innovation at SoftDesign, by applying the concepts of Lean Change Management in the service of Consulting, we identified some gains and advantages such as: Changes are more co-created: consultants do not act like “Mr. Know-it-All”, who will say what is right when adopting a method. Instead, these people act as facilitators and mentors; Changes are more realistic: the processes of adopting new methods are often ignored by collaborating people and end up dying after a certain time. However, when the process is collaborative and interactive, the changes are more real and permanent.

LCM at SoftDesign

At SoftDesign, Lean Change Management is an inspiration to work on changes, as it is very much in line with the way we think. “We are inspired by LCM mainly in our Consulting services, performed iteratively, through cycles of experimentation with change, learning, and evolution. In this way, we do not work on gigantic projects, as we can show quick results (Quick Wins) since each cycle is already building a small change”, emphasizes Karina. According to the Head of Product and Innovation, this form of change must be iterative and incremental, that is, you need to apply the whole concept of agility to changes as well: work in cycles, get quick feedback, learn and improve. Furthermore, it must also respect the existing culture and environment. “We always find it strange when consultants want to “implement” a method. The very idea of implementing something seems outdated to me; it’s as if we were talking about machines”. We believe that culture and human interaction are complex and determining factors for achieving success. “We cannot establish a process or method without context. Before that, we need to build and develop it within our environment, considering the restrictions and the existing reality in the client”, Karina highlights.

Change is Our Only Certainty

When we focus on a journey that prioritizes beginning and end, we end up forgetting how much the middle can be pioneering for the project under development, as much as it may mean not meeting a pre-established result. We know that fear of failure is one of the obstacles to overcome during the change process, so you can count on our multidisciplinary team to test ideas and experiment differently through Lean Change Management and Agile Methods. Fill out the form below so that together we can promote the change that will boost your business.