The effectiveness of the sponsor is one of the strongest predictors of project success or project failure.

Having a missing or inadequate sponsor leads to consequences.

• Resistance to change increases among impacted employees.

• The team encounters more obstacles and is unable to resolve critical conflicts with scheduling, resources and scope.

• Changes are often delayed. And when a sponsor has not built the necessary coalition of support, changes fail to gain momentum across the organization.

These consequences erode the value a change delivers, including return on investment (ROI).

Signs of inadequate sponsorship:

• They don’t understand their role

• They fail to engage

• They present only at the start of the change

• They delegate sponsorship to someone else

• They have competing priorities

Effective sponsorship starts with building a coalition of support for change, which can be accomplished with a robust Change Advocate Network Strategy and Approach.

Change management communication dwindles down the ladder.

Statistically, only 68% of managers know the actual reason for organizational change. This number further declines from 53% to 40% for mid-level managers and frontline supervisors. Gartner suggests that due to poor change communication, 73% of employees experience moderate to high levels of stress, and the affected employees perform 5% less than an average employee.

When there is confusion and misalignment among groups impacted by the change, a significant amount of unplanned time and resources are spent clarifying roles, communicating expectations, and encouraging buy-in.

Communication planning is more than just sending an email, or hosting a Town Hall. It helps employees to navigate the “commitment curve” moving from general awareness of change through more detailed knowledge development to commitment and ability to effectively perform new processes / transactions in the XYZ system.

“Change starts at the top, but happens at the bottom.”

Leaders set the tone and add legitimacy to the change initiative.

You can have the best change management talent in-house and it’s worthless without active leadership, sponsorship, buy-in, and engagement.

When there is a limited engagement and an unwillingness to adopt new processes - employees remain comfortable with the current state and are not on-board to implement the change at the ground level because they don’t understand business reasons for the change.

To overcome a lack of buy-in, it is imperative to

• Develop a compelling case for change to understand the why the change is required and the consequences of not changing,

• Develop a clear vision for the future state

• Identify the goals, objectives and success criteria.

A misunderstanding or incomplete change rationale may be one of the biggest risks in successfully gaining buy-in and stakeholder adoption.

A history of failed changes, the presence of silos, and resistant behaviors is known to result in lower performance, trust and engagement within the organization.

The longer a current process has been in an organization, the more invested the employees are in the old ways of working, the harder it is to introduce change.

You can always count on a change implementation to surface other cultural issues like internal politics, poor attitudes, and personal agendas, which directly contributes to an outwardly change-resistant culture.

Stakeholder management is critical to the success of every program.

To overcome this obstacle, change leaders should clearly map stakeholders impacted by the change. Planning effective stakeholder management helps to increase the likelihood of program success.

There is an overwhelming lack of knowledge about what change management is and the value it brings to the organization. As a result, change leaders are met with resistance when trying to acquire the right resources and budget necessary for success and delivering expected outcomes.

The consequences of ignoring the importance of change management:

• Project delays and budget overruns

• Morale declines

• Failure legacy looms

• Opportunity is lost

• Productivity and efficiency decline with possible impacts to customers and suppliers

• Attrition is high. Unfortunately, valued employees leave as frustration, change fatigue, burnout, and confusion connected to the new initiative grows.

If organizations genuinely value their employees, then the prioritization of change management should be non-negotiable.

When making changes to a project's iron triangle - scope, schedule, or resources; ultimately, quality is sacrificed.

More often than not, impacts to the people side of change are not considered when making triple constraints decisions to the technical side of change associated with a project or initiative.

A reduction in scope, changes to resources, or an increase in timeline specifically — actually creates less runway for change management because the work to deliver, educate, and prepare end-users remains the same.

With that in mind, the Change Management Team is the last rung on the ladder and the recipient of other project team's deliverables, which are used as inputs into change activities.

Therefore, quality of work or content delivered must fit the needs to enable the Change Management team to efficiently and promptly communicate to end users.

When the iron triangle is compromised and timelines have shifted and quality is poor, the amount of unplanned work on the Change Management team is significant. Often times, there's an expectation to turn shit into gold because change management is responsible and accountable for the overall end user experience.

Project management and change management each contribute a critical ingredient to successful change. Although they vary in terms of focus and approach, each discipline is essential to moving the project and people from the transition state to the desired future state.

Thus, project management and change management must work together to achieve successful change. Doing so creates a unified value proposition, which sets the foundation for tactical integration and delivers value across all aspects of the project, including both the people side and technical side.