Change management

A business environment which evolves in a rapidly changing world must evolve and innovate to stay competitive. IT projects are by their nature at the centre of business innovation and through their implementation bring about changes in business processes and practices. The human factor is the principle cause of failure in these types of projects.

Change management (sometimes called coaching for change serves to enable people to accept changes resulting from the implementation of a new project and to reduce rejection factors. The term change management sometimes has a pejorative connotation, and may be replaced by the term "innovation steering".

Change management involves anticipating risks, defining and designing an approach which allows the implementation of a solution under optimal circumstances. Change management approaches are generally based on the following three ideas:

• participation: involve users from the beginning of the project, with the main goal of taking their advice into consideration and making the end result match their expectations
• communication: putting in place a means of communication for the duration of the project which enables company role-players to understand and accept future changes, as well as informing them about the progress of the project
• training: ensure users have acquired the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge