During a meeting with a potential GovCon partner company, an executive asked, “How does CMGT respond to federal clients who think that communications and change management are the same thing?”
I've been asked this before. In the past, companies have engaged us one, because of our communications expertise and two, because, initially, the client believes that all they need to support their enterprise IT project is someone to communicate about it. We lead with that expertise often because it's what the client understands best. After accepting the client engagement and learning more about the project, we're able to help them understand that they need our change management expertise first and our communications know-how second.
Overall results and outcomes of a federal enterprise IT project depend 100% on adoption and usage of the new technology. This means the project will be deemed successful based on how well and how quickly end users can get up to speed on the new system and begin using it instead of the processes or technology that's being decommissioned. As a change management practitioner on federal enterprise IT projects, user adoption is always my number one goal.
We work closely with project leaders, sponsors, and project manager(s) to understand the decisions and actions impacting the project, the reason for the change, and the people and technical sides of the change. As we develop and execute change management plans to move those impacted through the elements of successful change—adoption, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement (ADKAR)—communications strategy and planning is a key component. In fact, because communication and training are critical to ensuring that a change (like moving from a legacy enterprise IT system to a new, modernized one) moves from current state to future state successfully, CMGT will most likely lead the communications and training support contract in these instances.
Back to the GovCon company executive’s question from earlier: How does CMGT respond to federal clients who think that communications and change management are the same thing? Tune in next month to learn the three questions we ask clients to help them understand that communications and change management are not synonymous.
