Wrap Up

You can apply the six points to change acceleration in both waterfall and agile frameworks. Change is ongoing: A new stakeholder, change of scope, or accelerated or stretched timeline can require the team to go back and reevaluate points that have already been completed as part of the cloud transformation. Change acceleration, at its core, is iterative. As a best practice, we recommend that you assess, design, test, and refine your change acceleration plans in an ongoing and iterative fashion.

Successful change takes place from the inside out. It starts with how your leaders and workforce behave, think, and feel, how your work environment is structured, how your processes are configured, how your technology enables innovation, and how your culture evolves to meet these new ways of working. You will want to leverage your enterprise heritage and core values while you incorporate new behaviors and mindsets that attract, retain, and empower a workforce that’s invested in continuously improving and innovating on behalf of your customers. Having dedicated change acceleration resources who take an intentional approach by applying a change framework enables your enterprise to iteratively and consistently build enterprise change skills to foster a culture of innovation.

Persistence and agility are the keys to making change endure. Too often, change acceleration efforts stop after the project goes live. Because the new ways of working are no longer reinforced, people revert back to their old habits. To avoid that outcome, make sure that all key change leaders are aware of the winning behaviors and subsequent actions that need to be sustained. Reiterate the vision articulated in the case for change, and the norms that will sustain that vision. As change reinforcement strategies are applied, they will take hold, and the old ways will be replaced by the new ones. This cycle will repeat itself as the organization evolves, innovates, and grows.