I first got involved in the transition from traditional “waterfall” styles of project management, to the widespread adoption of Agile in a major international bank in the very early years of this century, (which makes me sound very old!). It was quite an eye opener, and I was taken by the opportunities that Agile opened up. But I suspect I was not unusual in not predicting quite how dominant it was to become, and quite how much influence it has outside its original role as an alternative to traditional project management. 

Change managers are not immune to Agile’s effects. One of the important questions that needs to be asked when working in Agile environments is what is the impact on traditional change management approaches of adopting Agile, and from that, what is the impact on the CMO?  

How does Agile challenge the CMO? 

So, what actually is the challenge to the CMO from Agile? It is hard to look at this in isolation of the impact on change management itself. For Agile does pose a number of challenges to change management, at least change management as it has traditionally been done.

Why is this? Well simply because many of the tools and approaches of change management have grown up as adjuncts to large scale project and programme management – and utilising these tools and techniques requires the timescale of such large initiatives. Take something as fundamental to change management as the change impact assessment. In a multi-year transformation programme, there is plenty of time, and usually resource, to do a detailed change impact assessments of each stage of the transformation. That change impact assessment can then inform the subsequent approach and plans for change management of the transformation. But this becomes problematic, or even impossible, when you think in terms of a 2-week scrum sprint. How on earth can the impact assessment be done in that sort of situation? 

I also think there is a cultural issue. In an Agile world, building fixed organisational units such as a CMO can seem like old school centralised-control sort of thinking. Agile favours flexibility and empowerment, and a CMO can, to those who do not understand its role, just seem part of the old order of things. For this reason a CMO can sound like a bit of a dinosaur.  

How does a modern CMO face up to these challenges?   

It’s all about implementation, not delivery.

I got converted to the Agile cause a long time ago, but still I have upset more than one Agile advocate, when I have said it’s not really a change method - it is a delivery method. This sounds pedantic, but it is an important point. Of course, my statement does assume a certain meaning of Agile, and Agile means different things to different people. But if we start with what I think most people think of when they say Agile – using the Scrum techniques and working in rapid sprints of 2-3 weeks, then I hold my claim. What this form of Agile enables is faster delivery.  

The point about change managers, is that we are not really that interested in delivery – anymore than a taxi firm is interested in how a cab is built. Delivery is of course important, but change managers are focused on how what is delivered is applied in the organisation, how it is adopted and how this leads to improved outcomes for the organisation. This is something that techniques like Scrum do not really cover. For change managers and the CMO what matters is the way an organisation implements change, rather than how quickly deliverables are produced. 

But let’s ignore the Agile purist for a moment. In reality, I see three different scenarios as most common in large organisations, only one of which really fits the ideal Agile view of the world.

3 common scenarios in large organisations

1. The organisation is using mixed delivery methods. So, whilst there are sprints going on and Agile release trains producing rapid changes, there are still large scale traditionally run programmes running in parallel. In this situation, there is still a role for traditional change management approaches, working on those large-scale programmes, supported by the CMO.  
    

2. Although there are sprints going on, producing value adding deliverables and MVPs, the implementation of these outputs does not happen after every sprint. For instance, a financial services company I have been working with and is developing a whole suite of new products and services, largely applying Scrum techniques, broken down into 2-week sprints. However, it will not be until after at least a dozen sprints before anything is implemented. This is almost 6 months, which is plenty of time for change managers to prepare the organisation for the implementation of the new suite of products and services. 
    

3. There are though, situations in which rapid delivery techniques are really leading to rapid changes in the organisation. Sprints are happening, deliverables are being produced, and those deliverables are being implemented on an almost continuous basis. These are the truly agile organisations, and delivery becomes more akin to continuous improvement than old-school periodic delivery with many months between releases of change. And in these situations, it is true that traditional change management techniques struggle.   

The focus of an Agile CMO 

The summary of this is that we are now in a bit of a mixed world. Will everything become based around short sprint cycles someday? Possibly. I don’t claim to be a brilliant crystal balls gazer, but I am not fully convinced. In fact, I recently have started to hear more voices advocating a transition back, in certain situations, to more traditional delivery and change techniques. Well, I am not fully convinced about that either. I see the world of mixed delivery approaches, which we might call “horses for courses” staying around for quite some time, and traditional techniques adopting some of the lessons from Agile.  

This does mean though, that whilst the CMO may be facing off into initiatives which look pretty much like programmes from 20 or 30 years ago, they also need to face off into truly Agile initiatives. What can the CMO do in these situations? 

The key to me is one of attitude. The CMO needs to think of itself as a facilitator of change, rather than some controlling body directing change. Agile is about enablement, not about rigid direction setting – and CMOs can learn from this. With this in mind, I think there are four significant roles for the CMO even in the most Agile of organisations: 

1. Competency building

In an organisation in which there really is a continuous stream of change being implemented, the challenge of managing change becomes greater, not less. Effective change becomes less dependent on the hands-on role of the change manager and becomes a more distributed responsibility for everyone in the organisation. Here the CMO can help by supporting the build of change management competency across the organisation. 
 

2. Change networks and change champions (Communities of Practice)

As implementation of change becomes a regular occurrence, organisations can be helped by having active and engaged change networks and change champions distributed across the business. In traditional project scenarios, these networks tend to be built for an initiative and then disbanded when it is complete. When continuous change is ongoing, they need to be a permanent feature of the organisation, acting as a channel between the delivery teams and the organisation they are implementing into. The CMO has an important role in creating such networks, maintaining them through time, and ensuring they have a focal point for their work.  
 

3. Organisational change planning

Streams of continuous change can move an organisation on quickly to new places. But there is value in keeping oversight on the direction of travel, ensuring that the change is real and in line with the overall intentions of the organisation. The CMO should be the focal point for this planning.  
 

4. Continuous improvement of change management

The truth is that change techniques are evolving fast to cope with the changes in delivery approaches and wider organisational culture changes. Lots of new tools, techniques and approaches have been developed. There is not yet a “new normal” for change management. There is huge value in organisations being aware of these developments and updating their own change management practices on a regular basis. Again, the CMO should be the focal point for doing this.  

In summary

Agile techniques and mindsets have brought about significant alterations in the way in which change is delivered in organisations. This in turn has created challenges to the traditional way change management has been done, and from this into the role of the CMO. In reality, often the pace of this change is slower than many pundits would claim, and there remains in many organisations a large need for the traditional services the CMO provides.  Nevertheless, the forward looking CMO does need to adapt, safe in the knowledge that there is an ongoing role, albeit a refinement on the role many play today.

Click here for additional insights and resources on Agile Change Management. These insights were gathered from a Round Table discussion with enterprise Change Leaders from different organisations.

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