Speaker 1: Every project institutes some sort of change, and with change usually comes resistance. In this video, I'm going to share with you how to deal with that resistance by using project change management techniques. Why is there resistance? So resistance in projects is usually because, as I said, all projects have some form of change. And it's actually human nature for individuals to shy away from change, to shy away from things that they don't know. In fact, there's a saying that says, in order for change to occur, the pain of remaining the same must be greater than the pain of change. Think of all the times when you, in your professional years, when there was some sort of organizational change, that could be something as simple as a software update. You went from bringing it back Windows XP to Windows 7 to Windows 8. How many times when those changes happened, look it, we weren't happy. I don't know how many people were complaining about it, or there's some sort of other additional change. Again, people are resistant to it. So you need to realize that because you will have resistance to your project deliverable whether you realize it or not. And so prepare for that so you can ensure a smoother transition. Failing at project change management means that you're actually going to fail with your project. So I'm going to share with you soon how to get your hands on this. Have a change management plan. So instilling a basic change management plan, which incorporates communication, training, and sustainment, which in my opinion is like the bare minimum, is going to be critical to have no matter the size of your project. Let me tell you, there is a lot to unpack when it comes to change management. I do have you covered because in my program, Slave Project Management, I go into full in depth into all of it because it is important. But from a perspective of if you have a project, just ensure you have strong communication, you have strong training, and sustainment. And then that plan in itself is really going to guide you and break down the resistance because you have these fundamental things already being looked at that you're going to be instituting. Ensure you have strong support from management. So yes, as I said in the previous tip, change management plan is really important. But what you need as well as the plan is you need to have that support. So this is your sponsor support. This is senior executive support. This is your steering committee support. So if you're finding that there's resistance throughout your project lifecycle, or even at the end when you're implementing a go live, you totally need to be aware of it. You have to raise it up the chain of command because that's their job. That's their job to remove your roadblocks, to remove what is going to be impeding the success. And resistance is an impediment to success. So ensure that you gather that support and from day one, ensure that those senior executives are aware that that is part of their role and responsibility. Pull your stakeholders. All right. Pulling your stakeholders, which would include your team members, those who are going to be receiving the end result, senior management, anyone who's involved in the project is a really nice way prior to resistance occurring to actually find out what would be the potential resistance. So at the beginning of a project, if you know that there's going to be this major fundamental change, then put a pull together, ask some questions and set it up with as per this project we're delivering on this, what is your thoughts on this implementation? And then you can be, do not make it an open ended question. Have it very specific to what you're trying to implement. I'm happy about the change. I'm not happy. I'm satisfied. Like however you're going to work it. But if you ask a few fundamental good questions, you're going to get some good feedback to understand what type of resistance do you have to plan for in your change management plan. Create stories around your milestone achievements. So this is an interesting one because the big, it's not a big reason. A part of resistance is that people don't understand why things are changing and they're not in the loop of the project duration of how things are changing or where you are in the stages to the change that's going to be happening. So when you do your milestones and you achieve big major milestones, communicate those milestones, but put stories around it. Really explain what it is that you completed. How is it going to impact the individuals now that this milestone is completed? How is it going to add to the overall deliverable? But put a story around it. Just don't do a simple, we've done this and we're done and now we're moving on to stage two. Just what is it that you're getting from that milestone and how's it going to impact individuals down the road? And that is just a really nice way to share with people your progress, but doing it in a way that is going to help them understand more as to really what is going on. And because that's half the battle with resistance is people just don't know what they don't know and so they make up in their own mind what they think it's all about. And usually, let's be honest, it's usually wrong. So create the story and direct the story throughout the lifestyle of your project using your milestones, which you have to do anyway. Just embellish it a little bit more so that everyone can understand what it is that you just accomplished and how it's going to impact them. Listen to your team. Okay, there's two things here. Resistance can sometimes be issues underlining that are hidden that your own team members have, which can create issues to the deliverable because they're not fully on board for whatever reason. So you really need to listen to your own team to make sure that they're all on board because that's just going to help you to ensure that you have a really good solid deliverable that's going to be handed off to the end user and that the end user's resistance should be minimized because you really did a good job with creating your deliverable. But there's the other aspect too. You need to listen to your team when they come to you and give you some information. In fact, you may want to ask them, hey guys, keep your ears open. You're out there, you're in different meetings than I am. You come across different individuals than I do. Can you please listen for what people are saying about our project? Listen to what people are saying about the deliverable we're creating that they're going to have to use once we go live. So have them also be ears because those ears can come back and tell you what they've heard from a perception perspective that's out there. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not asking you to spy. Okay? So if anyone puts in comments, you're spying, no, no, no, you're not. You're in conversation and they just heard that someone feels that they're not understanding what the deliverable is or they have an impression of the deliverable is. They bring that back to you so that you yourself as a team can then figure out how you're going to address that. And maybe you address it in your milestone stories, I said earlier on, or you address it in your change management plan, but it's information. So listen to your team when they come to you and they give you some really good insight that you just haven't heard, but they did. Communicate like crazy. If you watch a lot of my videos, what do I talk about all the time? Communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate, communicate. Why communicate in relationship to resistance? Well, everything I've been saying so far, it's through your communication that it's going to be really important to break down the barriers of resistance. Because when you tell people more information and you give them the really good story and the why and everything that they need to know, it helps to ensure that the resistance is lessened because they understand what is going on. So just communicate. Make sure that you are doing it at regular intervals. People understand what is going on with your project. If something has changed, what that impact is. But during your project, start ensuring that you start communicating the story of the benefits of this particular change because there's always pros and cons to everything, by the way. And it's really just your own perspective, whether you feel the pro is more than the con. But if you're implementing something, there obviously is a really good associated pro with it if that's what the organization asked you to do, because it's probably a trust and link to a strategy which is going to help grow the organization. So those are all the things that you want to start thinking about in your communication plan. Really get a solid, solid communication schedule to ensure that everyone is aware of what's going on. Okay, it's not just about knowing how to resist change or how to deal with resistance of change. It is this, ensuring that your project don't fail. And as I told you earlier on, you know how you can get this? Guess what? Under this video, there is a link. Grab it. It's free, just for you. Make sure you watch this next video. I'm going to share with you how you can create your own communication plan. If you could like this video, subscribe. It tells YouTube we're doing a good job. On that note, I'll see you at the next video.