Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, is quoted as saying, “change is the only constant in life.” Despite being so common, people often resist change.
So in the context of a Salesforce Center of Excellence, the Change Management Office (CMO) is responsible for warming the audience to the upcoming change and supporting their needs. Here are three main activities they need to perform:
1. Determining How And When to Implement Changes
A strong CMO is involved from the very beginning of a large project. They need to have their boots on the ground to get a feel for the overall impact the project will have. They will need to have input on when is the best timing for this change, and how to roll it out effectively.
As the project progresses, the CMO will inform users about some details and the benefits it will have. They also need to address any concerns users have, and relay this information back to the project team.
When the project is ready for delivery, they need to agree to the timing, to ensure the users are well prepared.
2. Assessing Impact of Change
In order to accomplish the first activity, the CMO needs to be able to effectively assess the degree of change and the level of user acceptance. A code refactoring may be a very large project, but the overall impact to the users may be minor. By contrast, moving from a legacy system to Salesforce introduces significantly more change.
In either scenario, the CMO needs to constantly ask the question, “What does this mean for our users?”
3. Salesforce’s Part in the Overall Plan
When Salesforce is part of a larger change, such as introducing a new web portal or learning management system, the CMO is responsible for cross-project activities. From the perspective of the end user, any change is change, whether it’s only from Salesforce or from multiple systems.
Empathy and strong training practices will help greatly here, making doubtful users into champions.
The takeaway
Change management is the human side of the equation. After all, what good is an awesome tool when people either don’t want to use it, or don’t know how to use it properly.