Transformation through Change Management

Last week, Daniel Forrester sent me a link to a new whitepaper published by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO). The whitepaper is entitled Transforming Government through Change Management: The Role of the State CIO. Chief Information Officers are responsible for using technology to enable their organizations to do business. To support a changing organization, CIOs need to ensure their solutions and processes are flexible enough to support change. The whitepaper’s authors created 10 calls to action to enact change.  Here are a handful of their suggestions that stuck out:

“Establish collaborative relationships… The Importance of specific stakeholder relationships will change over time based on challenges, budget and legislative cycles, advent of innovation, etc…” — The whitepaper makes the point that it’s not the organization that changes, it’s people inside the organization who change.

“Create a “learning organization” that is continually adapting, learning from mistakes…”

“Cultivate trust throughout the organization.” — Daniel Forrester’s own whitepaper often uses the term “overauthorized” to describe change agents. To be overauthorized, a change agent must trust that his superiors will always back up any decisions he makes.

“Leverage enterprise architecture as the enabler of continual transformation…” — The paper places emphasis on enterprise architecture as being the means to change the organization incrementally, measuring progress and benefits from change.

“Establish a process for managing transformation in incremental steps…” — An incremental, phased approache allows you to set goals and measure progress. Should the change be for the worse, you only need to take one step back without losing all the ground that’s been covered to date.

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