The stakeholder and making a case for change

When proposing to make a change to an organisation, consider that the proposed vision for the future is unlikely to be the same as your stakeholders. A case for change must be based on a rigorous assessment of the business needs relative to the existing arrangements, potential scope, proposed spend, anticipated benefits and risks. Organisations must ensure that any proposed changes are continually aligned with strategic direction, emergent priorities and a vision for a better future effectively communicated. By developing a compelling case for change, ongoing commitment through stakeholder interest and influence can be gained about proposed new services, improvements and innovative ways of working. 

Leading change means actively engaging stakeholders. However, effective stakeholder engagement begins when people know why something new is needed, how the change is to occur and that they are part of and can influence the change process. It is tempting to make a case for change by simply giving people information but to truly engage with stakeholders, people must:

1. Feel that the change is critical (Where are we now?)

2. Understand the vision (Where do we want to be?)

3. Know and be part of the change process (How do we get there?)

Stakeholder engagement and stakeholder management are critical to enable successful business change, and yet are often regarded as fringe activities to be outsourced. This is despite being probably the most challenging and time intensive activities that a programme or project undertakes, (particularly as it depends on people to respond to the benefits and/or value that they deliver). People will naturally only respond if they are actively engaged. Stakeholder management implies that people can be made to respond positively to a programme or project. However, the truth is that programmes and projects frequently have no formal power of authority and have to rely on proactive engagement to achieve agreed strategic objectives through inclusive leadership.

It’s important for organisations to recognise that effective transformational change does not happen in a vacuum. It has a ripple effect, and where it encounters friction it will slow and eventually stop. Consider the organisation as a system in balance - when changing one part, understand and consider how the other parts will shift. Establishing a case for change is as much about balancing the equilibrium between running the organisation and changing the organisation as it is about convincing stakeholders to support an investment proposal; regardless of a top down or bottom up approach to idea generation. For any organisation, the iterative production of the business case plays a critical part of the business planning process and should never be treated as a mere governance hurdle to be jumped for approval purposes. 

1. A compelling case for change and holistic fit with wider organisation – the “strategic case”

2. Best value for money in terms of benefits versus costs and risks – the “economic case”

3. An attractive deal to the market, that can be procured and commercially viable – the “commercial case”

4. Affordability with a confirmed funding source – the “financial case”

5. Achievability in terms of program, project, risk, benefits, contract and change management as well as arrangements for independent assurance – “the management case”.

Furthermore, the following guiding principles can also help maintain a sustainable budget position while implementing change.

Diagram: Stakeholder Case

Before starting a proposal, understand the existing arrangements. That is, the totality of an organisation’s investments in programmes and projects including existing services, assets and their end life arrangements. At a portfolio level, taking a holistic view is about optimising the portfolio plan with those investments that clearly show the strongest strategic fit and continued business justification. Under performing programmes and projects should therefore be independently and objectively assessed by subject matter experts prior to each key decision point to inform continuation. 

As part of the service strategy, demand management optimises the use of resources (i.e. people, assets, materials, funding and services). It ensures that the amount of resources that has been budgeted matches the expected demand for the service. If the prediction is too low, the agreed upon service levels may not be delivered. If the predictions are too high, resources maybe allocated to a service that will not be used (or paid for). Demand management bridges the gap between service design, capacity management and business relationship management to ensure that the predictions are accurate. Ultimately demand management is about having the capacity to introduce the proposed business change matched to the capabilities to embed the change.

In achieving transformational change, programmes and projects will alter the working practices, culture and style of organizations. Using co-design helps to iteratively create fit for purpose and fit for use solutions for new products or services. Rather than engage with customers late in the lifecycle, co-design involves engaging with stakeholders early who are likely to be impacted by or will benefit from the resultant change. So beyond reducing resistance to change, by adopting a co-design approach to the business case development process, programmes and projects can endeavour to design a more inclusive solution where both stakeholders and organisations get exactly what they want through collaboration. 

There will always be drivers for change matched to an organisational need to balance running the organisation, with changing the organisation aligned to strategies and vision. The iterative business case development process is critical to organisational spending decisions, particularly in terms of its scoping, options selection, delivery, monitoring and evaluation. The business case must never be perceived or used as a medium for simply gaining governance approval for a proposal, particularly without assessing strategic fit and making a compelling case for change - with the support and commitment from the most important people, the stakeholders.

Milvio DiBartolomeo is an ICT project portfolio management professional who has had a varied career. Starting in the private sector (working for some well-known multinational companies in business development) and later in the public sector in Queensland, Australia. For the past 13 years, he has worked on a number of transformational change initiatives across the entire programme and project lifecycle and worked as a business and process analyst, software tester and project manager. He later moved into a P3 best practice advisory role, working in both a hub and spoke PMO model more recently as a Portfolio Manager and now as a Capability Support Manager specialising in OGC Gateway Assurance and procurement. Milvio holds certifications in Better Business Cases, Managing Benefits, MoP, P3O, MSP, PRINCE2, PRINCE2 Agile, AgileSHIFT, ICAgile, ISTQB software testing and ITIL. He now shares his PPM knowledge as a freelance writer including on the Praxis Framework.