The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Sharing the Basics of the Prosci Change Management Program

Episode Date: September 19, 2019

Trying to pay forward the knowledge I gained from the Prosci Change Management course for Project Managers and members of All-Hazards Incident Management Team (IMT) members.

Please silence your cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum, and we'll get started with Between the Slides in 3, 2, 1. Hey everybody, Kevin Pinnell, host of the Between the Slides podcast. Not a full episode today, more of a Thursday thought, focused on change management. So I recently completed the ProSci, P-R-O-S-C-I, Change Management Practitioner course and learned about the ADKAR, A-D-K-A-R model, which we'll jump into here in a little bit, and really found instant benefit in a way for me to objectively look at myself, projects, and of course, because we talk about instant

management, how that could translate to an instant management team as they deploy, building off some of the conversation that Rob and I had in episode 37A. So we'll pick back up here in the future, in the near future with that episode and talking about the leg of the pea. But really, how can incident management teams be effective change managers, which is really what you're doing, going into a situation and helping change it for the better, hopefully, is what's happening. So we'll go through the ADKAR model. And so ADKAR is awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement. And what I'll do is I'll break down what is the technical

definition under the ProSci model. And then what are some other thoughts I have as far as projects and being a change manager? And how can that apply to incident management teams that are going somewhere to help that are working up that leg of the P we talked about, that initial response, that getting information, and how does that map to ADKAR? And like we do here in discussions and like I've done in articles on LinkedIn, good process maps a lot and across and amongst project management body of knowledge, Six Sigma, ADKAR, the planning P.

It's just it's just good processes with kind of different titles and documents. And so let's jump into it. Let's look at a awareness. So what are the pro side model awareness is not what and how and the technical and tactical this is this is people change is strategic. It's why do we need to change, right? What's the cause of the change? What isn't in place process wise, or, or device or in the system or something like that, but that everybody has an understanding of our why, you know, and we've, we've heard about that from Simon Sinek, I've mentioned, if you haven't go ahead and look him up. But understanding and everybody buying into and believing in the why or having the awareness of it from your executive

levels down to the boots on the the awareness of it from your executive levels down to the boots on the ground, whether it's literally boots on the ground doing search and rescue nurses on hospital floors, it folks underneath desks fixing computers, is everybody aware why we're going to make this change in whatever we're doing, whether it's a process or a new device or new software, or, you know, we're going out in the field and, and what are we going gonna change, right? So again, this isn't task level stuff. That's project work,

not necessarily change management work, which was a great differentiator for me as a project manager. So having some sprinkles of change management in the way I project manage, but really being able to tease out the tactical project management stuff and the people and organizational change

and the environment that this ad card that this pro side change management really looks at. So putting that in terms, for instance, management teams, do folks that are headed out the door on that short team Rob and I talked about or the full team, does everybody know why we are needed for whatever incident we're responding to? You could say events as well. Does everybody know why we are needed for whatever incident we are responding to? You could say events as well. Does everybody have that picture or do they just have what they're doing and their little piece of the planning P in their individual unit or section or whatever? They need to have the big picture and they need to understand what is the overall mission.

A lot of times that's translated that awareness is given to us from the incident commander or from the team leader as commander's intent or leader's intent. So that is an awareness that translates to if we're going to do change management as an organization or throughout a project, how does all our team members, whether it's an incident management team or project team, do they all understand why we need to change not just what and how and the tactics of it. So the next thing in the ad car model is D for desire. So in change management, it's the desire to support change, right? Is everybody on board? Does everybody get it again from the highest level to the lowest level that yes, we need this, we're going to all support it throughout, we're all going to be involved, because everybody can

buy in early. And then if people drop off, then you'll see issues, which as we go through the ad card, it'll explain that a little bit more. Um, but we need everybody to want to be part of the change and to continue to be part of that change. And on the asset manager team, um, you know, how are we going to change the current situation to make it better? Right? So someone asked for our help. We've gone somewhere. Um, there's an event they need help with, but in responding, how are we going to do that? And is everybody on board with what's going to happen?

So folks that are on incident management teams typically desire to do incident management work isn't an issue. So maybe in this case, does everybody have the desire to do whatever is needed at whatever position? And we touched on that, Rob and I I and I've spoken to it before. If you're credentialed, say as a plan chief, you should be ready and happy and willing to work anything within that section. That's all the units. That's as a check in recorder, that's as a whatever, whatever is needed, just because you are signed off on the highest book. What that really means is that you're qualified to do everything at that level and below. And so you should have the desire when you go out the door and when you're out to do whatever, right? So if, if there's three plan chiefs, and they just need someone to stand up a table and start getting people to sign in, then that's your job. And

that's how you're going to help. And so we'll get into how we can, you know, help with some of that stuff here in the next step. So the third step in the ad car model is K for knowledge. So for our folks in change management, how are we going to do the change, right? Did we empower folks with the knowledge to be able to make these changes that we're asking them to do on a process or a new product or, you know, and it's not just training, it's the big picture, it's, you know, do they have a picture of everything that we're asking them to do, that desire to do it, and then the knowledge of how to do it. And so certainly training is a component of it,

but also in what's the knowledge of how this will make their lives better, how will it make their shifts better, how will it make their team more efficient. And so that whole kind of picture, and definitely we need to be communicating throughout all of these steps, and that's a big point in this as well. And for incident management teams, do we have going to, you know, do we have the knowledge to know how we're going to integrate to make change happen when we show up? I think that's hugely important.

And then to that as well, what should we change or what should we suggest that we change? Because again, we're not the owners of what's going on there. We're guests. And what do we not change? What if we show up and something's going, accountability is rocking the house, they're doing really good. Well, don't change it. Just ask them if they need more people. And so, you know, going back to that desire piece. So again, if you're a plan chief, you should certainly have the knowledge to work every position below you, not just how to run the process and maybe do some forms. So if that's an

area that you can shore up, then certainly make sure your knowledge is from being a status check-in recorder or field observer up through the units up to the section chief that you have the knowledge to be able to jump in and do any of those jobs. And so really back to regular kind of project change management, do all of our people on the team have the knowledge? Do we need to help them obtain more knowledge to help us create and plan effective change management? And then as we keep going down the road, you know, to make it continuous and ongoing. So the fourth step in ADCAR is ability. Do our folks have the skills

and abilities to make the change? So some of this is from the training, you know, do they already have the knowledge? Are we going to help communicate that around? Are we going to get them knowledge? Are we going to do we need to do training? Are they in a position where they are good facilitators, right? So it's not all just formal classroom training. It's in a big part of ad card and effective change management. The two biggest players that help that both in communication and help drive and keep change are sponsors. So high level executives, so leadership buy in like the commanders, like your high level officers, if you hear messages from them, you typically listen a bit more and managers. So managers, meaning the folks that write your performance reviews that

you hear from every day that you want to hear updates from every day. So that's our target for letting us know. And so just like some folks are great practitioners in the field at doing really tactical things, there's a challenge sometimes on instant management teams to step out of that and be strategic. So does someone have the ability to step out of their tactical role and be strategic and help implement the change that the team is there to do? Meaning do we have the ability to step out of their tactical role and be strategic and help implement the change that the team is there to do? Meaning, do we have the right players? Or should we pair them with someone that's been doing it a little bit more in the incident management field and help build up that person that's just coming out of the boots on the ground role and stepping that up? And so as change managers, whether you're a leader on incident management team or a change manager on a formal project that's looking at, can your team make these changes?

Do we have the knowledge? How do we provide it? How do we do training? What are other ways we can get that? Leadership training, facilitation, presentation training, communication training, all these different things. I know training is pretty hard, but again, it's also looking at your people. And, you know, the ultimate end result of that is if you have someone that is great at leading folks at doing things in their unit or in their incident management section or whatever part of the business, but they're not a great facilitator or communicator of

the change in the trainings network, then looking at how we can get someone in there that maybe can help facilitate that a little bit better. And that's a tough call. And that's for either a project team or incident management team, right? There's some folks that are good in certain situations, and they get in other ones and they struggle, even with some exposure, some training, some propping up. And that's when sometimes we have to have the hard decision and step in as leaders and say, you know what, thank you so much for trying for being part of this. We're going to have to, you have to get somebody else to help fill this role.

And you're welcome to shadow or stay on or kind of go back to what you were doing. And we'll certainly be in touch. And there's different ways, crucial conversations, all that kind of stuff. But sometimes that has to happen. And if you get to, which we'll talk in the next step of kind of disciplinary stuff, then that's a whole nother level as well. So on the fifth step of ADCAR, we've already talked about awareness, desire, knowledge, and ability. And so that fifth step is reinforcement, right? We can do all the things we've done before. But if then the change is just dropped, and it's not reinforced in different ways,

then we will have, you know, done some good work, but maybe wasted some time or missed some opportunities that we could have had. And so in change management, and under pro side, this is how do we make the change stick, right? So we've changed someone's workflow, we've put a new device in, we've installed new software, we've done all new computers, we want folks to use. And so how do we make that stick? You know, how do we monitor that? And a great way to do it is metrics. If you can have reports on systems that you use and how often they're used compare notes and see, you know, how it's going. And when you see outliers that go either way up or way down, that's when you want to engage and say, Hey, your, your use went way up. That's great. What worked for you? So we can share that.

And if you see it go way down, reaching out to say, Hey, we noticed you had a big dip. You were doing great. How can we help? What are the barriers that you have? And similarly for incident management teams, when you're out in the field, when you're working that process and you've worked up the leg and now you're into doing all the meetings and tactics and planning and you've sent the folks out, you've done your operational period briefing, which kind of maps this up. And that's one thing I'll do is map up the ad car phases with the planning piece. So folks can see that visual, put it on the website on betweentheslides.com. And how are we going to do that? Well, one way is when you're working that operations O, right?

So just the round part on the top of the P is that you're continually communicating and in touch. And the updated 2017 NIMS planning P kind of has that in there now, the circles and constant communication. So you're working that. You're doing sync, you know, and this isn't on the planning P, there's like one commanding general staff meeting, right? Well, in reality, you should do those every hour, every couple hours, whatever your team's tempo dictates, and probably depending on the workload and how much time you have, and is it an incident that's short or a long incident or an event that's a few days, and you're synchronizing as

section chiefs that are meeting. And within those sections, you're synchronizing with unit leaders that are meeting. And those unit leaders are synchronizing with their staff that they have in each of those units. And so that should happen regularly so that we're reinforcing. If you start seeing you're not getting the information in your situation reports that you all agreed you would include at the beginning, finding out why and getting back on track and things like that. And similarly, for I mentioned for a project or a change management initiative, kind of in the civilian sector, or, or it could be in public safety, but not an incident management team kind of in the field is, you know, what are the outliers that are causing what are the barriers?

How are you going to address them and report them? How are you going to address them and report them? How are you going to address them as part of the change management team? Or how are you going to hand those off to owners that really should address those changes, but you have one big picture? And so you can see it's not quite 15 minutes. That's a super quick summary of ADKAR. There's way more. It's a three-day class, the change management. The ADKAR model itself, though, you could get a lot of value if you just Google ADKAR. There's way more. It's a three-day class, the change management.

The ADKAR model itself, though, you could get a lot of value if you just Google ADKAR or go to the PROSCI ProSci's website and learn about the ADKAR model. So I hope this was helpful, a little informative. I'd like to share it. I'm implementing this, learning how to implement it more with current projects, future projects. Hopefully for our incident management team practitioners, this provides some value, some quick thoughts to think about as you head out the door or are preparing yourself as you're in training and just joining the incident management team or if you've been there for a while. So again, change management happens whether you're in those cargo pants and boots in the field, you're in khakis in the office, wearing scrubs or whatever. And so I would encourage all of you

to look at this ad card model, look at change management, be part of the change, enable it, encourage it. Sometimes you're gonna have those objective, difficult discussions, but that's part of us all getting better. So hope you all have a great day. Take care.

Thank you so much for listening. Got quite a few downloads in the past few days, which I hope the message and discussion that Rob and i have had has been helpful um for all the folks out in the field stay safe deployed uh thank you so much and for all the folks out there in the offices and everywhere else um keep doing what you're doing thanks for keeping this country going and and the world really we're a big player there and and thanks for tuning in we'll see you next time godspeed