Communication and Change Management Planner

Transcription

1 Communication and Change Management Planner The purpose of this document is to think through the best way to support the changes required to make the knowledge transfer project a success. Below in blue text, you ll find a framework for creating a Communication /PR Plan to help with the rollout. The text in black is a draft of language that could be used in discussion as well as written communications with the affected parties. It is only a draft and should be reviewed and carefully edited to ensure it is in line with your management expectations. Select those to involve in creating and/or vetting the plan Tomas (V.P. and KT sponsor), Sarah (direct manager and KT process owner), Malika (unit manager), Jane (doc team lead) other? Determine the objectives/desired outcome of the project Reduce the risk that we won t have enough ready talent to support mission Flexible workforce with known skills Level workload between sites and within teams Consistently high utilization of headcount Consistency and stability in critical knowledge/work areas Migration path to Information Liquidity Clarify the decision that was made and what is about to happen in a sentence or two. We re going to use The Steve Trautman Co. s 3-step Knowledge Transfer Solution to help us pick a standard bearer/mentor for every major knowledge area and then we ll cross train all of the doc team toward the appropriate standards. With this framework in place, we ll be better prepared to migrate toward structured authoring and information liquidity. List the people or groups of people who might want/need to know. Who cares? o U.S. Doc Team o India Doc Team o Rahul P. (list other stakeholders, U.S.) o Leela S. (list other stakeholders, India) o Customers? o Partners (such as your IL vendor) Define the message for each of the above people or groups. Do this section once for each group. There may be some overlap but each group often has a unique perspective. 1. Start with raw information (NOTE: Tomas, the below version was written for the U.S. doc team but may be basically the same message for every one of your groups) What is about to happen? We ve filled out a Knowledge Silo Matrix (KSM) that clearly shows which technical writer has been asked to mentor/clarify a standard way to do specific components (silos) of our work such as DDC, Project Management, Product Knowledge, etc. Everyone else on the team will compare their approach to the mentor s. Once this gap analysis is complete for each writer, a Skill 2012 The Steve Trautman Co. Page 1

2 Development Plan will be customized to help each writer improve consistency and performance. Why is it happening now? The doc team has members from multiple disparate backgrounds resulting in too many different ways of doing the same job. This makes it difficult to level the workload and share resources between teams and it makes the prospect of methodically migrating everyone to information liquidity more challenging. Who is involved/affected? All writers in US and India. How is the change going to come about? The Knowledge Silo Matrix (KSM) has already been drafted. You ll see that it shows all of the doc team broken down into knowledge domains called silos. It shows one or two people marked as mentor (showing purple) for each silo. These are the people who have been assigned to set the standard and decide on the level of required consistency for each silo. Those marked green on the KSM are good to go and considered to be sufficiently consistent with the mentors. Writers are marked apprentice (showing yellow) on the KSM if their manager is not certain that their work is in line with the mentor s. This is not necessarily a reflection of quality but of a lack of consistency. Every silo has a Master Skill Development Plan (SDP) associated with it. This is a list of the tasks and skills that are required to work within the silo. The mentor will own this master plan. They have all been drafted already but will need tuning up and to have some resources created to support them. The assigned mentor will drive these to completion. Those marked apprentice on a silo will work with the mentor and the manager to create a very specific and focused Skill Development Plan (SDP) to help them methodically and measurably line up with the mentor s approach to the work. We re going to do this with all current and critical work silos first, and then we ll use the same process to get the entire team lined up to Information Liquidity. When will this issue stabilize? What will that look like? We ll start customizing plans in the next couple of weeks, if not sooner, and everyone on the doc team should have a personal plan in hand by the end of October. Each plan will be customized to the skills needed but also with deference to the regular workload, the availability of the mentor, and the criticality of the change. Writers will move from yellow status to green as soon as they ve completed their SDP. For some this could be days and for others it could be weeks or months The Steve Trautman Co. Page 2

3 How can others help make the change work better? All writers can expedite this process by helping the mentors and your manager to customize a robust and focused plan for yourselves. Then, execute on the plan as it is written, keeping this effort prioritized appropriately relative to other work. If you re marked as good to go or as the apprentice, you can offer to help the mentor clarify the standard and create write-ups or job aids known as resources for the skills in that silo. What future changes can be predicted? This 3-step Knowledge Transfer Solution can be used to improve the quality of our PDPs, to onboard new employees, to unite a doc team as they are kicking off a new product and to help us make sure that our TCE is to the highest standard. IL migration will be based on it. 2. Think about how you want them to interpret the message. What do you want them to have confidence in? This makes sense for the business and will help us deliver a higher quality product. It will be fair, and clear, and won t be too complicate to understand. Being marked yellow only means inconsistent, not necessarily poor performer. It is good to be green. We don t need too many mentors on any one silo. My boss will help me prioritize this relative to my other work. I will get to be very involved in customizing my own plan. This is not part of some plot to move 100% of the writing out of the U.S. What actions do you want them to take? Ask to customize your plan ASAP and begin working on it right away. Help each other to make this go as smoothly as possible. This could include pairing up if you and another writer are working on an SDP at the same time. You can also do as much self-study as is possible to reduce the lecture time burden on the mentor. What language would you like them to use in describing the situation to others? Logical, practical, doable, reasonable, well thought out, fair, straightforward, helpful. What vocabulary should they be able to use for the process. KSM = Knowledge Silo Matrix. The grid with the colors showing who knows what and where the risks lie. Silo = a deep, narrow area of expertise. Could also be called knowledge domain The Steve Trautman Co. Page 3

4 Purple = mentor, standard bearer, go-to person. Green = independently working in a manner that is sufficiently consistent with the mentor. Yellow = apprentice who is actively learning and not yet consistent with the mentor. White = not currently my job. Red = risk of problems and considered a high priority. SDP = Skill Development Plan, a list of the tasks and skills each employee needs to be able to do to be marked green on the KSM. Skill = something an employee needs to know how to do. Most knowledge silos have skills. Test Questions = A list of 20 questions that get at the experience and wisdom of the mentor. Most skills in an SDP require an apprentice to answer 3 5 of them to show that knowledge has been transferred for that skill. Resources = any documentation, training, templates, job aides, guidelines, samples or people that an apprentice could access to help answer the test questions. 3. Brainstorm the range of reactions from each audience group. How will this play around the water cooler? Consider ways that the messaging and planning should address these issues to reduce time employees spend coming to terms with the change. The text below is usually for the managers to discuss. The mentors are going to be very concerned about the additional workload. The answer to that is that once they have a silo assigned to them, they should sit with their manager for an hour and inventory the resources for the resource column and assess the level of work it is going to take to ensure answers to the test questions are relatively available. Then the mentor can work to choose colleagues who are on the same page to help create more resources as needed to reduce the burden on the mentor and level the workload. More resources = less dependence on the mentor because self-study is easier. Another way to help with this would be to prioritize mentoring time relative to other project work. For example, how many apprentices need to get thru their SDP by a certain date? Another concern is going to be those who thought they were purple but find they are now yellow because they are inconsistent with the chosen mentor. For these writers, they should use the test questions and resources to analyze the gap between their current approach and expectations. Some can do this on their own and others with the support of a manager or mentor. Most will not need to pass the test on every skill in the SDP; just those where there is a gap. Use the sequence and date column to help them get a sense of just how much work it will take to move from yellow to green. 4. Develop a Rude Q&A document that lists out all the hard questions and their answers. It is a good idea to get others to help make this list of tough questions. Be as direct as possible both in framing the questions and framing the answers The Steve Trautman Co. Page 4

5 Q: I m too busy to think about this. Can I be excused from this entirely? A: Everyone on the team will participate. Your manager will help you to prioritize this relative to your regular job. The SDP is broken into 1 hour modules so that you can estimate duration and keep as balanced as possible. Q: Why wasn t I marked as the mentor? I have years of experience I think my way of doing it should be the standard. A: Our team is lucky in that we have so many experienced people. When we mapped out that experience we found up to 9 different standard setters in a knowledge silo. In the end, the managers just had to pick one and spread the work out as logically as possible. It could have gone any number of ways but at least it is clear now and everyone can move forward to improve consistency and quality. Q: How do I get from yellow to green? A: Customize and execute a Skill Development Plan (SDP) for that silo. Answer the test questions in the SDP to the satisfaction of the mentor and start working with those standards in mind and you re good to go. Q: How did you decide who would be marked mentor (purple)? A: The considerations included the quality and scalability of the approach and mentor workload. In every case there were several people who could have been asked to do it so it was mainly a judgment call like any other task assignment. Q: I didn t get to take the Knowledge Transfer Workshop. How can I get up to speed on The Steve Trautman Co. s knowledge transfer tools? A: Steve Trautman wrote a book called Teach What You Know. Copies are available or you can get one for yourself. Reading that will be a good start and then we ll have some team meetings to go over the tools together. Q: Is this going to show up in my performance review? A: Yes. We ll use the content from your skill development plan to inform your PDP. Consider how to handle the message differently depending on the audience. Notes: Senior managers/execs usually get a one page executive summary and introduced to the KSM and one SDP. Partner orgs like engineering usually have a few extra questions in the Q&A like Do I have to do this? and How much work will it be for me? and If I like it, can I do it too? Some individuals warrant a personal note or a call if you think they re likely to have any problems with this. This is usually a show of respect and done in advance. One reason might be that they show up as yellow and thought they were purple. Analyze the risk. Think about what could go wrong and develop contingency plans. Who could blow it up by refusing to participate? Who could get overloaded? What distractions could keep them from following through on their plans The Steve Trautman Co. Page 5

6 How will you track follow-thru from management to really help with the prioritizing relative to other work? U.S. based engineers haven t had the workshop so they need a little more handholding on the tools. Perhaps a book club or having their Indian coworkers talk them thru the tools. Now that you have the basic messaging worked out, it is time to incorporate this language into a variety of communications to support the rollout. Plan for timing and mode of delivering the message. Complex changes require more than one mode ( , website, town hall, personal conversations, etc.) A typical flow might include: from Tomas with goals, reasons, timing, roles and expectations. This could have an attachment with the Q&A answering most questions very directly. Conference call or face-to-face meeting with each team to rollout the KSM and discuss the mentor/apprentice relationships that will be prioritized. Answer any questions. Individual manager meetings with each employee to map out their personal priorities. First Meetings with manager/mentor(s)/apprentice(s) by silo to discuss roles and level the workload for the resource column development. Plan to follow-up (formally or informally) after delivering the message to ensure the messages were received as expected and note anything that should be considered next time. o When the new manager comes on board, she could use this program as a backdrop to get to know the team. Tell me about your role using the KSM (and personal work plans) as a framework and talk me thru your projects and priorities The Steve Trautman Co. Page 6