Looking at Risk in a New Light: The Six Pillars of Vendor Risk Management

Approach vendor risk impact assessments from all perspectives.

Analyst Perspective

Organizations must comprehensively understand the impacts vendors may cause through different potential actions.

The risks from the vendor market have become more prevalent as the technologies and organizational strategies shift to a global direction. With this shift in risk comes a necessary perspective change to align with the greater likelihood of an incident occurring from vendors' (or one of their downstream support vendor's) negative actions.

Organizational leadership must become more aware of the increasing risks that engaging vendors impose. To do so, they need to make informed decisions, which can only be provided by engaging expert resources in their organizations to compile a comprehensive look at potential risk impacts.

Frank Sewell

Research Director, Vendor Management
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Organizations must evolve their risk assessments to be more adaptive to respond to changes in the global market. Ongoing monitoring and continual assessment of vendors’ risks is crucial to avoiding negative impacts.

Info-Tech’s multi-blueprint series on vendor risk assessment

There are many individual components of vendor risk beyond cybersecurity.`

This series will focus on the individual components of vendor risk and how vendor management practices can facilitate organizations’ understanding of those risks.

Out of Scope:
This series will not tackle risk governance, determining overall risk tolerance and appetite, or quantifying inherent risk.

The world is constantly changing

The IT market is constantly reacting to global influences. By anticipating changes, leaders can set expectations and work with their vendors to accommodate them.

When the unexpected happens, being able to adapt quickly to new priorities ensures continued long-term business success.

Below are some things no one expected to happen in the last few years:

62%

of IT professionals are more concerned about being a victim of ransomware than they were a year ago.

Info-Tech Tech Trends Survey 2022

82%

of Microsoft non-essential employees shifted to working from home in 2020, joining the 18% already remote.

Info-Tech Tech Trends Survey 2022

89%

of organizations invested in web conferencing technology to facilitate collaboration.

Info-Tech Tech Trends Survey 2022

Looking at Risk in a New Light:

the 6 Pillars of Vendor Risk Management

Vendor Risk

• Financial

• Strategic

• Operational

• Security

• Reputational

• Regulatory

• Organizations must review their risk appetite and tolerance levels, considering their complete landscape.
• Changing regulations, acquisitions, and events that affect global supply chains are current realities, not unlikely scenarios.
• Prepare your vendor risk management for success using due diligence and scenario- based “What If” discussions to bring all the relevant parties to the table and educate your whole organization on risk factors.

Strategic risks on a global scale

Odds are at least one of these is currently affecting your strategic plans

• Vendor Acquisitions
• Global Pandemic
• Global Shortages
• Gas Prices
• Poor Vendor Performance
• Travel Bans
• War
• Natural Disasters
• Supply Chain Disruptions
• Security Incidents

Make sure you have the right people at the table to identify and plan to manage impacts.

Assess internal and external operational risk impacts

Two sides of the same coin

Internal

• Poorly vetted supplemental staff
• Bad system configurations
• Lack of relevant skills
• Poor vendor performance
• Failure to follow established processes
• Weak contractual accountability
• Unsupportable or end-of-life system components

External

• Cyberattacks
• Supply Chain Issues
• Geo-Political Disruptions
• Vendor Acquisitions
• N-Party Non-Compliance
• Vendor Fraud

Operational risk is the risk of losses caused by flawed or failed processes, policies, systems, or events that disrupt business operations.

Identify and manage security risk impacts on your organization

Due diligence will enable successful outcomes

• Poor vendor performance
• Vendor acquisition
• Supply chain disruptions and shortages
• N-party risk
• Third-party risk

What your vendor associations say about you

Regulatory compliance

Consider implementing vendor management initiatives and practices in your organization to help gain compliance with your expanding vendor landscape.

Your organizational risks may be monitored but are your n-party vendors?

Review your expectations with your vendors and hold them accountable

Regulatory entities are looking beyond your organization’s internal compliance these days. Instead, they are more and more diving into your third-party and downstream relationships, particularly as awareness of downstream breaches increases globally.

• Are you assessing your vendors regularly?
• Are you validating those assessments?
• Do your vendors have a map of their downstream support vendors?
• Do they have the mechanisms to hold those downstream vendors accountable to your standards?

Identify and manage risks

Regulatory

Regulatory agencies are putting more enforcement around ESG practices across the globe. As a result, organizations will need to monitor the changing regulations and validate that their vendors and n-party support vendors are adhering to these regulations or face penalties for non-compliance.

Security-Data protection

Data protection remains an issue. Organizations should ensure that the data their vendors obtain remains protected throughout the vendor’s lifecycle, including post-termination. Otherwise, they could be monitoring for a data breach in perpetuity.

Mergers and acquisitions

More prominent vendors continuously buy smaller companies to control the market in the IT industry. Organizations should put protections in their contracts to ensure that an IT vendor’s acquisition does not put them in a relationship with someone that could cause them an issue.

Identify and manage risks

Poor vendor performance

Consider the impact of a vendor that fails to perform midway through the implementation. Organizations need to be able to manage the impact of replacing that vendor and cutting their losses rather than continuing to throw good money away after bad performance.

Supply chain disruptions and global shortages

Geopolitical disruptions and natural disasters have caused unprecedented interruptions to business. Incorporate forecasting of product and ongoing business continuity planning into your strategic plans to adapt as events unfold.

Poorly configured systems

Failing to ensure that your vendor-supported systems are properly configured and that your vendors are meeting your IT change control and configuration standards is more commonplace than expected. Proper oversight and management of your support vendors is crucial to ensure they are meeting expectations in this regard.

What to look for

Identify potential risk impacts

• Is there a record of complaints against the vendor from their employees or customers?
• Is the vendor financially sound, with the resources to support your needs?
• Has the vendor been cited for regulatory compliance issues in the past?
• Does the vendor have a comprehensive list of their n-party vendor partners?
  • Are they willing to accept appropriate contractual protections regarding them?
• Does the vendor self-audit, or do they use a vetted third-party audit firm to issue a SOC report annually?
• Does the vendor operate in regions known for instability?
• Is the vendor willing to make concessions on contractual protections, or are they only offering one-sided agreements with as-is warranties?

Prepare your vendor risk management for success

Due diligence will enable successful outcomes.

1. Obtain top-level buy-in; it is critical to success.
2. Build enterprise risk management (ERM) through incremental improvement.
3. Focus initial efforts on the “big wins” to prove the process works.
4. Use existing resources.
5. Build on any risk management activities that already exist in the organization.
6. Socialize ERM throughout the organization to gain additional buy-in.
7. Normalize the process long term with ongoing updates and continuing education for the organization.

(Adapted from COSO)

How to assess third-party risk

1. Review organizational risks

   Understand the organizations risks to prepare for the “What If” game exercise.

2. Identify and understand potential risks

   Play the “What If” game with the right people at the table.

3. Create a risk profile packet for leadership

   Pull all the information together in a presentation document.

4. Validate the risks

   Work with leadership to ensure that the proposed risks are in line with their thoughts.

5. Plan to manage the risks

   Lower the overall risk potential by putting mitigations in place.

6. Communicate the plan

   It is important not only to have a plan but also to socialize it in the organization for awareness.

7. Enact the plan

   Once the plan is finalized and socialized, put it in place with continued monitoring for success.

Adapted from Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

Insight summary

Risk impacts often come from unexpected places and have significant consequences.

Knowing who your vendors are using for their support and supply chain could be crucial in eliminating the risk of non-compliance for your organization.

Having a plan to identify and validate the regulatory compliance of your vendors is a must for any organization to avoid penalties.

Insight 1

Organizations’ strategic plans need to be adaptable to avoid vendors’ negative actions causing an expedited shift in priorities.

For example, Philips’ recall of ventilators impacted its products and the availability of its competitors’ products as demand overwhelmed the market.

Insight 2

Organizations often fail to understand how n-party vendors could place them in non-compliance.

Even if you know your complete third-party vendor landscape, you may not be aware of the downstream vendors in play. Ensure that you get visibility into this space as well, and hold your direct vendors accountable for the actions of their vendors.

Insight 3

Organizations need to know where their data lives and ensure it is protected.

Make sure you know which vendors are accessing/storing your data, where they are keeping it, and that you can get it back and have the vendors destroy it when the relationship is over. Without adequate protections throughout the lifecycle of the vendor, you could be monitoring for breaches in perpetuity.

Insight summary

Assessing financial impacts is an ongoing, educative, and collaborative multidisciplinary process that vendor management initiatives are uniquely designed to coordinate and manage for organizations.

Operational risk impacts often come from unexpected places and have unforeseen impacts. Knowing where your vendors place in critical business processes and those vendors' business continuity plans concerning your organization should be a priority for those managing the vendors.

Insight 4

Organizations need to learn how to assess the likelihood of potential risks in the rapidly changing online environments and recognize how their partnerships and subcontractors’ actions can affect their brand.

For example, do you understand how a simple news article raises your profile for short-term and long-term adverse events?

Insight 5

Organizations fail to plan for vendor acquisitions appropriately.

Vendors routinely get acquired in the IT space. Does your organization have appropriate safeguards from inadvertently entering a negative relationship? Do you have plans for replacing critical vendors purchased in such a manner?

Insight 6

Vendors are becoming more and more crucial to organizations’ overall operations, and most organizations have a poor understanding of the potential impacts they represent.

Is your vendor solvent? Do they have enough staff to accommodate your needs? Has their long-term planning been affected by changes in the market? Are they unique in their space?

Identifying vendor risk

Who should be included in the discussion?

• While it is true that executive-level leadership defines the strategy for an organization, it is vital for those making decisions to make informed decisions.
• Getting input from operational experts at your organization will enhance your business's long-term potential for success.
• Involving those who directly manage vendors and understand the market will aid operational experts in determining the forward path for relationships with your current vendors and identifying emerging potential strategic partners.
• Make sure security, risk, and compliance are all at the table. These departments all look at risk from different angles for the business and give valuable insight collectively.
• Organizations have a wealth of experience in their marketing departments that can help identify real-world scenarios of negative actions.

See the blueprint Build an IT Risk Management Program

Review your risk management plans for new risks on a regular basis.

Keep in mind Risk =
Likelihood x Impact
(R=L*I).

Impact (I) tends to remain the same, while Likelihood (L) is becoming closer to 100% as threat actors become more prevalent.

Managing vendor risk impacts

How could your vendors impact your organization?

• Review vendors’ downstream connections to understand thoroughly who you are in business with
• Institute continuous vendor lifecycle management
• Develop IT risk governance and change control
• Introduce continual risk assessment to monitor the relevant vendor markets
• Monitor and schedule contract renewals and new service/module negotiations
• Perform business alignment meetings to reassess relationships
• Ensure strategic alignment in contracts
• Review vendors’ business continuity plans and disaster recovery testing
• Re-evaluate corporate policies frequently
• Monitor your company’s and associated vendors’ online presence
• Be adaptable and allow for innovations that arise from the current needs
  • Capture lessons learned from prior incidents to improve over time, and adjust your plans accordingly

Organizations must review their risk appetite and tolerance levels, considering their complete landscape.

Changing regulations, acquisitions, new security issues, and events that affect global supply chains are current realities, not unlikely scenarios.

Ongoing Improvement

Incorporating lessons learned.

• Over time, despite everyone’s best observations and plans, incidents will catch us off guard.
• When that happens, follow your incident response plans and act accordingly.
• An essential step is to document what worked and what did not – collectively known as the “lessons learned.”
• Use the lessons learned document to devise, incorporate, and enact a better risk management process.

Sometimes disasters occur despite our best plans to manage them.

When this happens, it is important to document the lessons learned and improve our plans going forward.

The "what if" game

1-3 hours

Vendor management professionals are in an excellent position to help senior leadership identify and pull together resources across the organization to determine potential risks. By playing the "what if" game and asking probing questions to draw out – or eliminate – possible adverse outcomes, everyone involved adds their insight into parts of the organization to gather a comprehensive picture of potential impacts.

1. Break into smaller groups (if too small, continue as a single group).
2. Use the Comprehensive Risk Impact Tool to prompt discussion on potential risks. Keep this discussion flowing organically to explore all potentials but manage the overall process to keep the discussion pertinent and on track.
3. Collect the outputs and ask the subject matter experts (SMEs) for management options for each one in order to present a comprehensive risk strategy. You will use this to educate senior leadership so that they can make an informed decision to accept or reject the solution.

Download the Comprehensive Risk Impact Tool

High risk example from tool

Note: Even though a few items are “scored” they have not been added to the overall weight, signaling that the company has noted but does not necessarily hold them against the vendor.

How to mitigate:

• Contractually insist that the vendor have a third-party security audit performed annually with the stipulation that they will not denigrate below your acceptable standards.
• At renewal negotiate better contractual terms and protections for your organization.

Low risk example from tool

Summary

Seek to understand all potential risk impacts to better prepare your organization for success.

• Organizations need to understand and map out their entire vendor landscape.
• Understand where all your data lives and how you can control it throughout the vendor lifecycle.
• Organizations need to be realistic about the likelihood of potential risks in the changing global world.
• Those organizations that consistently follow their established risk-assessment and due-diligence processes are better positioned to avoid penalties.
• Understand how your vendors prioritize your organization in their business continuity processes.
• Bring the right people to the table to outline potential risks in the market and your organization.
• Socialize the third-party vendor risk management process throughout the organization to heighten awareness and enable employees to help protect the organization.
• Organizations need to learn how to assess the likelihood of potential risks in the changing global markets and recognize how their partnerships and subcontracts affect their brand.
• Incorporate lessons learned from prior incidents into your risk management process to build better plans for future issues.

Organizations must evolve their risk assessments to be more meaningful to respond to global changes in the market.

Organizations should increase the resources dedicated to monitoring the market as regulatory agencies continue to hold them more and more accountable.

Bibliography

Olaganathan, Rajee. “Impact of COVID-19 on airline industry and strategic plan for its recovery with special reference to data analytics technology.” Global Journal of Engineering and Technology Advances, vol 7, no 1, 2021, pp. 033-046.

Tonello, Matteo. “Strategic Risk Management: A Primer for Directors.” Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, 23 Aug. 2012.

Frigo, Mark L., and Richard J. Anderson. “Embracing Enterprise Risk Management: Practical Approaches for Getting Started.” COSO, 2011.

Weak Cybersecurity is taking a toll on Small Businesses (tripwire.com)

SecureLink 2022 White Paper SL_Page_EA+PAM (rocketcdn.me)

Shared Assessments Member Poll March 2021 "Guide: Evolving Work Environments Impact of Covid-19 on Profile and Management of Third Parties“

“Cybersecurity only the tip of the iceberg for third-party risk management”. Help Net Security, April 21, 2021. Accessed: 2022-07-29.

“Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) Managed Services”. Deloitte, 2022. Accessed: 2022-07-29.

“The Future of TPRM: Third Party Risk Management Predictions for 2022”. OneTrust, December 20th2021. Accessed 2022-07-29.

“Third Party Vendor definition”. Law Insider, Accessed 2022-07-29.

“Third Party Risk”. AWAKE Security, Accessed 2022-07-29.

Glidden, Donna. "Don't Underestimate the Need to Protect Your Brand in Publicity Clauses", Info-Tech Research Group, June 2022.

Greenaway, Jordan. "Managing Reputation Risk: A start-to-finish guide", Transmission Private, July 2022. Accessed June 2022.

Jagiello, Robert D, and Thomas T Hills. “Bad News Has Wings: Dread Risk Mediates Social Amplification in Risk Communication. ”Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis vol. 38,10 (2018): 2193-2207.doi:10.1111/risa.13117

Kenton, Will. "Brand Recognition", Investopedia, August 2021. Accessed June 2022. Lischer, Brian. "How Much Does it Cost to Rebrand Your Company?", Ignyte, October 2017. Accessed June 2022.

"Powerful Examples of How to Respond to Negative Reviews", Review Trackers, February 2022. Accessed June 2022.

"The CEO Reputation Premium: Gaining Advantage in the Engagement Era", Weber Shadwick, March 2015. Accessed on June 2022.

"Valuation of Trademarks: Everything You Need to Know",UpCounsel, 2022. Accessed June 2022.

Related Info-Tech Research

Identify and Manage Financial Risk Impacts on Your Organization

• Vendor management practices educate organizations on potential financial impacts that vendors may incur and suggest systems to help manage them.
• Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage financial impacts with our Financial Risk Impact Tool.

Identify and Manage Reputational Risk Impacts on Your Organization

• Vendor management practices educate organizations on potential risks to vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.
• Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts on your reputation and brand with our Reputational Risk Impact Tool.

Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization

• Vendor management practices educate organizations on potential risks to vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.
• Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts on your strategic plan with our Strategic Risk Impact Tool.

Regulatory guidance and industry standards

• International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
• FOREIGN CORRUPT PRACTICES ACT (FCPA)
• Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX)
• National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST)
• Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies (COBIT)
• EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“GDPR”);
• UK General Data Protection Regulation, as it forms part of the law of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by virtue of section 3 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and the Data Protection Act 2018 (UKGDPR)
• Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection(Swiss FDPA) – coming September 1, 2023
• IR35 (UK Off-Payroll compliance)
Technology Code of Practice (UK)
• Modern Slavery Act 2015 (UK)
• Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS)
• Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC)
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH)

Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Learning objectives

Describe the benefits of virtual teams.

Create a plan for adopting effective management practices and setting clear expectations with virtual teams.

Identify potential solutions to the challenges of managing performance and developing members of virtual teams.

Create an action plan to increase effectiveness in managing virtual teams.

Target audience

People managers who manage or plan to manage virtual teams.

Training length

Two three-hour sessions

Training material

• Use the speaker’s notes in the notes pane section of each slide to plan and practice the training session.
• Activity slides are scattered throughout this training deck and are clearly numbered in the slide title.
• Notes in italics are written to the facilitator and are not meant to be read aloud.
• Download the Workbook for participants to use.

Suggested materials for activities:

• Index cards or sticky notes
• Markers
• Whiteboard/large table space/flip chart

Agenda & activities

Recommended Customization

Review all slides and adjust the language or content as needed to suit your organizational context and culture.

The pencil icon to the left denotes slides requiring customization of the slide and/or the speaker’s notes, e.g. adding in an organization-specific process.

Customization instructions are found in the notes pane.

Tips

• Adjust the speaker’s notes on the slides before (or after) any slides you modify or delete to ensure logical transitions between slides.
• Update the agenda to reflect new timings if major modifications are made.
• Even seasoned leaders need to be reminded of the basics now and again. Rather than delete more basic slides, cut back on the amount of time spent covering them and frame the content as a refresher.

• Participant Workbooks
• Relevant organization-specific documents (see side panel)
• Training Session Feedback Form

Required Information

• Communication guidelines for managers (e.g. cadence of manager interactions)
• Performance management process and guidelines
• Employee development guidelines
• List of available resources (e.g. social collaboration tools)

Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Section 1.1

Practical foundations for managing teams in a remote environment

Feasibility of virtual IT teams

Most organizations are planning some combination of remote and onsite work in 2022.

Source: IT Talent Trends, 2022; n=199

Speaker’s Notes:

Most organizations are planning some combination of remote and onsite work in 2022 – the highest reported plans for WFH were hybrid, balanced, and partial work-from-home. This builds on our findings in the IT Talent Trends 2022 report.

Feasibility of virtual IT teams

What percentage of roles in IT are capable of being performed remotely permanently?

Approximately what percentage of roles in IT are capable of being performed remotely permanently?

IT Talent Trends, 2022; n=207

Speaker’s Notes:

80% of respondents estimated that 50 to 100% of IT roles can be performed remotely.

Virtual teams take all kinds of forms

A virtual team is any team that has members that are not colocated and relies on technology for communications.

Speaker’s Notes:

Before we start, it will be useful to review what we mean by the term “virtual team.” For our purposes we will be defining a virtual team as any team that has members that are not colocated and relies on technology for communications.

There are a wide variety of virtual work arrangements and a variety of terms used to describe them. For example, some common terms include:

• “Flexible work arrangements”: Employees have the option to work where they see fit (within certain constraints). They may choose to work from the office, home, a shared office space, the road, etc.
• “Remote work,” “work from home,” and “telecommuting”: These are just various ways of describing how or where people are working virtually. They all share the idea that these kinds of employees are not colocated.
• “Multi-office team”: the team members all work in office environments, but they may not always be in the same office as their team members or manager.

Our definition of virtual work covers all of these terms. It is also distance neutral, meaning that it applies equally to teams that are dispersed globally or regionally or even those working in the same cities but dispersed throughout different buildings. Our definition also applies whether virtual employees work full time or part time.

The challenges facing managers arise as soon as some team members are not colocated and have to rely on technology to communicate and coordinate work. Greater distances between employees can complicate challenges (e.g. time zone coordination), but the core challenges of managing virtual teams are the same whether those workers are merely located in different buildings in the same city or in different buildings on different continents.

1.1 What kind of virtual team do you lead?

15 Minutes

Working on your own, take five minutes to figure out what kind of virtual team you lead.

1. How many people on your team work virtually (all, most, or a small percentage)?
2. How often and how regularly do they tend to work virtually (full time, part time regularly, or part time as needed)?
3. What kinds of virtual work arrangements are there on your team (multi-site, work from home, mobile employees)?
4. Where do your workers tend to be physically located (different offices but in the same city/region or globally dispersed)?
5. Record this information in your workbook.
6. Discuss as a group.

Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Input

• Size of virtual team
• Current remote work practices

Output

• Documented list of current state of remote work

Materials

• Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Participants

• All managers with direct reports working virtually

Advantages

Speaker’s Notes:

Remote work arrangements are becoming more and more common, and for good reason: there are a lot of benefits to the organization – and to employees.

#1: Save Money

Perhaps one of the most common reasons for opting for remote-work arrangements is the potential cost savings. One study found that organizations could save about $11,000 per employee working from home half the time (Global Workplace Analytics, 2021).

#2 Increased Attraction

In addition, supporting remote-work arrangements can attract employees. One study found that 71% of employees would likely choose one employer over another based on WFH offerings (Owl Labs, 2019).

#3 Improve productivity.

There are also improvements to productivity. Fifty percent of employees report they would maintain or increase their productivity while working from home (Glassdoor Team, 2020).

Remote work also has benefits to employees.

#1: Save Money

As with organizations, employees also benefit financially from remote work arrangements, saving between $2,500 and $4,000 and on average 11 working days while working from home half of the time.

#2: Improved Wellbeing

Most employees agree that working from home makes them happier, reduces stress, and provides an improved work-life balance through increased flexibility.

Challenges

Organizations

• Concerns that WFH may stifle innovation (Scientific American, 2021), likely due to the potential lack of collaboration and knowledge sharing.
• Fewer organic opportunities for informal interaction between employees working from home means active efforts are required to foster organizational culture.

Leaders

• 42% of managers believe that monitoring the productivity of their direct reports is a top challenge of WFH (Ultimate Software, 2019).
• The lack of in-person supervision compounded with a lack of trust in employees leads many leaders to believe that WFH will result in a drop in productivity.

Employees

• 20% of employees report collaboration/communication as their top struggle with WFH (Owl Labs, 2021).
• Employees often experience burnout from working longer hours due to the lack of commute, blurring of work and home life, and the perceived need to prove their productivity.

Many of these barriers can be addressed by changing traditional mindsets and finding alternative ways of working, but the traditional approach to work is so entrenched that it has been hard to make the shift.

Speaker’s Notes:

Many organizations are still grappling with the challenges of remote work. Some are just perceived challenges, while others are quite real.

Limited innovation and a lack of informal interaction are a potential consequence of failing to properly adapt to the remote-work environment.

Leaders also face challenges with remote work. Losing in-person supervision has led to the lack of trust and a perceived drop in productivity.

A study conducted 2021 asked remote workers to identify their biggest struggle with working remotely. The top three struggles remote workers report facing are unplugging after work, loneliness, and collaborating and/or communicating.

Seeing the struggles remote workers identify is a good reminder that these employees have a unique set of challenges. They need their managers to help them set boundaries around their work; create feelings of connectedness to the organization, culture, and team; and be expert communicators.

1.2 Virtual teams: benefits and challenges

20 Minutes

1. Discuss and list:
   1. Any positives you’ve experienced since managing virtual employees.
   2. Any challenges you’ve had to manage connected to managing virtual employees.
2. Record information in the workbook.

Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Input

• Personal experiences managing remote teams

Output

• List of benefits and challenges of remote work

Materials

• Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Participants

• All managers with direct reports working virtually

Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Section 1.2

Laying the foundations for a virtual team

The 3i’s: Inform, interact, and involve your way to effective management:

Speaker’s Notes:

Effectively managing a virtual team really comes down to adopting management approaches that will engage virtual employees.

Managing a virtual team does not actually require a new management style. The basics of effective management are the same in both colocated and virtual teams; however, the emphasis on certain behaviors and actions we take often differs. Managing a virtual team requires much more thoughtfulness and planning in our everyday interactions with our teams as we cannot rely on the relative ease of face-to-face interactions available to colocated teams.

The 3i’s Engaging Management Model is useful when interacting with all employees and provides a handy framework for more planful interactions with virtual employees.

Think of your management responsibilities in these three buckets – they are the most important components of being an effective manager. We’re first going to look at inform and involve before moving on to interact.

Inform: Relay information down from senior management and leaders to employees. Communicate the rationale behind decisions and priorities, and always explain how they will directly affect employees.

Why is this important? According to McLean & Company’s Engagement Survey data, employees who say their managers keep them well informed about decisions that affect them are 3.4 times more likely to be engaged (Source: McLean & Company, 2020; N=77,363). Your first reaction to this might be “I already do this,” which may very well be the case. Keep in mind, though, we sometimes tend to communicate on a “need-to-know basis,” especially when we are stressed or short on time. Engaging employees takes more. Always focus on explaining the “why?” or the rationale behind business decisions.

It might seem like this domain should be the least affected, since important company announcements probably continue in a remote environment. But remember that information like that also flows informally. And even in formal settings, there are question-and-answer opportunities. Or maybe your employee might come to your office to ask for more details. Virtual team members can’t gather around the watercooler. They don’t have the same opportunities to hear information in passing as people who are colocated do, so managers need to make a concerted effort to share information with virtual team members in a clear and timely way.

Swinging over to the other end, we have involve: Involve your employees. Solicit information and feedback from employees and collaborate with them.

However, it’s not enough to just solicit their feedback and input; you also need to act on it.

Make sure you involve your employees in a meaningful way. Such collaboration makes employees feel like a valued part of the team. Not to mention that they often have information and perspectives that can help make your decisions stronger!

Employees who say their department leaders act on feedback from them are 3.9 times more likely to be engaged than those whose leaders don’t. (Source: McLean & Company, 2020; N=59,779). That is a huge difference!

Keeping virtual employees engaged and feeling connected and committed to the organization requires planful and regular application of the 3i’s model.

Finally, Interact: Connect with employees on a personal level; get to know them and understand who they are on a personal and professional level.

Why? Well, over and above the fact that it can be rewarding for you to build stronger relationships with your team, our data shows that human connection makes a significant difference with employees. Employees who believe their managers care about them as a person are 3.8 times more likely to be engaged than those who do not (Source: McLean & Company, 2017; N=70,927).

And you might find that in a remote environment, this is the area that suffers the most, since a lot of these interactions tend to be unscripted, unscheduled, and face to face.

Typically, if we weren’t in the midst of a pandemic, we’d emphasize the importance of allocating some budget to travel and get some face-to-face time with your staff. Meeting and interacting with team members face to face is crucial to building trusting relationships, and ultimately, an effective team, so given the context of our current circumstances, we recommend the use of video when interacting with your employees who are remote.

Relay information down from senior management to employees.

Ensure they’ve seen and understand any organization-wide communication.

Share any updates in a timely manner.

Connect with employees on a personal level.
Ask how they’re doing with the new work arrangement.
Express empathy for challenges (sick family member, COVID-19 diagnosis, etc.).
Ask how you can support them.
Schedule informal virtual coffee breaks a couple of times a week and talk about non-work topics.

Get information from employees and collaborate with them.
Invite their input (e.g. have a “winning remotely” brainstorming session).
Escalate any challenges you can’t address to your VP.
Give them as much autonomy over their work as possible – don’t micromanage.

1.3 Identify behaviors to inform, interact with, and involve team members

20 Minutes

Individually:

1. Identify one behavior for each of Inform, Interact, and Involve to improve.
2. Record information in the workbook.

As a group:

1. Discuss behaviors to improve for each of Inform, Interact, and Involve and record new ideas to incorporate into your leadership practice.

Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Input

• 3i's Model
• Current leadership behaviors to improve

Output

• List of behaviors to better inform, interact, and involve team members

Materials

• Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Participants

• All managers with direct reports working virtually

Laying the foundation: Set clear expectations

Tasks

• What are the daily and weekly team activities? How do they affect one another?

Goals

• Clarify any adjustments to strategy based on the situation; clarify metrics.

Communication

• How often and when will you check in? What should they come to you for? What modalities will you use and when?

Roadblocks

• Involve your team in deciding how to handle roadblocks and challenges.

Speaker’s Notes:

Clear expectations are important in any environment, remote or not. But it is much harder to do in a remote environment. The barrier to seeking clarification is so much higher (For example, email vs. catching someone in hallway, or you can’t notice that a colleague is struggling without them asking).

Communication – This is one area where the importance actually changes in a remote context. We’ve been talking about a lot of practices that are the same in importance whether you’re in an office or remote, and maybe you just enact them differently. But clarity around communication processes is actually tremendously more important in a remote environment.

Adopt a five-step process to set specific and documented expectations

1. Check in with how your team member is doing on a daily basis. Don’t forget to ask how they are doing personally.
2. Follow up on previously set expectations. Ask how things are going. Discuss if priorities or expectations have changed and update expectations accordingly.
3. Ask if they are experiencing any roadblocks and collaborate to find solutions.
4. Provide feedback and recognition as appropriate.
5. Document newly set expectations – either through a collaboration tool or through email.

Speaker’s Notes:

Suggested best practices: Hold daily team check-ins and hold separate individual check-ins. Increase frequency of these.

During Check-in

1. Set up a running Teams chat for your team.

• This is your community. You must be the biggest cheerleader and keep the team feeling like they are contributing. Make sure everyone is involved.

• Ask: What are you working on today? What will your momentum metrics be? What do you need from me?

After a Check-in

1. Be accessible:
   • Ensure your team knows the best way to get in touch with you.
   • Email is not ideal for informal, frequent contact – use messaging instead.
2. Be available:
   • Keep a running conversation going in Teams.
   • Respond in a timely manner; address issues quickly so that your team has what they need to succeed.
   • Let your team know if you’ll be away/offline for longer than an hour during the workday and ask them to do the same (e.g. for an appointment).
   • Help address roadblocks, answer questions, clarify priorities, etc.

Define communication requirements

• Set up an ongoing communication with your team.
  • E.g. a running conversation on Slack or Teams
• Schedule daily virtual meetings and check-ins.
  • This can help to maintain a sense of normalcy and conduct a pulse check on your team.
• Use video for important conversations.
  • Video chat creates better rapport, shows body language, and lessens feelings of isolation, but it can be taxing.
• Set expectations about communication.
  • Differentiate between day-to-day communication and updates on the state of events.
• Clearly communicate the collaboration toolkit.
  • What do we have available? What is the purpose of each?

Speaker’s Notes:

With organizational expectations set, we need to establish team expectations around how we collaborate and communicate.

Today there is no lack of technology available to support our virtual communication. We can use the phone, conference calls, videoconferencing, Skype, instant messaging, [insert organization-specific technological tools.], etc.

However, it is important to have a common understanding of which tools are most appropriate when and for what.

What are some of the communication channel techniques you’ve found useful in your informal interactions with employees or that you’ve seen work well between employees?

[Have participants share any technological tools they find useful and why.]

Check in with your team on communication requirements

• Should we share our calendars, hours of availability, and/or IM status?
• How often should we meet as a team and one on one? Should we institute a time when we should not communicate virtually?
• Which communication channel should we use in what context? How should we decide which communication method to use?
• Should I share guidelines for email and meeting etiquette (or any other communication methods)?
• Should we establish a new team charter?
• What feedback does the team have regarding how we’ve been communicating?

Speaker’s Notes:

Whenever we interact, we make the following kinds of social exchanges. We exchange:

• Information: Data or opinions
• Emotions: Feelings and evaluations about the data or opinions
• Motivations: What we feel like doing in response to data or opinions

We need to make sure that these exchanges are happening as each team member intends. To do this, we have to be sensitive to what information is being conveyed, what emotions are involved in the interaction, and how we are motivating each other to act through the interaction. Every interaction will have intended and unintended effects on others. No one can pay attention to all of these aspects of communication all the time, but if we develop habits that are conducive to successful exchanges in all three areas, we can become more effective.

In addition to being mindful of the exchange in our communication, as managers it is critical to build trusting relationships and rapport with employees as we saw in the 3i's model. However, in virtual teams we cannot rely on running into someone in the kitchen or hallway to have an informal conversation. We need to be thoughtful and deliberate in our interactions with employees. We need to find alternative ways to build these relationships with and between employees that are both easy and accepted by ourselves and employees. Because of that, it is important to set communication norms and really understand each other’s preferences. For example:

• Timing of responses. Set the expectation that emails should be responded to within X hours/days unless otherwise noted in the actual email.
• When it’s appropriate to send an email vs. using instant messaging.
• A team charter – the team’s objectives, individual roles and responsibilities, and communication and collaboration guidelines.

1.4 Identify and share ways you prefer to communicate for different activities

20 Minutes

1. Brainstorm and list the different types of exchanges you have with your virtual employees and they have with each other.
2. List the various communication tools in use on your team.
3. Assign a preferred communication method for each type of exchange

Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Input

• Current types of exchanges on team
• Communication methods used

Output

• Defined ways to communicate for each communication method

Materials

• Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Participants

• All managers with direct reports working virtually

Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Section 2.1
Balancing wellbeing and performance in a virtual team context

The pandemic has taken a significant toll on employees’ mental wellbeing

44% of employees reported declined mental wellbeing since the start of the pandemic.

• 44% of those who work from home.
• 34% of those who have other work arrangements (i.e. onsite).
  (Qualtrics, 2020)

"If one of our colleagues were to fall, break their leg, and get a cast, colleagues would probably rally around that person signing their cast. But, really, we don’t view the health of our brain the same as we do the health of our body."
– Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Employee

Speaker’s Notes:

Despite being over two years into the pandemic, we are still seeing its effect on the physical and mental health of employees.

The mental health aspect has been often overlooked by organizations, but in order to have a safe, happy, and productive team, you need to give mental health the same level of focus as physical heath. This requires a change in mindset in order for you as a leader to support your team's mental wellbeing during the pandemic and beyond.

Employees are reporting several key mental wellbeing challenges

Stress: 67%

Employees report increasingly high levels of stress from the onset of COVID-19, stating that it has been the most stressful time in their careers.
(Qualtrics, 2020)

Anxiety: 57%

Similarly, employees’ anxiety levels have peaked because of the pandemic and the uncertainty it brings.
(Qualtrics, 2020)

Four main themes surrounding stress & anxiety

• Fear of contracting COVID-19
• Financial pressures
• Job security and uncertainty
• Loneliness caused by social isolation

Speaker’s Notes:

The stress and uncertainty about the future caused by the pandemic and its fallout are posing the biggest challenges to employees.

Organizations shutting down operations, moving to fully remote, or requiring some of their employees to be on site based on the current situation causes a lot of anxiety as employees are not able to plan for what is coming next.

Adding in the loss of social networks and in-person interactions exacerbates the problem employees are facing. As leaders, it is your job to understand and mitigate these challenges wherever possible.

Re-examine your workplace barriers to mental wellbeing

Key considerations:

• Work Environment
  • Accessibility of mental wellbeing programs and initiatives
• Organizational Culture
  • Modeling of wellbeing
  • Paid time off
  • Discussions around mental wellbeing
• Total Rewards
  • Benefits coverage
  • Employee assistance programs (EAPs)
  • Manager knowledge

Speaker’s Notes:

Organizational barriers to mental wellbeing are sadly not new. Workloads, stigma around mental health, lack of sick days, and limits to benefits for mental health supports were challenges before the pandemic. Adding in the new barriers can very easily result in a tipping point for many employees who are simply not equipped to deal with or supported in dealing with the added burden of remote work in a post-pandemic world.

To provide the needed support to your employees, it’s important to be mindful of the key considerations.

Holistic employee wellbeing has never been more critical than it is right now

Employee Wellbeing

Physical

The physical body; ensuring a person has the freedom, opportunities, and resources needed to sustainably maintain bodily health.

Mental

The psychological ability to cope with information, emotions, desires, and stressors (e.g. change, threats, etc.) in a healthy and balanced way. Essential for day-to-day living and functioning.

Social

The state of personal and professional relationships, including personal and community engagement. The capability for genuine, authentic, and mutually affirming interactions with others.

Financial

The state of a person’s finances; ensuring that a person feels capable to handle their financial situation and behaviors. The ability to live productively without the weight of financial stress.

Speaker’s Notes:

As a manager, you need to be mindful of all of these. Create an atmosphere where people are able to come to you for help if they are struggling in one of these areas. For example, some people might be more comfortable raising physical safety or comfort concerns (personal protective equipment, ergonomics) than concerns about mental health. Or they might feel like their feelings of loneliness are not appropriate to bring into their professional life.

Wellbeing is a delicate subject, and most of the time, people are reluctant to talk about it. It requires vulnerability. And here’s the thing about it: Your staff will not drive a change in your team around making these topics more acceptable. It has to be the manager. You have to be the one to not just tell but show them that it’s OK to talk about this

Encourage human-centered workplace behaviors

Promote empathy as a focus value

• Listen and show compassion.
• Allow room for emotions.

Encourage social connection

• Leverage networks.
• Infuse fun where possible.
• Encourage community and sense of joint purpose.

Cultivate a growth mindset

• Encourage mindfulness and resilience.
• Express gratitude.

Empower others

• Ask employees what they need and co-create solutions.
• Integrate needs of personal and family life with work life.
• Be clear on accountability.

Speaker’s Notes:

As a leader, your focus should be on encouraging the right behaviors on your team and in yourself.
Show empathy; allowing room for emotion and showing you are willing and able to listen goes a long way to establishing trust.

A growth mindset applies to resilience too. A person with a growth mindset is more likely to believe that even though they’re struggling now, they will get through it.

Infuse fun – schedule social check-ins. This is not wasted time, or time off work – it is an integral part of the workday. We have less of it now organically, so you must bring it back deliberately. Remember that theme? We are deliberately reinfusing important organic elements into the workday.

The last item, empowerment, is interesting – being clear on accountability. Have clear performance expectations. It might sound like telling people what to do would be disempowering, but it’s the opposite. By clarifying the goals of what they need to achieve, you empower them to invent their own “how,” because you and they are both sure they will arrive at the place that you agreed on. We will talk more about this in performance management.

Emphasize the importance of wellbeing by setting the tone for the team

Managers must…

• LEAD BY EXAMPLE
  • Employees look to their managers for cues about how to react in a crisis. If the manager reacts with stress and fear, the team will follow.
• ENCOURAGE OPEN COMMUNICATION
  • Frequent check-ins and transparent communication are essential during a time of crisis, especially when working remotely.
• ACKNOWLEDGE THE SITUATION
  • Recognizing the stress that teams may be facing and expressing confidence in them goes a long way.
• PROMOTE WELLBEING
  • Managers who take care of themselves can better support their teams and encourage them to practice good self-care too.
• REDUCE STIGMA
  • Reducing stigma around mental health encourages people to come forward with their struggles and get the support they need.

Speaker’s Notes:

Emphasize the importance of wellbeing with what you do. If you do not model self-care behavior, people will follow what you do, not what you say.

Lead by example – Live the behaviors you want to see in your employees. If you show confidence, positivity, and resiliency, it will filter down to your team.

Encourage open communication – Have regular meetings where your team is able to set the agenda, or allow one-on-ones to be guided by the employee. Make sure these are scheduled and keep them a priority.

Acknowledge the situation – Pretending things are normal doesn’t help the situation. Talk about the stress that the team is facing and express confidence that you will get through it together.

Promote wellbeing – Take time off, don’t work when you’re sick, and you will be better able to support your team!

Reduce stigma – Call it out when you see it and be sure to remind people of and provide access to any supports that the organization has.

Conduct dedicated conversations around wellbeing

1. Check in with how each team member is doing frequently and ask how they are doing personally.
2. Discuss how things are going. Ask: “How is your work situation working out for you so far? Do you feel supported? How are you taking care of yourself in these circumstances?”
3. Ask if there are any stressors or roadblocks that they have experienced and collaborate to find solutions.
4. Provide reassurance of your support and confidence in them.
5. Document the plan for managing stressors and roadblocks – either through a collaboration tool or through email.

Speaker’s Notes:

Going back to the idea of a growth mindset – this may be uncomfortable for you as a manager. So here’s a step-by-step guide that over time you can morph into your own style.

With your team – be prepared to share first and to show it is OK to be vulnerable and address wellbeing seriously.

1. Make sure you make time for the personal. Ask about their lives and show compassion.
2. Give opportunities for them to bring up things that might stay hidden otherwise. Ask questions that show you care.
3. Help identify areas they are struggling with and work with them to move past those areas.
4. Make sure they feel supported in what they are going through and reassured of their place on the team.
5. Roll wellbeing into your planning process. This signals to team that you see wellbeing as important, not just a checklist to cover during a team meeting, and are ready to follow through on it.

Recognize when professional help is needed

Speaker’s Notes:

As a leader, it is important to be on the lookout for warning signs of burnout and know when to step in and direct individuals to professional help.

Poor work performance – They struggle to maintain work performance, even after you’ve worked with them to create coping strategies.

Overwhelmed – They repeatedly tell you that they feel overwhelmed, very stressed, or physically unwell.

Frequent personal disclosure – They want to discuss their personal struggles at length on a regular basis.

Trouble sleeping and focusing – They tell you that they are not sleeping properly and are unable to focus on work.

Frequent time off – They feel the need to take time off more frequently.

Strained relationships – They have difficulty communicating effectively with coworkers; relationships are strained.

Substance abuse – They show signs of substance abuse (e.g. drunk/high while working, social media posts about drinking during the day).

Keeping an eye out for these signs and being able to step in before they become unmanageable can mean the difference between keeping and losing an employee experiencing burnout.

Remember: Managers also need support

• Added burden
• Lead by example
• Self-care

Speaker’s Notes:

If you’ve got managers under you, be mindful of their unique stressors. Don’t forget to check in with them, too.

If you are a manager, remember to take care of yourself and check in with your own manager about your own wellbeing.

2.1 Balance wellbeing and performance in a virtual team context

30 Minutes

1. Brainstorm and list current practices and challenges connected to wellbeing on your teams.
2. Choose one or two wellbeing challenges that are most relevant for your team.
   
3. Discuss as a group and identify one solution for each challenge that you can put into action with your own virtual team. Document this under “Action plan to move forward” on the workbook slide “2.1 Balancing wellbeing and performance in a virtual team context.”

Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Input

• Current practices and challenges connected to wellbeing

Output

• Action plan for each challenge listed

Materials

• Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Participants

• All managers with direct reports working virtually

Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Section 2.2

Managing performance in a virtual team context

Virtual employees are craving more meaningful interactions with their managers

A survey indicated that, overall, remote employees showed less satisfaction with manager interactions compared to other non-remote employees.

1. 16% less likely to strongly agree their manager involves them in setting goals at work.
2. 28% less likely to strongly agree they continually work with their manager to clarify work priorities.
3. 29% less likely to strongly agree they have reviewed their greatest successes with their manager in the last six months.
4. 30% less likely to strongly agree they have talked with their manager about progress toward goals in the last six months.

Speaker’s Notes:

In many cases, we have put people into virtual roles because they are self-directed and self-motivated workers who can thrive with the kind of autonomy and flexibility that comes with virtual work. As managers, we should expect many of these workers to be proactively interested in how they are performing and in developing their careers.

It would be a mistake to take a hands-off approach when managing virtual workers. A recent survey indicated that, overall, remote employees showed less satisfaction with manager interactions compared to other non-remote employees. It was also one of the aspects of their work experience they were least satisfied with overall (Gallup, State of the American Workplace, 2017). Simply put, virtual employees are craving more meaningful conversations with their managers.

While conversations about performance and development are important for all employees (virtual or non-virtual), managers of remote teams can have a significant positive impact on their virtual employees’ experience and engagement at work by making efforts to improve their involvement and support in these areas.

During this module we will work together to identify ways that each of us can improve how we manage the performance of our virtual employees. At the end of the module everyone will create an action plan that they can put in place with their own teams. In the next module, we go through a similar set of activities to create an action plan for our interactions with employees about their development.

Building blocks of performance management

• Goal Setting

• Setting Expectations

• Measuring Progress

• Feedback & Coaching

Speaker’s Notes:

[Include a visualization of your existing performance management process in the slide. Walk the participants through the process to remind them of what is expected. While the managers participating in the training should know this, there may be different understandings of it, or it might just be the case that it’s been a while since people looked at the official process. The intention here is merely to ensure everyone is on the same page for the purposes of the activities that follow.]

Now that we’ve reviewed performance management at a high level, let’s dive into what is currently happening with the performance management of virtual teams.

I know that you have some fairly extensive material at your organization around how to manage performance. This is fantastic. And we’re going to focus mainly on how things change in a virtual context.

When measuring progress, how do you as a manager make sure that you are comfortable not seeing your team physically at their desks? This is the biggest challenge for remote managers.

2.2 Share current performance management practices for virtual teams

30 Minutes

1. Brainstorm and list current high-level performance management practices connected to each building block. Record in your workbook.
2. Discuss current challenges connected to implementing the building blocks with virtual employees.

Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Input

• Current performance management practices
• Challenges surrounding performance management

Output

• Current state of virtual performance management defined

Materials

• Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Participants

• All managers with direct reports working virtually

Communicate the “why”: Cascade organizational goals

Speaker’s Notes:

When assisting your employees with their goals, think about the organization’s overall mission and goals to help you determine team and individual goals.

• Organizational goals: Employee goals should align with organizational goals. Goals may cascade down through the organization.
• Department or team goals: Create a clear strategy based on high-level goals for the year so employees can link short-term goals to the larger picture.
• Individual goals: Employees should draw on their individual development plan to help set performance goals.

Sometimes it’s difficult to get employees thinking about goals and they need assistance from managers. It’s also important to be clear on team goals to help guide employees in setting individual ones.

The basic idea is to show people how their individual day-to-day work contributes to the overall success of the organization. It gives them a sense of purpose and a rationale, which translates to motivation. And also helps them problem solve with more autonomy.

You’re giving people a sense of the importance of their own contribution.

How to set clear expectations for job performance

Ensure employees have a clear understanding of what’s expected for their role:

1. Review their metrics so they understand how they’re being evaluated.
2. Outline daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals.
3. If needed, help them plan when and how each part of their job should be done and what to prioritize.
4. Ask them to come to you early if they experience a roadblock so that you can help rather than having them flounder on their own.
5. Document instances where employees aren’t meeting role or performance expectations.

Speaker’s Notes:

Tailor performance goals to address any root causes of poor performance.

For example:

• If personal factors are getting in the way, work with the employee (and HR if necessary) to create a strategy to address any impediments to performing in the role.

Tips for managing performance remotely

• Reflect on one key question: What needs to happen for my direct reports to continue their work while working remotely?
• Manage for results – not employee visibility at the office.
• Use metrics to measure performance. If you don’t have any, define tasks and deliverables as clearly as possible and conduct regular check-ins.
• Work with the employee to set goals and metrics to measure progress.

Focus on results: Be flexible about how and when work gets done, as long as team members are hitting their targets.

• For example, if they have childcare duties from 3 to 5pm during school closures and want to work later in the evening to make up the time, that’s fine – as long as the work gets done.
• Set clear expectations about which work must be done during normal work hours (e.g. attend team meetings, client calls) and which can be done at other hours.
• Team members must arrange with you any nonstandard working hours before they start using an altered schedule. It is your responsibility to keep track of hours and any alternate arrangements.
• Don’t make team members feel constantly monitored (i.e. “Where were you from 10 to 11am?”); trust them until you have reason not to.

Encourage your team members to unplug: If they’re sending you emails late at night and they haven’t made an alternate work hours agreement with you, encourage them to take time away from work.

• It’s harder to unplug when working at home, and everyone needs a break to stay productive.

Avoid micromanagement with holistic performance measures

Quality

How well tasks are accomplished

Behavior

Related to specific employee actions, skills, or attitudes

Quantity

How much work gets done

Holistic measures demonstrate all the components required for optimal performance. This is the biggest driver in having comfort as a manager of a remote team and avoiding micromanagement. Typically these are set at the organizational level. You may need to adjust for individual roles, etc.

Speaker's Notes:

Metrics come in different types. One way to ensure your metrics capture the full picture is to use a mix of different kinds of metrics.

Some metrics are quantitative: they describe quantifiable or numerical aspects of the goal. This includes timeliness. On the other hand, qualitative metrics have to do with the final outcome or product. And behavioral metrics have to do with employees' actions, skills, or attitudes. Using different kinds of metrics together helps you set holistic measures, which capture all the components of optimal performance toward your goal and prevent gaming the system.

Let's take an example:

A courier might have an objective to do a good job delivering packages. An example of a quantitative measure might be that the courier is required to deliver X number of packages per day on time. The accompanying metrics would be the number of packages delivered per day and the ratio of packages delivered on time vs. late.

Can you see a problem if we use only these quantitative measures to evaluate the courier's performance?

Wait to see if anyone volunteers an answer. Discuss suggestions.

That's right, if the courier's only goal is to deliver more packages, they might start to rush, may ruin the packages, and may offer poor customer service. We can help to guard against this by implementing qualitative and behavioral measures as well. For example, a qualitative measure might be that the courier is required to deliver the packages in mint condition. And the metric would be the number of customer complaints about damaged packages or ratings on a satisfaction survey related to package condition.

For the behavioral aspect, the courier might be required to provide customer-centric service with a positive attitude. The metrics could be ratings on customer satisfaction surveys related to the courier's demeanor or observations by the manager.

Managing poor performance virtually: Look for key signs

It’s crucial to acknowledge that an employee might have an “off week” or need time to balance work and life – things that can be addressed with performance management (PM) techniques. Managers should move into the process for performance improvement when:

1. Performance fluctuates frequently or significantly.
2. Performance has dropped for an extended period of time.
3. Expectations are consistently not being met.

Key signs to look for:

• PM data/performance-related assessments
• Continual absences
• Decreased quality or quantity of output
• Frequent excuses (e.g. repeated internet outages)
• Lack of effort or follow-through
• Missed deadlines
• Poor communication or lack of responsiveness
• Failure to improve

Speaker’s notes:

• Let’s talk more about identifying low performance.
• Everybody has off days or weeks. And what if they are new to the role or new to working remotely? Their performance may be low because they need time to adjust. These sort of situations should be managed, but they don’t require moving into the process for performance improvement.
• When managing employees who are remote or working in a hybrid situation, it is important to be alert to these signs and check in with your employees on a regular basis. Aim to identify and work with employees on addressing performance issues as they arise rather than waiting until it’s too late. Depending on your availability, the needs of the employee, and the complexity of their role, check-ins could occur daily, weekly, and/or monthly. As I mentioned, for remote employees, it’s often better to check-in more frequently but for a shorter period of time.
• You want to be present in their work life and available to help them manage through roadblocks and stay on track, but try to avoid over-monitoring employees. Micromanaging can impact the manager-employee relationship and lead to the employee feeling that there is a lack of trust. Remember, the employee needs to be responsible for their own performance and improvement.
• Check-ins should not just be about the work either. Take some time to check in personally. This is particularly important when managing remotely. It enables you to build a personal relationship with the employee and also keeps you aware if there are other personal issues at play that are impacting their work.
• So, how do you know what does require performance improvement? There are three key things that you should look for that are clear signals that performance improvement is necessary:
  1. Their performance is fluctuating frequently or significantly.
  2. Their performance has dropped for an extended period of time.
  3. Expectations are consistently not being met.
• What do you think are some key signs to look for that indicate a performance issue is occurring?

Managing poor performance virtually: Conducting remote performance conversations

Video calling

Always use video calls instead of phone calls when possible so that you don’t lose physical cues and body language.

Meeting invitations

Adding HR/your leader to a meeting invite about performance may cause undue stress. Think through who needs to participate and whether they need to be included in the invite itself.

Communication

Ensure there are no misunderstandings by setting context for each discussion and having the employee reiterate the takeaways back to you.

Focus on behavior

Don’t assume the intent behind the behavior(s) being discussed. Instead, just focus on the behavior itself.

Policies

Be sure to adhere to any relevant HR policies and support systems. Working with HR throughout the process will ensure none are overlooked.

Speaker’s notes:

There are a few best practices you should follow when having performance conversations:

• First, if you are in a different work environment than your employee, always use video calls instead of phone calls whenever possible so that you don’t miss out on physical cues and body language. If videoconferencing isn’t the norm, encourage them to turn on their video. Be empathic that it can feel awkward but explain the benefits, and you will both have an easier time communicating and understanding each other.
• As I’ve mentioned, be considerate of the environment they are in. If they are in the office and you are working remotely, be sure to book a private meeting room for them to go to for the conversation. If they are working from home, be sure to check that they are prepared and able to focus on the conversation.
• Next, carefully consider who you are adding to the meeting invite and whether it’s necessary for them to be there. Adding HR or your leader to a meeting invite may cause undue stress for the employee.
• Consider the timing of the invite. Don’t send it out weeks in advance. When a performance problem exists, you’ll want to address it as soon as possible. A day or two of notice would be an ideal approach because it gives them a heads up but will not cause them extended stress or worrying.
• Be considerate about the timing of the meeting and what else they may have scheduled. For example, a Friday afternoon before they are heading off on vacation or right before they are leading an important client call would not be appropriate timing.
• As we just mentioned clear communication is critical. Ensure there are no misunderstandings by setting context for each discussion and having the employee reiterate takeaways back to you.
• Focus on the behavior and don’t assume their intent. It can be tempting to say, “I know you didn’t mean to miss the deadline,” but you don’t know what they intended. Often people are not aware of the impact their behavior can have on others.
• Lastly, be sure to adhere to any relevant HR policies and support systems. Working with HR throughout the process will ensure nothing is overlooked.

2.3 Identify challenges of current practices and propose solutions

30 Minutes

1. Select one or two challenges from the previous activity.
2. Identify one solution for each challenge that you can put into action with your own virtual team. Document in the workbook.

Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Input

• Current performance management practices
• Challenges surrounding performance management

Output

• Action plan to move forward

Materials

• Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Participants

• All managers with direct reports working virtually

Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Optional Section

Employee development in a virtual team setting

There are three main development approaches for both colocated and virtual employees

Speaker’s Notes:

As we have seen, our virtual employees crave more meaningful interactions with their managers. In addition to performance conversations, managers should also be having regular discussions with their employees about their employee development plans. One key component of these discussions is career planning. Whether you are thinking shorter term – how to become better at their current role – or longer term – how to advance beyond their current role – discussions about employee development are a great way to engage employees. Employees are ultimately responsible for creating and executing their own development plans, but managers are responsible for making sure that employees have thought through these plans and helping employees identify opportunities for executing those plans.

To help us think about our own employee development practices, identify challenges they pose when working with virtual employees, and create solutions to these challenges, it is useful to think about employee development opportunities according to three types:

1. The first kind of development opportunity is formal training. Formal training is organized and has a clearly defined curriculum and desired outcome. It usually takes the form of a group training session (like this one) or training videos or materials that employees can watch individually and on their own time. These opportunities usually end with a test or assignment that can be used to evaluate the degree to which the participant achieved the desired learning outcomes.
2. The second kind of development opportunity is relational learning. Perhaps the most common form of this type of learning is coaching or mentoring. By establishing a long-term work relationship, checking in with employees about their daily work and development goals, and sharing their own experiences and knowledge, mentors help employees reflect and draw out learning from everyday, on-the-job development activities. Other examples include a peer support group or communities of practice. In these group settings peers share best practices and work together to overcome challenges.
3. The third kind of development opportunity is experiential learning. This kind of opportunity provides employees the chance to work on real work problems, and the output of the development work can directly benefit the organization. Most people learn best by doing. On-the-job experiences that are challenging or new can force people to use and develop new skills and knowledge based on what worked effectively and what failed. Examples of experiential learning are on-the-job learning for new hires, stretch assignments, or special projects that take the employee beyond their daily routine and allow them to try new activities and develop competencies that they would not have the chance to develop as part of their regular job.

According to McLean & Company, organizations should use the “70-20-10” rule as a rough guideline when working with employees to create their development plans: 10% of the plan should be dedicated to formal training opportunities, 20% to relational learning, and 70% to experiential learning. Managers should work with employees to identify their performance and career goals, ensure that their development plans are aligned with these goals, and include an appropriate mixture of all three kinds of development opportunities.

To help identify challenges and solutions, think about how virtual work arrangements will impact the employee’s ability to leverage each type of opportunity at our organization.

Here are some examples that can help us start thinking about the kinds of challenges virtual employees on our team face:

Career Planning

• One challenge can be identifying a career path that is consistent with working virtually. If switching from a virtual arrangement to an onsite arrangement is not a viable option for an employee, some career paths may not feasibly be open to them (at least as the company is currently organized). For example, if an employee would eventually like to be promoted to a senior leadership role in their business function but all senior leaders are required to work onsite at corporate headquarters, the employee will need to consider whether such a move is possible for them. In some cases employees may be willing to do this, but in others they may not. The important thing is to have these conversations with virtual employees and avoid the assumption that all career paths can be done virtually, since that might not be the case

Formal Training

• This is probably the least problematic form of employee development for virtual employees. In many cases this kind of training is scheduled well in advance, so virtual employees may be able to join non-virtual employees in person for some group training. When this is not possible (due to distance, budget, or time zone), many forms of group training can be recorded and watched by virtual employees later. Training videos and training materials can also easily be shared with virtual employees using existing collaboration software.

Relational Learning

• One major challenge here is developing a mentoring relationship virtually. As we discussed in the module on performance management, developing relationships virtually can be challenging because people cannot rely upon the kind of informal and spontaneous interactions that occur when people are located in the same office. Mentors and mentees will have to put in more effort and planning to get to know each other and they will have to schedule frequent check-ins so that employees can reflect upon their progress and experience (with the help of their mentors) more often.
• Time zones and technology may pose potential barriers for certain candidates to be mentors. In some cases, employees that are best qualified to be mentors may not be as comfortable with collaborative software as other mentors or their mentees. If there are large time zone differences, some people who would otherwise be interested in acting as a mentor may be dissuaded. Managers need to take this into consideration if they are connecting employees with mentors or if they are thinking of taking on the mentor role themselves.

Experiential Learning

• Virtual employees risk being overlooked for special projects due to the “out of sight, out of mind” bias: When special projects come up, the temptation is to look around the room and see who is the best fit. The problem is, however, that in some cases the highest performers or best fit may not physically be in the room. In these cases it is important for managers to take on an advocate role for their employees and remind other managers that they have good virtual employees on their team that should be included or contacted. It is also important for managers to keep their team informed about these opportunities as often as possible.
• Sometimes certain projects or certain kinds of work just cannot be done virtually in a company for a variety of reasons. The experiential learning opportunities will not be open to virtual employees. If such opportunities are open to the majority of other workers in this role (potentially putting virtual employees’ career development at a disadvantage relative to their peers), managers should work with their virtual employees to identify alternative experiences. Managers may also want to consider advocating for more or for higher quality experiential learning opportunities at the organization.

Now that we have considered some general examples of challenges and solutions, let’s look at our own employee development practices and think about the practical steps we can take as managers to improve employee development for our virtual employees.

Employee development basics

• Career planning & performance improvement
• Formal training
• Relational learning
• Experiential learning

Speaker’s Notes:

[Customize this slide according to your organization’s own policies and processes for employee development. Provide useful images that outline this on the slide, and in these notes describe the processes/policies that are in place. Note: In some cases policies or processes may not be designed with virtual employees or virtual teams in mind. That is okay for the purposes of this training module. In the following activities participants will discuss how they apply these policies and processes with their virtual teams. If your organization is interested in adapting its policies/processes to better support virtual workers, it may be useful to record those conversations to supplement existing policies later.]

Now that we have considered some general examples of challenges and solutions, let’s look at our own employee development practices and think about the practical steps we can take as managers to improve employee development for our virtual employees.

2.4 Share current practices for developing employees on a virtual team

30 Minutes

1. Brainstorm and list current high-level employee development practices. Record in your workbook.
2. Discuss current challenges connected to developing virtual employees. Record in your workbook.
3. Identify one solution for each challenge that you can put into action with your own virtual team.
4. Discuss as a group.

Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Input

• Current employee development practices
• Challenges surrounding employee development

Output

• Action plan to move forward

Materials

• Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Participants

• All managers with direct reports working virtually

Refine Action Plans

2.5 Refine your action plan and commit to implementing it

30 Minutes

1. Review your action plans for consistency and overlap. Highlight any parts you may struggle to complete.
2. Meeting with your group, summarize your plans to each other. Provide feedback and discuss each other’s action plans.
3. Discuss how you can hold each other accountable.

Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Input

• Action items from previous activities.

Output

• Action plan to move forward

Materials

• Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

Participants

• All managers with direct reports working virtually

Summary of Accomplishment

• We do not need to go out and learn a new set of manager responsibilities to better manage our virtual teams; rather, we have to “dial up” certain responsibilities we already have or adjust certain approaches that we already take.
• It is important to set clear expectations. While managers are ultimately responsible for making sure expectations are set and are clearly communicated, they are not the only ones with responsibilities. Employees and managers need to work together to overcome the challenges that virtual work involves.
• Virtual employees crave meaningful interactions with their managers and team. Managers must take charge in fostering an atmosphere of openness around wellbeing and establish effective performance management strategies. By being proactive with our virtual teams’ wellness and mindful of our performance management habits, we can take significant steps toward keeping these employees engaged and productive.
• Effective management in virtual contexts requires being more deliberate than is typical in non-virtual contexts. By working as a group to identify challenges and propose solutions, we have helped each other create action plans that we can use going forward to continually improve our management practices.

If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through an info-tech workshop or guided implementation.

Contact your account representative for more information

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Speaker’s Notes:

First, let’s take a moment to summarize the key things we have learned today:

1. We do not need to go out and learn a new set of manager competencies to better manage our virtual teams; rather, we have to “dial up” certain competencies we already have or adjust certain approaches that we already take. In many cases we just need to be more aware of the challenges that virtual communication poses and be more planful in our approaches.
2. It is important to set clear expectations. While managers are ultimately responsible for making sure expectations are set and clearly communicated, they are not the only ones with responsibilities. Employees and managers need to work together to overcome the challenges that virtual work involves. Making sure that teams have meaningful conversations about expectations, come to a shared understanding of them, and record them will create a firm foundation for all other interactions on the virtual team.
3. Virtual employees crave meaningful interactions with their managers related to performance and employee development. By creating action plans for improving these kinds of interactions with our teams, we can take significant steps toward keeping these employees engaged and productive.
4. Effective performance management and employee development in virtual contexts require more planfulness than is required in non-virtual contexts. By working as a group to identify challenges and propose solutions, we have helped each other create action plans that we can use going forward to continually improve our management practices.

Is there anything that anyone has learned that is not on this list and that they would like to share with the group?

Finally, were there any challenges identified today that were not addressed?

[Note to facilitator: Take note of any challenges not addressed and commit to getting back to the participants with some suggested solutions.]

Additional resources

Manager Training: Lead Through Change

Train managers to navigate the interpersonal challenges associated with change management and develop their communication and leadership skills. Upload this LMS module into your learning management system to enable online training.

Manager Training: Build a Better Manager: Manage Your People

Management skills training is needed, but organizations are struggling to provide training that makes a long-term difference in the skills managers use in their day to day.

Many training programs are ineffective because they offer the wrong content, deliver it in a way that is not memorable, and are not aligned with the IT department’s business objectives.

Blueprint: Manage Poor Performance While Working From Home

Assess and improve remote work performance with our ready-to-use tools.

Works Cited

April, Richard. “10 KPIs Every Sales Manager Should Measure in 2019.” HubSpot, 24 June 2019. Web.

Banerjea, Peter. “5 Powerful Strategies for Managing a Remote Sales Team.” Badger - Maps for field sales, n.d. Web.

Bibby, Adrianne. “5 Employers’ Awesome Quotes about Work Flexibility.” FlexJobs, 9 January 2017. Web.

Brogie, Frank. “The 14 KPIs every field sales rep should strive to improve.” Repsly, 2018. Web.

Dunn, Julie. “5 smart tips for leading field sales teams.” LevelEleven, March 2015. Web.

Edinger, Scott. “How great sales leaders coach.” Forbes, 2013. Web.

“Employee Outlook: Employee Views on Working Life.” CIPD, April 2016. Web.

Hall, Becki. “The 5 biggest challenges facing remote workers (and how to solve them).” interact, 7 July 2017. Web.

Hofstede, Geert. “National Cultural Dimensions.” Hofstede Insights, 2012. Web.

“Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2014 (EPA 430-R-16-002).” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 15 April 2016.

“Latest Telecommuting Statistics.” Global Workplace Analytics, June 2021. Web.

Knight, Rebecca. “How to manage remote direct reports.” Harvard Business Review, 2015. Web.

“Rewards and Recognition: 5 ways to show remote worker appreciation.” FurstPerson, 2019. Web.

Palay, Jonathan. "How to build your sales management cadence." CommercialTribe, 22 March 2018. Web.

“Sales Activity Management Matrix.” Asian Sales Guru, 2019. Web.

Smith, Simone. “9 Things to Consider When Recognizing Remote Employees.” hppy, 2018. Web.

“State of Remote Work 2017.” OWL Labs, 2021. Web.

“State of the American Workplace.” Gallup, 2017. Web.

“Telework Savings Potential.” Global Workplace Analytics, June 2021. Web.

“The Future of Jobs Employment Trends.” World Economic Forum, 2016. Web.

“The other COVID-19 crisis: Mental health.” Qualtrics, 14 April 2020. Web.

Thompson, Dan. “The straightforward truth about effective sales leadership.” Sales Hacker, 2017. Web.

Tsipursky, Gleb. “Remote Work Can Be Better for Innovation Than In-Person Meetings.” Scientific American, 14 Oct. 2021. Web.

Walsh, Kim. “New sales manager? Follow this guide to crush your first quarter.” HubSpot, May 2019. Web.

“What Leaders Need to Know about Remote Workers: Surprising Differences in Workplace Happiness and Relationships.” TINYpulse, 2016.

Zenger, Jack, and Joe Folkman. “Feedback: The Leadership Conundrum.” Talent Quarterly: The Feedback Issue, 2015.

Contributors

Anonymous CAMH Employee

Adopt Change Management Practices & Succeed at IT Organizational Redesign

The perfect IT organizational structure will fail to be implemented if there is no change management.

Analyst Perspective

Don’t doom your organizational redesign efforts

After helping hundreds of organizations across public and private sector industries redesign their organizational structure, we can say there is one thing that will always doom this effort: A failure to properly identify and implement change management efforts into the process. Employees will not simply move forward with the changes you suggest just because you as the CIO are making them. You need to be prepared to describe the individual benefits each employee can expect to receive from the new structure. Moreover, it has to be clear why this change was needed in the first place. Redesign efforts should be driven by a clear need to align to the organization’s vision and support the various objectives that will need to take place. Most organizations do a great job defining a new organizational structure. They identify a way of operating that tells them how they need to align their IT capabilities to deliver on strategic objectives. What most organizations do poorly is invest in their people to ensure they can adopt this new way of operating. Brittany Lutes Research Director, Organizational Transformation Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Implementing your organizational design with good change management practices is more important than defining the new organizational structure.

Your challenge

This research enables organizations to succeed at their organizational redesign:

• By implementing the right change management practices. These methods prevent:
  • The loss of critical IT employees who will voluntarily exit the organization.
  • Employees from creating rumors that will be detrimental to the change.
  • Confusion about why the change was needed and how it will benefit the strategic objectives the organization is seeking to achieve.
  • Spending resources (time, money, and people) on the initiative longer than is necessary.

McKinsey reported less than 25% of organizational redesigns are successful. Which is worse than the average change initiative, which has a 70% failure rate.

Source: AlignOrg, 2020.

The value of the organizational redesign efforts is determined by the percentage of individuals who adopt the changes and operate in the desired way of working.

When organizations properly use organizational design processes, they are:

4× more likely to delight customers

13× more effective at innovation

27× more likely to retain employees

Source: The Josh Bersin Company, 2022

Common obstacles

These barriers make implementing an organizational redesign difficult to address for many organizations:

• You communicated the wrong message to the wrong audience at the wrong time. Repeatedly.
• There is a lack of clarity around the drivers for an organizational redesign.
• A readiness assessment was not completed ahead of the changes.
• There is no flexibility built into the implementation approach.
• The structure is not aligned to the strategic goals of IT and the organization.
• IT leadership is not involved in their staff’s day-to-day activities, making it difficult to suggest realistic changes.

Don’t doom your organizational redesign with poor change management

Only 17% of frontline employees believe the lines of communication are open.

Source: Taylor Reach Group, 2019

43% Percentage of organizations that are ineffective at the organizational design methodology.

Source: The Josh Bersin Company, 2022.

Change management is a must for org design

Forgetting change management is the easiest way to fail at redesigning your IT organizational structure

• Change management is not a business transformation.
• Change management consists of the practices and approaches your organization takes to support your people through a transformation.
• Like governance, change management happens regardless of whether it is planned or ad hoc.
• However, good change management will be intentional and agile, using data to help inform the next action steps you will take.
• Change management is 100% focused on the people and how to best support them as they learn to understand the need for the change, what skills they must have to support and adopt the change, and eventually to advocate for the change.

"Organizational transformation efforts rarely fail because of bad design, but rather from lack of sufficient attention to the transition from the old organization to the new one."

– Michael D. Watkins & Janet Spencer. ”10 Reason Why Organizational Change Fails.”

Info-Tech’s approach

Redesigning the IT structure depends on good change management

Common changes in organizational redesigns

Top reasons organizational redesigns fail

1. The rationale for the redesign is not clear.
2. Managers do not have the skills to lead their teams through a change initiative like organizational redesign.
3. You communicated the wrong messages at the wrong times to the wrong audiences.
4. Frontline employees were not included in the process.
5. The metrics you have to support the initiative are countering one another – if you have metrics at all.
6. Change management and project management are being treated interchangeably.

Case study: restructuring to reduce

Clear Communication & Continuous Support

Situation

On July 26th, 2022, employees at Shopify – an eCommerce platform – were communicated to by their CEO that a round of layoffs was about to take place. Effective that day, 1,000 employees or 10% of the workforce would be laid off.

In his message to staff, CEO Tobi Lutke admitted he had assumed continual growth in the eCommerce market when the COVID-19 pandemic forced many consumers into online shopping. Unfortunately, it was clear that was not the case.

In his communications, Tobi let people know what to expect throughout the day, and he informed people what supports would be made available to those laid off. Mainly, employees could expect to see a transparent approach to severance pay; support in finding new jobs through coaching, connections, or resume creation; and ongoing payment for new laptops and internet to support those who depend on this connectivity to find new jobs.

Results

Unlike many of the other organizations (e.g. Wayfair and Peloton) that have had to conduct layoffs in 2022, Shopify had a very positive reaction. Many employees took to LinkedIn to thank their previous employer for all that they had learned with the organization and to ask their network to support them in finding new opportunities. Below is a letter from the CEO:

Shopify, 2022.

Forbes, 2022.

Aligned to a Meaningful Vision

An organizational redesign must be aligned to a clear and meaningful vision of the organization.

Define the drivers for organizational redesign

And align the structure to execute on those drivers.

• Your structure should follow your strategy. However, 83% of people in an organization do not fully understand the strategy (PWC, 2017).
• How can employees be expected to understand why the IT organization needs to be restructured to meet a strategy if the strategy itself is still vague and unclear?
• When organizations pursue a structural redesign, there are often a few major reasons:
  • Digital/organizational transformation
  • New organizational strategy
  • Acquisition or growth of products, services, or capabilities
  • The need to increase effectiveness
  • Cost savings
• Creating a line of sight for your employees and leadership team will increase the likelihood that they want to adopt this structure.

“The goal is to align your operating model with your strategy, so it directly supports your differentiating capabilities.”

– PWC, 2017.

How to align structure to strategy

Recommended action steps:

• Describe the end state of the organizational structure and how long you anticipate it will take to reach that state. It's important that employees be able to visualize the end state of the changes being made.
• Ensure people understand the vision and goals of the IT organization. Are you having discussions about these? Are managers discussing these? Do people understand that their day-to-day job is intended to support those goals?
• Create a visual:
  • The goals of the organization → align to the initiatives IT → which require this exact structure to deliver.
• Do not assume people are willing to move forward with this vision. If people are not willing, assess why and determine if there are benefits specific to the individual that can support them in adopting the future state.
• Define and communicate the risks of not making the organizational structure changes.

Info-Tech Insight

A trending organizational structure or operating model should never be the driver for an organizational redesign.

IT Leaders Are Not Set Up To Succeed

Empower these leaders to have difficult conversations.

Lacking key leadership capabilities in managers

Technical leaders are common in IT, but people leaders are necessary during the implementation of an organizational structure.

• Managers are important during a transformational change for many reasons:
  • Managers play a critical role in being able to identify the skill gaps in employees and to help define the next steps in their career path.
  • After the sponsor (CIO) has communicated to the group the what and the why, the personal elements of the change fall to managers.
  • Managers’ displays of disapproval for the redesign can halt the transformation.
• However, many managers (37%) feel uncomfortable talking to employees and providing feedback if they think it will elicit a negative response (Taylor Reach Group, 2019).
• Unfortunately, organizational redesign is known for eliciting negative responses from employees as it generates fears around the unknown.
• Therefore, managers must be able to have conversations with employees to further the successful implementation and adoption of the structure.

“Successful organizational redesign is dependent on the active involvement of different managerial levels."

– Marianne Livijn, “Managing Organizational Redesign: How Organizations Relate Macro and Micro Design.”

They might be managers, but are they leaders?

Recommended action steps:

• Take time to speak with managers one on one and understand their thoughts, feelings, and understanding of the change.
• Ensure that middle-managers have an opportunity to express the benefits they believe will be realized through the proposed changes to the organizational chart.
• Provide IT leaders with leadership training courses (e.g. Info-Tech’s Leadership Programs).
• Do not allow managers to start sharing and communicating the changes to the organizational structure if they are not demonstrating support for this change. Going forward, the group is all-in or not, but they should never demonstrate not being bought-in when speaking to employees.
• Ensure IT leaders want to manage people, not just progress to a management position because they cannot climb a technical career ladder within the proposed structure. Provide both types of development opportunities to all employees.
• Reduce the managers’ span of control to ensure they can properly engage all direct reports and there is no strain on the managers' time.

Info-Tech Insight

47% of direct reports do not agree that their leader is demonstrating the change behaviors. Often, a big reason is that many middle-managers do not understand their own attitudes and beliefs about the change.

Source: McKinsey & Company “How Do We Manage the Change Journey?”

Check out Info-Tech’s Build a Better Manager series to support leadership development

These blueprints will help you create strong IT leaders who can manage their staff and themselves through a transformation.

Build a Better Manager: Basic Management Skills

Build a Better Manager: Personal Leadership

Build a Better Manager: Manage Your People

Build Successful Teams

Transparent & Frequent Communication

Provide employees with several opportunities to hear information and ask questions about the changes.

Communication must be done with intention

Include employees in the conversation to get the most out of your change management.

• Whether it is a part of a large transformation or a redesign to support a specific goal of IT, begin thinking about how you will communicate the anticipated changes and who you will communicate those changes to right away.
• The first group of people who need to understand why this initiative is important are the other IT leaders. If they are not included in the process and able to understand the foundational drivers of the initiative, you should not continue to try and gain the support of other members within IT.
• Communication is critical to the success of the organizational redesign.
• Communicating the right information at the right time will make the difference between losing critical talent and emerging from the transition successfully.
• The sponsor of this redesign initiative must be able to communicate the rationale of the changes to the other members of leadership, management, and employees.
• The sponsor and their change management team must then be prepared to accept the questions, comments, and ideas that members of IT might have around the changes.

"Details about the new organization, along with details of the selection process, should be communicated as they are finalized to all levels of the organization.”

– Courtney Jackson, “7 Reasons Why Organizational Structures Fail.”

Two-way communication is necessary

Recommended action steps:

• Don't allow rumors to disrupt this initiative – be transparent with people as early as possible.
• If the organizational restructure will not result in a reduction of staff – let them know! If someone's livelihood (job) is on the line, it increases the likelihood of panic. Let's avoid panic.
• Provide employees with an opportunity to voice their concerns, questions, and recommendations – so long as you are willing to take that information and address it. Even if the answer to a recommendation is "no" or the answer to a question is "I don't know, but I will find out," you've still let them know their voice was heard in the process.
• As the CIO, ensure that you are the first person to communicate the changes. You are the sponsor of this initiative – no one else.
• Create communications that are clear and understandable. Imagine someone who does not work for your organization is hearing the information for the first time. Would they be able to comprehend the changes being suggested?
• Conduct a pulse survey on the changes to identify whether employees understand the changes and feel heard by the management team.

Info-Tech Insight

The project manager of the organizational redesign should not be the communicator. The CIO and the employees’ direct supervisor should always be the communicators of key change messages.

Communication spectrum

An approach to communication based on the type of redesign taking place

Include Employees in the Redesign Process

Stop talking at employees and ensure they are involved in the changes impacting their day-to-day lives.

Employees will enable the change

Old-school approaches to organizational redesign have argued employee engagement is a hinderance to success – it’s not.

• We often fail to include the employees most impacted by a restructuring in the redesign process. As a result, one of the top reasons employees do not support the change is that they were not included in the change.
• A big benefit of including employees in the process is it mitigates the emergence of a rumor mill.
• Moreover, being open to suggestions from staff will help the transformation succeed.
• Employees can best describe what this transition might entail on a day-to-day basis and the supports they will require to succeed in moving from their current state to their future state.
  • CIOs and other IT leaders are often too far removed from the day-to-day to best describe what will or will not work.
• When employees feel included in the process, they are more likely to feel like they had a choice in what and how things change.

"To enlist employees, leadership has to be willing to let things get somewhat messy, through intensive, authentic engagement and the involvement of employees in making the transformation work."

– Michael D. Watkins & Janet Spencer, “10 Reasons Why Organizational Change Fails.”

Empowering employees as change agents

Recommended action steps:

• Do not tell employees what benefits they will gain from this new change. Instead, ask them what benefits they anticipate.
• Ask employees what challenges they anticipate, and identify actions that can be taken to minimize those challenges.
• Identify who the social influencers are in the organization by completing an influencer map. The informal social networks in your organization can be powerful drivers of change when the right individuals are brought onboard.
• Create a change network using those influencers. The change network includes individuals who represent all levels within the organization and can represent the employee perspective. Use them to help communicate the change and identify opportunities to increase the success of adoption: “Engaging influencers in change programs makes them 3.8 times more likely to succeed," (McKinsey & Company, 2020).
• Ask members of the change network to identify possible resistors of the new IT structure and inform you of why they might be resisting the changes.

Info-Tech Insight

Despite the persistent misconceptions, including employees in the process of a redesign reduces uncertainty and rumors.

Monitor employee engagement & adoption throughout the redesign

Only 22% of organizations include the employee experience as a part of the design process

– The Josh Bersin Company, 2022.

Employee Pulse Survey

Conduct mindful and frequent check-ins with employees

Process to conduct survey:

1. Using your desired survey solution (e.g. MS Forms, SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics) input the questions into the survey and send to staff. A template of the survey in MS Forms is available here: IT Organizational Redesign Pulse Survey Template.
2. When sending to staff, ensure that the survey is anonymous and reinforce this message.
3. Leverage the responses from the survey to learn where there might be opportunities to improve the transformation experience (aligning the structure to the vision, employee inclusion, communication, or managerial support for the change). Review the recommended action steps in this research set for help.
4. This assessment is intended for frequent but purposeful use. Only send out the survey when you have taken actions in order to improve adoption of the change or have provided communications. The Employee Pulse Survey should be reevaluated on a regular basis until adoption across all four categories reaches the desired state (80-100% adoption is recommended).

Define Key Metrics of Adoption & Success

Metrics have a dual benefit of measuring successful implementation and meeting the original drivers.

Measuring the implementation is a two-pronged approach

Both employee adoption and the transformation of the IT structure need to be measured during implementation

• Organizations that are going through any sort of transformation – such as organizational redesign – should be measuring whether they are successfully on track to meet their target or have already met that goal.
• Throughout the organizational structure transition, a major factor that will impact the success of that goal is employee willingness to move forward with the changes.
• However, rather than measuring these two components using hard data, we rely on gut checks that let us know if we think we are on track to gaining adoption and operating in the desired future state.
• Given how fluid employees and their responses to change can be, conducting a pulse survey at a regular (but strategically identified) interval will provide insight into where the changes will be adopted or resisted.

“Think about intentionally measuring at the moments in the change storyline where feedback will allow leaders to make strategic decisions and interventions.”

– Bradley Wilson, “Employee Survey Questions: The Ultimate Guide.”

Report that the organizational redesign for IT was a success

Recommended action steps:

• Create clear metrics related to how you will measure the success of the organizational redesign, and communicate those metrics to people. Ensure the metrics are not contrary to the goals of other initiatives or team outcomes.
• Create one set of metrics related to adoption and another set of metrics tied to the successful completion of the project objective.
  • Are people changing their attitudes and behaviors to reflect the required outcome?
  • Are you meeting the desired outcome of the organizational redesign?
• Use the metrics to inform how you move forward. Do not attempt the next phase of the organizational transformation before employees have clearly indicated a solid understanding of the changes.
• Ensure that any metrics used to measure success will not negatively interfere with another team’s progress. The metrics of the group need to work together, not against each other.

Info-Tech Insight

Getting 100% adoption from employees is unlikely. However, if employee adoption is not sitting in the 80-90% range, it is not recommended that you move forward with the next phase of the transformation.

Example sustainment metrics

Change Management ≠ Project Management

Stop treating the two interchangeably.

IT organizations struggle to mature their OCM capabilities

Because frankly they didn’t need it

• Change management is all about people.
• If the success of your organization is dependent on this IT restructuring, it is important to invest the time to do it right.
• This means it should not be something done off the side of someone's desk.
• Hire a change manager or look to roles that have a responsibility to deliver on organizational change management.
• While project success is often measured by if it was delivered on time, on budget, and in scope, change management is adaptable. It can move backward in the process to secure people's willingness to adopt the required behaviors.
• Strategic organizations recognize it’s not just about pushing an initiative or project forward. It’s about making sure that your employees are willing to move that initiative forward too.
• A major organizational transformation initiative like restructuring requires you lean into employee adoption and buy-in.

“Only if you have your employees in mind can you implement change effectively and sustainably.”

– Creaholic Pulse Feedback, “Change Management – And Why It Has to Change.”

Take the time to educate & communicate

Recommended action steps:

• Do not treat change management and project management as synonymous.
• Hire a change manager to support the organizational redesign transformation.
• Invest the resources (time, money, people) that can support the change and enable its success. This can look like:
  • Training and development.
  • Hiring the right people.
  • Requesting funds during the redesign process to support the transition.
• Create a change management plan – and be willing to adjust the timelines or actions of this plan based on the feedback you receive from employees.
• Implement the new organizational structure in a phased approach. This allows time to receive feedback and address any fears expressed by staff.

Info-Tech Insight

OCM is often not included or used due to a lack of understanding of how it differs from project management.

And an additional five experts across a variety of organizations who wish to remain anonymous.

Research Contributors and Experts

Info-Tech Research Group

Related Info-Tech Research

Bibliography

Aronowitz, Steven, et al. “Getting Organizational Design Right,” McKinsey, 2015. Web.
Ayers, Peg. “5 Ways to Engage Your Front-Line Staff.” Taylor Reach Group, 2019. Web.
Bushard, Brian, and Carlie Porterfield. “Meta Reportedly Scales Down, Again – Here Are the Major US Layoffs This Year.” Forbes, September 28, 2022. Web.
Caruci, Ron. “4 Organizational Design Issues that Most Leaders Misdiagnose.” Harvard Business Review, 2019.
“Change Management – And Why It Has to Change.” Creaholic Pulse Feedback. Web.
“Communication Checklist for Achieving Change Management.” Prosci, 27 Oct. 2022. Web.
“Defining Change Impact.” Prosci. 29 May 2019. Web.
“The Definitive Guide To Organization Design.” The Josh Bersin Company, 2022.
Deshler, Reed. “Five Reasons Organizational Redesigns Fail to Deliver.” AlignOrg. 28 Jan. 2020. Web.
The Fit for Growth Mini Book. PwC, 12 Jan. 2017.
Helfand, Heidi. Dynamic Reteaming: The Art and Wisdom of Changing Teams. 2nd ed., O’Reilly Media, 2020.
Jackson, Courtney. “7 Reasons Why Organizational Structures Fail.” Scott Madden Consultants. Web.
Livijn, Marianne. Managing Organizational Redesign: How Organizations Relate Macro and Micro Design. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Management, Aarhus University, 2020.
Lutke, Tobias. “Changes to Shopify’s Team.” Shopify. 26 July 2022.
McKinsey & Company. “How Do We Manage the Change Journey?” McKinsey & Company.2020.
Pijnacker, Lieke. “HR Analytics: Role Clarity Impacts Performance.” Effectory, 29 Sept. 2019. Web.
Tompkins, Teri C., and Bruce G. Barkis. “Conspiracies in the Workplace: Symptoms and Remedies.” Graziadio Business Review, vol. 21, no. 1, 2021.Web.
“Understanding Organizational Structures.” SHRM,2022.
Watkins, Michael D., and Janet Spencer. “10 Reasons Why Organizational Change Fails.” I by IMD, 10 March 2021. Web.
Wilson, Bradley. “Employee Survey Questions: The Ultimate Guide.” Perceptyx, 1 July 2020. Web.

AI Governance

A Framework for Building Responsible, Ethical, Fair, and Transparent AI

Are you ready for AI?

Business leaders must manage the associated risks as they scale their use of AI

Regulations and risk assessment tools

Governments around the world are developing AI assessment methodologies and legislation for AI. Here are a couple of examples:

• Responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) guiding principles (Canada):
  1. understand and measure the impact of using AI by developing and sharing tools and approaches
  2. be transparent about how and when we are using AI, starting with a clear user need and public benefit
  3. provide meaningful explanations about AI decision-making, while also offering opportunities to review results and challenge these decisions
  4. be as open as we can by sharing source code, training data, and other relevant information, all while protecting personal information, system integration, and national security and defense
  5. provide sufficient training so that government employees developing and using AI solutions have the responsible design, function, and implementation skills needed to make AI-based public services better
• The Algorithmic Impact Assessment tool (Canada) is used to determine the impact level of an automated decision-system. It defines 48 risk and 33 mitigation questions. Assessment scores consider factors such as systems design, algorithm, decision type, impact, and data.
• The National AI Initiative Act of 2020 (DIVISION E, SEC. 5001) (US) became law on January 1, 2021. This is a program across the entire Federal government to accelerate AI research and application.
• Bill C-27, Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) (Canada), when passed, would be the first law in Canada regulating the use of artificial intelligence systems.
• The EU Artificial Intelligence Act (EU) assigns applications of AI to three risk categories: applications and systems that create an unacceptable risk, such as government-run social scoring; high-risk applications, such as a CV-scanning tool that ranks job applicants; and lastly, applications not explicitly listed as high-risk.
• The FEAT Principles Assessment Methodology was created by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in collaboration with other 27 industry partners for financial institutions to promote fairness, ethics, accountability, and transparency (FEAT) in the use of artificial intelligence and data analytics (AIDA).

AI policies around the world

Source of data: OECD.AI (2021), powered by EC/OECD (2021), database of national AI policies, accessed on 7/09/2022, https://oecd.ai.

The need for AI governance

“To adopt AI, organizations will need to review and enhance their processes and governance frameworks to address new and evolving risks.” (Canadian RegTech Association, Safeguarding AI Use Through Human-Centric Design, 2020)

To ensure responsible, transparent, and ethical AI systems, organizations will need to review existing risk control frameworks and update them to include AI risk management and impact assessment frameworks and processes. As ML and AI technologies are constantly evolving, the AI governance and AI risk management frameworks will need to evolve to ensure the appropriate safeguards and controls are in place. This applies not only to the machine learning models and AI system custom built by the organization’s data science and AI team, but it also includes AI-powered vendor tools and technologies. The vendors should be able to explain how AI is used in their products, how the model was trained, and what data was used to train the model. AI governance enables management, monitoring, and control of all AI activities within an organization.

Key concepts

Info-Tech Research Group defines the key terms used in this document as follows:

Machine learning systems learn from experience and without explicit instructions. They learn patterns from data, then analyze and make predictions based on past behavior and the patterns learned.

Artificial intelligence is a combination of technologies and can include machine learning. AI systems perform tasks that mimic human intelligence, such as learning from experience and problem solving. Most importantly, AI makes its own decisions without human intervention.

We use the definition of data ethics by Open Data Institute: “Data ethics is a branch of ethics that considers the impact of data practices on people, society and the environment. The purpose of data ethics is to guide the values and conduct of data practitioners in data collection, sharing and use.”

Algorithmic or machine bias is systematic and repeatable errors in a computer system that create unfair outcomes, such as privileging one arbitrary group of users over others. Algorithmic bias is not a technical problem. It’s a social and political problem, and in the context of implementing AI for business benefits, it’s a business problem.

Download the blueprint Mitigate Machine Bias blueprint for detailed discussion on bias, fairness, and transparency in AI systems

Key concepts – explainable, transparent and trustworthy

AI Governance Framework

Monitoring Monitoring compliance and risk of AI/ML systems/models in production Tools & Technologies Tools and technologies to support AI governance framework implementation Model Governance Ensures accountability and traceability for AI/ML models

Organization Structure, roles, and responsibilities of the AI governance organization Operating Model How AI governance operates and works with other organizational structures to deliver value Risk and Compliance Alignment with corporate risk management and ensuring compliance with regulations and assessment frameworks Policies/Procedures/ Standards Policies and procedures to support implementation of AI governance

Implement a New IT Organizational Structure

Prioritize quick wins and critical services during IT org changes.

This blueprint is part 3/3 in Info-Tech’s organizational design program and focuses on implementing a new structure

Monitor and Sustain Stakeholder Engagement →

The sections highlighted in green are in scope for this blueprint. Click here for more information on designing or on structuring a new organization.

Our understanding of the problem

This Research is Designed For:

• CIOs

This Research Will Help You:

• Effectively implement a new organizational structure.
• Develop effective communications to minimize turnover and lost productivity during transition.
• Identify a detailed transition strategy to move to your new structure with minimal interruptions to service quality.
• Train managers to lead through change and measure ongoing employee engagement.

This Research Will Also Assist:

• IT Leaders

This Research Will Help Them:

• Effectively lead through the organizational change.
• Manage difficult conversations with staff and mitigate staff concerns and turnover.
• Build clear transition plans for their teams.

Executive summary

Situation

• Organizational Design (OD) projects are typically undertaken in order to enable organizational priorities, improve IT performance, or to reduce IT costs. However, due to the highly disruptive nature of the change, only 25% of changes achieve their objectives over the long term. (2013 Towers Watson Change and Communication ROI Survey)

Complication

• OD implementations can be highly disruptive for IT staff and business partners. Without a structured approach, IT leaders may experience high turnover, decreased productivity, and resistance to the change.
• CIOs walk a tightrope as they manage the operational and emotional turbulence while aiming to improve business satisfaction within IT. Failure to achieve balance could result in irreparable failure.

Resolution

• Leverage Info-Tech’s organizational design implementation process and deliverables to build and implement a detailed transition strategy and to prepare managers to lead through change. Follow Info-Tech’s 5-step process to:
  1. Effect change and sustain productivity through real-time employee engagement monitoring.
  2. Kick off the organizational design implementation with effective communication.
  3. Build an integrated departmental transition strategy.
  4. Train managers to effectively lead through change.
  5. Develop personalized transition plans.

Info-Tech Insight

1. Mismanagement will hurt you. The majority of IT organizations do not manage OD implementations effectively, resulting in decreased satisfaction, productivity loss, and increased IT costs.
2. Preventing mismanagement is within your control. 72% of change management issues can be directly improved by managers. (Abilla, 2009) IT leaders have a tendency to focus their efforts on operational changes rather than on people. This is a recipe for failure.

Organizational Design Implementation

Managing organizational design (OD) changes effectively is critical to maintaining IT service levels and retaining top talent throughout a restructure. Nevertheless, many organizations fail to invest appropriate consideration and resources into effective OD change planning and execution.

THREE REASONS WHY CIOS NEED TO EFFECTIVELY MANAGE CHANGE:

1. Failure is the norm; not the exception. According to a study by Towers Watson, only 55% of organizations experience the initial value of a change. Even fewer organizations, a mere 25%, are actually able to sustain change over time to experience the full expected benefits. (2013 Towers Watson Change and Communication ROI Survey)
2. People are the biggest cause of failure. Organizational design changes are one of the most difficult types of changes to manage as staff are often highly resistant. This leads to decreased productivity and poor results. The most significant people challenge is the loss of momentum through the change process which needs to be actively managed.
3. Failure costs money. Poor IT OD implementations can result in increased turnover, lost productivity, and decreased satisfaction from the business. Managing the implementation has a clear ROI as the cost of voluntary turnover is estimated to be 150% of an employee’s annual salary. (Inc)

86% of IT leaders believe organization and leadership processes are critical, yet the majority struggle to be effective

PERCENTAGE OF IT LEADERS WHO BELIEVE THEIR ORGANIZATION AND LEADERSHIP PROCESSES ARE HIGHLY IMPORTANT AND HIGHLY EFFECTIVE

GAP BETWEEN IMPORTANCE AND EFFECTIVENESS

Human Resources Management - 61%

Leadership, Culture, Values - 48%

Organizational Change Management - 55%

Organizational Design - 45%

Note: Importance and effectiveness were determined by identifying the percentage of individuals who responded with 8-10/10 to the questions…

• “How important is this process to the organization’s ability to achieve business and IT goals?” and…
• “How effective is this process at helping the organization to achieve business and IT goals?”

Source: Info-Tech Research Group, Management and Governance Diagnostic. N=22,800 IT Professionals

Follow a structured approach to your OD implementation to improve stakeholder satisfaction with IT and minimize risk

• IT reorganizations are typically undertaken to enable strategic goals, improve efficiency and performance, or because of significant changes to the IT budget. Without a structured approach to manage the organizational change, IT might get the implementation done, but fail to achieve the intended benefits, i.e. the operation succeeds, but the patient has died on the table.
• When implementing your new organizational design, it’s critical to follow a structured approach to ensure that you can maintain IT service levels and performance and achieve the intended benefits.
• The impact of organizational structure changes can be emotional and stressful for staff. As such, in order to limit voluntary turnover, and to maintain productivity and performance, IT leaders need to be strategic about how they communicate and respond to resistance to change.

TOP 3 BENEFITS OF FOLLOWING A STRUCTURED APPROACH TO IMPLEMENTING ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN

1. Improved stakeholder satisfaction with IT. A detailed change strategy will allow you to successfully transition staff into new roles with limited service interruptions and with improved stakeholder satisfaction.
2. Experience minimal voluntary turnover throughout the change. Know how to actively engage and minimize resistance of stakeholders throughout the change.
3. Execute implementation on time and on budget. Effectively managed implementations are 65–80% more likely to meet initial objectives than those with poor organizational change management. (Boxley Group, LLC)

Optimize your organizational design implementation results by actively preparing managers to lead through change

IT leaders have a tendency to make change even more difficult by focusing on operations rather than on people. This is a recipe for failure. People pose the greatest risk to effective implementation and as such, IT managers need to be prepared and trained on how to lead their staff through the change. This includes knowing how to identify and manage resistance, communicating the change, and maintaining positive momentum with staff.

Staff resistance and momentum are the most challenging part of leading through change (McLean & Company, N=196)

Reasons why change fails: 72% of failures can be directly improved by the manager (shmula)

Leverage organizational change management (OCM) best practices for increased OD implementation success

Effective change management correlates with project success

Source: Prosci. From Prosci’s 2012 Best Practices in Change Management benchmarking report.

95% of projects with excellent change management met or EXCEEDED OBJECTIVES, vs. 15% of those with poor OCM. (Prosci)

143% ROI on projects with excellent OCM. In other words, for every dollar spent on the project, the company GAINS 43 CENTS. This is in contrast to 35% ROI on projects with poor OCM. (McKinsey)

Info-Tech’s approach to OD implementation is a practical and tactical adaptation of several successful OCM models

BUSINESS STRATEGY-ORIENTED OCM MODELS. John Kotter’s 8-Step model, for instance, provides a strong framework for transformational change but doesn’t specifically take into account the unique needs of an IT transformation.

GENERAL-PURPOSE OCM FRAMEWORKS such as ACMP’s Standard for Change Management, CMI’s CMBoK, and Prosci’s ADKAR model are very comprehensive and need to be configured to organizational design implementation-specific initiatives.

COBIT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE BAI05: MANAGE ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE ENABLEMENT follows a structured process for implementing enterprise change quickly. This framework can be adapted to OD implementation; however, it is most effective when augmented with the people and management training elements present in other frameworks.

References and Further Reading

• ADKAR (Prosci)
• CMBoK (CMI)
• COBIT 5
• Kotter’s 8 Principles
• Managing Transitions
• Kubler-Ross Curve
• The Classic Change Curve Standard for Change Management (ACMP)

Tailoring a comprehensive, general-purpose OCM framework to an OD implementation requires familiarity and experience. Info-Tech’s OD implementation model adapts the best practices from a wide range of proven OCM models and distills it into a step-by-step process that can be applied to an organizational design transformation.

The following OD implementation symptoms can be avoided through structured planning

IN PREVIOUS ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES, I’VE EXPERIENCED…

“Difficultly motivating my staff to change.”

“Higher than average voluntary turnover during and following the implementation.”

“An overall sense of staff frustration or decreased employee engagement.”

“Decreased staff productivity and an inability to meet SLAs.”

“Increased overtime caused by being asked to do two jobs at once.”

“Confusion about the reporting structure during the change.”

“Difficulty keeping up with the rate of change and change fatigue from staff.”

“Business partner dissatisfaction about the change and complaints about the lack of effort or care put in by IT employees.”

“Business partners not wanting to adjust to the change and continuing to follow outdated processes.”

“Decrease in stakeholder satisfaction with IT.”

“Increased prevalence of shadow IT during or following the change.”

“Staff members vocally complaining about the IT organization and leadership team.”

Follow this blueprint to develop and execute on your OD implementation

IT leaders often lack the experience and time to effectively execute on organizational changes. Info-Tech’s organizational design implementation program will provide you with the needed tools, templates, and deliverables. Use these insights to drive action plans and initiatives for improvement.

How we can help

• Measure the ongoing engagement of your employees using Info-Tech’s MLI diagnostic. The diagnostic comes complete with easily customizable reports to track and act on employee engagement throughout the life of the change.
• Use Info-Tech’s customizable project management tools to identify all of the critical changes, their impact on stakeholders, and mitigate potential implementation risks.
• Develop an in-depth action plan and transition plans for individual stakeholders to ensure that productivity remains high and that service levels and project expectations are met.
• Align communication with real-time staff engagement data to keep stakeholders motivated and focused throughout the change.
• Use Info-Tech’s detailed facilitation guide to train managers on how to effectively communicate the change, manage difficult stakeholders, and help ensure a smooth transition.

Leverage Info-Tech’s customizable deliverables to execute your organizational design implementation

CUSTOMIZABLE PROJECT DELIVERABLES

1. BUILD A CHANGE COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

• McLean Leadership Index: Real-Time Employee Engagement Dashboard
• Organizational Design
• Implementation Kick-Off Presentation
• Organizational Design Implementation FAQ

2. BUILD THE ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSITION PLAN

• Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool

3.1 TRAIN MANAGERS TO LEAD THROUGH CHANGE

3.2 TRANSITION STAFF TO NEW ROLES

• Organizational Design Implementation Manager Training Guide
• Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template

Leverage Info-Tech’s tools and templates to overcome key engagement program implementation challenges

KEY SECTION INSIGHTS:

BUILD A CHANGE COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

Effective organizational design implementations mitigate the risk of turnover and lost productivity through ongoing monitoring and managing of employee engagement levels. Take a data-driven approach to managing engagement with Info-Tech’s real-time MLI engagement dashboard and adjust your communication and implementation strategy before engagement risks become issues.

BUILD THE ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSITION PLAN

Your organizational design implementation is made up of a series of projects and needs to be integrated into your larger project schedule. Too often, organizations attempt to fit the organizational design implementation into their existing schedules which results in poor resource planning, long delays in implementation, and overall poor results.

LEAD STAFF THROUGH THE REORGANIZATION

The majority of IT managers were promoted because they excelled at the technical aspect of their job rather than in people management. Not providing training is setting your organization up for failure. Train managers to effectively lead through change to see a 72% decrease in change management issues. (Abilla, 2009)

METRICS:

1. Voluntary turnover: Conduct an exit interview with all staff members during and after transition. Identify any staff members who cite the change as a reason for departure. For those who do leave, multiply their salary by 1.5% (the cost of a new hire) and track this over time.
2. Business satisfaction trends: Conduct CIO Business Vision one year prior to the change vs. one year after change kick-off. Prior to the reorganization, set metrics for each category for six months after the reorganization, and one year following.
3. Saved development costs: Number of hours to develop internal methodology, tools, templates, and process multiplied by the salary of the individual.

Use this blueprint to save 1–3 months in implementing your new organizational structure

These estimates are based on reviews with Info-Tech clients and our experience creating the blueprint.

Totals:

Workshop: 1 week

GI/DIY: 2-6 weeks

Time and Effort Saved: 8-17 weeks

CIO uses holistic organizational change management strategies to overcome previous reorganization failures

CASE STUDY

Industry: Manufacturing

Source: Client interview

Problem

When the CIO of a large manufacturing company decided to undertake a major reorganization project, he was confronted with the stigma of a previous CIO’s attempt. Senior management at the company were wary of the reorganization since the previous attempt had failed and cost a lot of money. There was major turnover since staff were not happy with their new roles costing $250,000 for new hires. The IT department saw a decline in their satisfaction scores and a 10% increase in help desk tickets. The reorganization also cost the department $400,000 in project rework.

Solution

The new CIO used organizational change management strategies in order to thoroughly plan the implementation of the new organizational structure. The changes were communicated to staff in order to improve adoption, every element of the change was mapped out, and the managers were trained to lead their staff through the change.

Results

The reorganization was successful and eagerly adopted by the staff. There was no turnover after the new organizational structure was implemented and the engagement levels of the staff remained the same.

$250,000 - Cost of new hires and salary changes

10% - Increase in help desk tickets

$400,000 - Cost of project delays due to the poorly effective implementation of changes

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

Guided Implementation

“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

Workshop

“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

Consulting

“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Implement a New Organizational Structure

Workshop overview

Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

Phase 1

Build a Change Communication Strategy

Build a change communication strategy

Outcomes of this Section:

• Launch the McLean Leadership Index
• Define your change team
• Build your reorganization kick-off presentation and FAQ for staff and business stakeholders

This section involves the following participants:

• CIO
• IT leadership team
• IT staff

Key Section Insight:

Effective organizational design implementations mitigate the risk of turnover and lost productivity through ongoing monitoring of employee engagement levels. Take a data-driven approach to managing engagement with Info-Tech’s real-time MLI engagement dashboard and adjust your communication and implementation strategy in real-time before engagement risks become issues.

Phase 1 outline

Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

Guided Implementation 1: Build a Change Communication Strategy

Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1-6 weeks

Step 1.1: Launch Your McLean Leadership Index Survey

Start with an analyst kick off call:

• Discuss the benefits and uses of the MLI.
• Go over the required information (demographics, permissions, etc.).
• Set up a live demo of the survey.

Then complete these activities…

• Launch the survey with your staff.
• Have a results call with a member of the Info-Tech staff.

With these tools & templates:

McLean Leadership Index

Step 1.2: Establish Your Implementation Team

Review findings with analyst:

• Review what members of your department should participate.
• Build a RACI to determine the roles of your team members.

Then complete these activities…

• Hold a kick-off meeting with your new implementation team.
• Build the RACI for your new team members and their roles.

Step 1.3: Build Your Change Communication Strategy

Finalize phase deliverable:

• Customize your reorganization kick-off presentation.
• Create your change vision. Review the communication strategy.

Then complete these activities…

• Hold your kick-off presentation with staff members.
• Launch the reorganization communications.

With these tools & templates:

• Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation
• Organizational Design Implementation FAQ

Set the stage for the organizational design implementation by effectively introducing and communicating the change to staff

Persuading people to change requires a “soft,” empathetic approach to keep them motivated and engaged. But don’t mistake “soft” for easy. Managing the people and communication aspects around the change are amongst the toughest work there is, and require a comfort and competency with uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflict.

Communication and engagement are the chains linking your design to transition. If the organizational design initiative is going to be successful it is critical that you manage this effectively. The earlier you begin planning the better. The more open and honest you are about the change the easier it will be to maintain engagement levels, business satisfaction, and overall IT productivity.

Kick-Off Presentation Inputs

• LAUNCH THE MCLEAN LEADERSHIP INDEX
• IDENTIFY YOUR CHANGE TEAM
• DETERMINE CHANGE TEAM RESPONSIBILITIES
• DEVELOP THE CHANGE VISION
• DEFINE KEY MESSAGES AND GOALS
• IDENTIFY MAJOR CHANGES
• IDENTIFY KEY MILESTONES
• BUILD AND MAINTAIN A CHANGE FAQ

Use the MLI engagement dashboard to measure your current state and the impact of the change in real-time

The McLean Leadership Index diagnostic is a low-effort, high-impact program that provides real-time metrics on staff engagement levels. Use these insights to understand your employees’ engagement levels throughout the organizational design implementation to measure the impact of the change and to manage turnover and productivity levels throughout the implementation.

WHY CARE ABOUT ENGAGEMENT DURING THE CHANGE? ENGAGED EMPLOYEES REPORT:

39% Higher intention to stay at the organization.

29% Higher performance and increased likelihood to work harder and longer hours. (Source: McLean and Company N=1,308 IT Employees)

Why the McLean Leadership Index?

Based on the Net Promoter Score (NPS), the McLean Leadership Index is one question asked monthly to assess engagement at various points in time.

Individuals responding to the MLI question with a 9 or 10 are your Promoters and are most positive and passionate. Those who answer 7 or 8 are Passives while those who answer 0 to 6 are Detractors.

Track your engagement distribution using our online dashboard to view MLI data at any time and view results based on teams, locations, manager, tenure, age, and gender. Assess the reactions to events and changes in real-time, analyze trends over time, and course-correct.

Dashboard reports: Know your staff’s overall engagement and top priorities

McLean Leadership Index

OVERALL ENGAGEMENT RESULTS

You get:

• A clear breakdown of your detractors, passives, and promotors.
• To view results by team, location, and individual manager.
• To dig deeper into results by reviewing results by age, gender, and tenure at the organization to effectively identify areas where engagement is weak.

TIME SERIES TRENDS

You get:

• View of changes in engagement levels for each team, location, and manager.
• Breakdown of trends weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly.
• To encourage leaders to monitor results to analyze root causes for changes and generate improvement initiatives.

QUALITATIVE COMMENTS

You get:

• To view qualitative comments provided by staff on what is impacting their engagement.
• To reply directly to comments without impacting the anonymity of the individuals making the comments.
• To leverage trends in the comments to make changes to communication approaches.

Launch the McLean Leadership Index in under three weeks

Info-Tech’s dedicated team of program managers will facilitate this diagnostic program remotely, providing you with a convenient, low-effort, high-impact experience.

We will guide you through the process with your goals in mind to deliver deep insight into your successes and areas to improve.

What You Need To Do:

1. Contact Info-Tech to launch the program and test the functionality in a live demo.
2. Identify demographics and set access permissions.
3. Complete manager training with assistance from Info-Tech Advisors.
4. Participate in a results call with an Info-Tech Advisor to review results and develop an action plan.

Info-Tech’s Program Manager Will:

1. Collect necessary inputs and generate your custom dashboard.
2. Launch, maintain, and support the online system in the field.
3. Send out a survey to 25% of the staff each week.
4. Provide ongoing support over the phone, and the needed tools and templates to communicate and train staff as well as take action on results.

Explore your initial results in a one-hour call with an Executive Advisor to fully understand the results and draw insights from the data so you can start your action plan.

Start Your Diagnostic Now

We'll help you get set up as soon as you're ready.

Start Now

Communication has a direct impact on employee engagement; measure communication quality using your MLI results

(McLean & Company, 2015 N=17,921)

A clear relationship exists between how effective a manager’s communication is perceived to be and an employee’s level of engagement. If engagement drops, circle back with employees to understand the root causes.

Establish an effective implementation team to drive the organizational change

The implementation team is responsible for developing and disseminating information around the change, developing the transition strategy, and for the ongoing management of the changes.

The members of the implementation team should include:

• CIO
• Current IT leadership team
• Project manager
• Business relationship managers
• Human resources advisor

Don’t be naïve – building and executing the implementation plan will require a significant time commitment from team members. Too often, organizations attempt to “fit it in” to their existing schedules resulting in poor planning, long delays, and overall poor results. Schedule this work like you would a project.

TOP 3 TIPS FOR DEFINING YOUR IMPLEMENTATION TEAM

1. Select a Project Manager. Info-Tech strongly recommends having one individual accountable for key project management activities. They will be responsible for keeping the project on time and maintaining a holistic view of the implementation.
2. Communication with Business Partners is Critical. If you have Business Relationship Managers (BRMs), involve them in the communication planning or assign someone to play this role. You need your business partners to be informed and bought in to the implementation to maintain satisfaction.
3. Enlist Your “Volunteer Army.” (Kotter’s 8 Principles) If you have an open culture, Info-Tech encourages you to have an extended implementation team made up of volunteers interested in supporting the change. Their role will be to support the core group, assist in planning, and communicate progress with peers.

Determine the roles of your implementation team members

1.1 30 Minutes

Input

• Implementation team members

Output

• RACI for key transition elements

Materials

• RACI chart and pen

Participants

• Core implementation committee

1. Each member should be actively engaged in all elements of the organizational design implementation. However, it’s important to have one individual who is accountable for key activities and ensures they are done effectively and measured.
2. Review the chart below and as a group, brainstorm any additional key change components.
3. For each component listed below, identify who is Accountable, Responsible, Consulted, and Informed for each (suggested responsibility below).

Fast-track your communication planning with Info-Tech’s Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation

Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation

Communicate what’s important to your staff in a simple, digestible way. The communication message should reflect what is important to your stakeholders and what they want to know at the time.

• Why is this change happening?
• What are the goals of the reorganization?
• What specifically is changing?
• How will this impact me?
• When is this changing?
• How and where can I get more information?

It’s important that the tone of the meeting suits the circumstances.

• If the reorganization is going to involve lay-offs: The meeting should maintain a positive feel, but your key messages should stress the services that will be available to staff, when and how people will be communicated with about the change, and who staff can go to with concerns.
• If the reorganization is to enable growth: Focus on celebrating where the organization is going, previous successes, and stress that the staff are critical in enabling team success.

Modify the Organizational Design ImplementationKick-Off Presentation with your key messages and goals

1.2 1 hour

Input

• New organizational structure

Output

• Organizational design goal statements

Materials

• Whiteboard & marker
• ODI Kick-off Presentation

Participants

• OD implementation team

1. Within your change implementation team, hold a meeting to identify and document the change goals and key messages.
2. As a group, discuss what the key drivers were for the organizational redesign by asking yourselves what problem you were trying to solve.
3. Select 3–5 key problem statements and document them on a whiteboard.
4. For each problem statement, identify how the new organizational design will allow you to solve those problems.
5. Document these in your Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation.

Modify the presentation with your unique change vision to serve as the center piece of your communication strategy

1.3 1 hour

Input

• Goal statements

Output

• Change vision statement

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Pens
• Voting dots

Participants

• Change team

1. Hold a meeting with the change implementation team to define your change vision. The change vision should provide a picture of what the organization will look like after the organizational design is implemented. It should represent the aspirational goal, and be something that staff can all rally behind.
2. Hand out sticky notes and ask each member to write down on one note what they believe is the #1 desired outcome from the organizational change and one thing that they are hoping to avoid (you may wish to use your goal statements to drive this).
3. As a group, review each of the sticky notes and group similar statements in categories. Provide each individual with 3 voting dots and ask them to select their three favorite statements.
4. Select your winning statements in teams of 2–3. Review each statement and as a team work to strengthen the language to ensure that the statement provides a call to action, that it is short and to the point, and motivational.
5. Present the statements back to the group and select the best option through a consensus vote.
6. Document the change vision in your Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation.

Customize the presentation identifying key changes that will be occurring

1.4 2 hours

Input

• Old and new organizational sketch

Output

• Identified key changes that are occurring

Materials

• Whiteboard
• Sticky notes & Pens
• Camera

Participants

• OD implementation team

1. On a whiteboard, draw a high-level picture of your previous organizational sketch and your new organizational sketch.
2. Using sticky notes, ask individuals to highlight key high-level challenges that exist in the current model (consider people, process, and technology).
3. Consider each sticky note, and highlight and document how and where your new sketch will overcome those challenges and the key differences between the old structure and the new.
4. Take a photo of the two sketches and comments, and document these in your Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation.

Modify the presentation by identifying and documenting key milestones

1.5 1 hour

Input

• OD implementation team calendars

Output

• OD implementation team timeline

Materials

• OD Implementation Kick-Off Presentation

Participants

• OD implementation team

1. Review the timeline in the Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation. As a group, discuss the key milestones identified in the presentation:
   • Kick-off presentation
   • Departmental transition strategy built
   • Organizational transition strategy built
   • Manager training
   • One-on-one meetings with staff to discuss changes to roles
   • Individual transition strategy development begins
2. Review the timeline, and keeping your other commitments in mind, estimate when each of these tasks will be completed and update the timeline.

Build an OD implementation FAQ to proactively address key questions and concerns about the change

Organizational Design Implementation FAQ

Leverage this template as a starting place for building an organizational design implementation FAQ.

This template is prepopulated with example questions and answers which are likely to arise.

Info-Tech encourages you to use the list of questions as a basis for your FAQ and to add additional questions based on the changes occurring at your organization.

It may also be a good idea to store the FAQ on a company intranet portal so that staff has access at all times and to provide users with a unique email address to forward questions to when they have them.

Build your unique organizational design implementation FAQ to keep staff informed throughout the change

1.6 1 hour + ongoing

Input

• OD implementation team calendars

Output

• OD implementation team timeline

Materials

• OD Implementation Kick-Off Presentation

Participants

• OD implementation team

1. Download a copy of the Organizational Design Implementation FAQ and as a group, review each of the key questions.
2. Delete any questions that are not relevant and add any additional questions you either believe you will receive or which you have already been asked.
3. Divide the questions among team members and have each member provide a response to these questions.
4. The CIO and the project manager should review the responses for accuracy and ensure they are ready to be shared with staff.
5. Publish the responses on an IT intranet site and make the location known to your IT staff.

Dispelling rumors by using a large implementation team

CASE STUDY

Industry: Manufacturing

Source: CIO

Challenge

When rumors of the impending reorganization reached staff, there was a lot of confusion and some of the more vocal detractors in the department enforced these rumors.

Staff were worried about changes to their jobs, demotions, and worst of all, losing their jobs. There was no communication from senior management to dispel the gossip and the line managers were also in the dark so they weren’t able to offer support.

Staff did not feel comfortable reaching out to senior management about the rumors and they didn’t know who the change manager was.

Solution

The CIO and change manager put together a large implementation team that included many of the managers in the department. This allowed the managers to handle the gossip through informal conversations with their staff.

The change manager also built a communication strategy to communicate the stages of the reorganization and used FAQs to address the more common questions.

Results

The reorganization was adopted very quickly since there was little confusion surrounding the changes with all staff members. Many of the personnel risks were mitigated by the communication strategy because it dispelled rumors and took some of the power away from the vocal detractors in the department.

An engagement survey was conducted 3 months after the reorganization and the results showed that the engagement of staff had not changed after the reorganization.

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

• To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
• Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
• Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

1a: Launch the MLI Dashboard (Pre-Work)

Prior to the workshop, Info-Tech’s advisors will work with you to launch the MLI diagnostic to understand the overall engagement levels of your organization.

1b: Review Your MLI Results

The analysts will facilitate several exercises to help you and your team identify your current engagement levels, and the variance across demographics and over time.

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

1.1: Define Your Change Team Responsibilities

Review the key responsibilities of the organizational design implementation team and define the RACI for each individual member.

1.3: Define Your Change Vision and Goals

Identify the change vision statement which will serve as the center piece for your change communications as well as the key message you want to deliver to your staff about the change. These messages should be clear, emotionally impactful, and inspirational.

1.4: Identify Key Changes Which Will Impact Staff

Collectively brainstorm all of the key changes that are happening as a result of the change, and prioritize the list based on the impact they will have on staff. Document the top 10 biggest changes – and the opportunities the change creates or problems it solves.

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

1.5: Define the High-Level Change Timeline

Identify and document the key milestones within the change as a group, and determine key dates and change owners for each of the key items. Determine the best way to discuss these timelines with staff, and whether there are any which you feel will have higher levels of resistance.

1.5: Build the FAQ and Prepare for Objection Handling

As a group, brainstorm the key questions you believe you will receive about the change and develop a common FAQ to provide to staff members. The advisor will assist you in preparing to manage objections to limit resistance.

Phase 2

Build The Organizational Transition Plan

Build the organizational transition plan

Outcomes of this section:

• A holistic list of projects that will enable the implementation of the organizational structure.
• A schedule to monitor the progress of your change projects.

This section involves the following participants:

• CIO
• Reorganization Implementation Team

Key Section Insight:

Be careful to understand the impacts of the change on all groups and departments. For best results, you will need representation from all departments to limit conflict and ensure a smooth transition. For large IT organizations, you will need to have a plan for each department/work unit and create a larger integration project.

Phase 2 outline

Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

Guided Implementation 2: Build the Organizational Transition Plan

Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 2-4 weeks

Step 2.1: Review the Change Dimensions and How They Are Used to Plan Change Projects

Start with an analyst kick off call:

• Review the purpose of the kick-off meeting.
• Review the change project dimensions.
• Review the Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool.

Then complete these activities…

• Conduct your kick-off meeting.
• Brainstorm a list of reorganization projects and their related tasks.

With these tools & templates:

• Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool

Step 2.2: Review the List of Change Projects

Review findings with analyst:

• Revisit the list of projects and tasks developed in the brainstorming session.
• Assess the list and determine resourcing and dependencies for the projects.
• Review the monitoring process.

Then complete these activities…

• Complete the Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool.
• Map out your project dependencies and resourcing.
• Develop a schedule for monitoring projects.

With these tools & templates:

• Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool

Use Info-Tech’s Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool to plan and track your reorganization

• Use Info-Tech’s Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool to document and track all of the changes that are occurring during your reorganization.
• Automatically build Gantt charts for all of the projects that are being undertaken, track problems in the issue log, and monitor the progress of projects in the reporting tab.
• Each department/work group will maintain its own version of this tool throughout the reorganization effort and the project manager will maintain a master copy with all of the projects listed.
• The chart comes pre-populated with example data gathered through the research and interview process to help generate ideas for your own reorganization.
• Review the instructions at the top of each work sheet for entering and modifying the data within each chart.

Have a short kick-off meeting to introduce the project planning process to your implementation team

2.1 30 minutes

Output

• Departmental ownership of planning tool

Materials

• OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

Participants

• Change Project Manager
• Implementation Team
• Senior Management (optional)

1. The purpose of this kick-off meeting is to assign ownership of the project planning process to members of the implementation team and to begin thinking about the portfolio of projects required to successfully complete the reorganization.
2. Use the email template included on this slide to invite your team members to the meeting.
3. The topics that need to be covered in the meeting are:
   • Introducing the materials/templates that will be used throughout the process.
   • Assigning ownership of the Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool to members of your team.
   • Ownership will be at the departmental level where each department or working group will manage their own change projects.
   • Prepare your implementation team for the next meeting where they will be brainstorming the list of projects that will need to be completed throughout the reorganization.
4. Distribute/email the tools and templates to the team so that they may familiarize themselves with the materials before the next meeting.

Hello [participant],

We will be holding our kickoff meeting for our reorganization on [date]. We will be discussing the reorganization process at a high level with special attention being payed to the tools and templates that we will be using throughout the process. By the end of the meeting, we will have assigned ownership of the Project Planning Tool to department representatives and we will have scheduled the next meeting where we’ll brainstorm our list of projects for the reorganization.

Consider Info-Tech’s four organizational change dimensions when identifying change projects

CHANGE DIMENSIONS

• TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS
• COMMUNICATION
• STAFFING
• PROCESS

Technology and Logistics

• These are all the projects that will impact the technology used and physical logistics of your workspace.
• These include new devices, access/permissions, new desks, etc.

Communication

• All of the required changes after the reorganization to ongoing communications within IT and to the rest of the organization.
• Also includes communication projects that are occurring during the reorganization.

Staffing

• These projects address the changes to your staff’s roles.
• Includes role changes, job description building, consulting with HR, etc.

Process

• Projects that address changes to IT processes that will occur after the reorganization.

Use these trigger questions to help identify all aspects of your coming changes

STAFFING

• Do you need to hire short or long-term staff to fill vacancies?
• How long does it typically take to hire a new employee?
• Will there be staff who are new to management positions?
• Is HR on board with the reorganization?
• Have they been consulted?
• Have transition plans been built for all staff members who are transitioning roles/duties?
• Will gaps in the structure need to be addressed with new hires?

COMMUNICATION

• When will the change be communicated to various members of the staff?
• Will there be disruption to services during the reorganization?
• Who, outside of IT, needs to know about the reorganization?
• Do external communications need to be adjusted because of the reorganization? Moving/centralizing service desk, BRMs, etc.?
• Are there plans/is there a desire to change the way IT communicates with the rest of the organization?
• Will the reorganization affect the culture of the department? Is the new structure compatible with the current culture?

Use these trigger questions to help identify all aspects of your coming changes (continued)

TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS

• Will employees require new devices in their new roles?
• Will employees be required to move their workspace?
• What changes to the workspace are required to facilitate the new organization?
• Does new furniture have to be purchased to accommodate new spaces/staff?
• Is the workspace adequate/up to date technologically (telephone network, Wi-Fi coverage, etc.)?
• Will employees require new permissions/access for their changing roles?
• Will permissions/access need to be removed?
• What is your budget for the reorganization?
• If a large geographical move is occurring, have problems regarding geography, language barriers, and cultural sensitivities been addressed?

PROCESS

• What processes need to be developed?
• What training for processes is required?
• Is the daily functioning of the IT department predicted to change?
• Are new processes being implemented during the reorganization?
• How will the project portfolio be affected by the reorganization?
• Is new documentation required to accompany new/changing processes?

Brainstorm the change projects to be carried out during the reorganization for your team/department

2.2 3 hours

Input

• Constructive group discussion

Output

• Thorough list of all reorganization projects

Materials

• Whiteboard, sticky notes
• OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

Participants

• Implementation Team
• CIO
• Senior Management

1. Before the meeting, distribute the list of trigger questions presented on the two previous slides to prepare your implementation team for the brainstorming session.
2. Begin the meeting by dividing up your implementation team into the departments/work groups that they represent (and have ownership of the tool over).
3. Distribute a different color of sticky notes to each team and have them write out each project they can think of for each of the change planning dimensions (Staffing, Communication, Process and Technology/Logistics) using the trigger questions.
4. After one hour, ask the groups to place the projects that they brainstormed onto the whiteboard divided into the four change dimensions.
5. Discuss the complete list of projects on the board.
   • Remove projects that are listed more than once since some projects will be universal to some/all departments.
   • Adjust the wording of projects for the sake of clarity.
   • Identify projects that are specific to certain departments.
6. Document the list of high-level projects on tab 2 “Project Lists” within the OD Implementation Project Planning Tool after the activity is complete.

Prioritize projects to assist with project planning modeling

Prioritization is the process of ranking each project based on its importance to implementation success. Hold a meeting for the implementation team and extended team to prioritize the project list. At the conclusion of the meeting, each requirement should be assigned a priority level. The implementation teams will use these priority levels to ensure efforts are targeted towards the proper projects. A simple way to do this for your implementation is to use the MoSCoW Model of Prioritization to effectively order requirements.

The MoSCoW Model of Prioritization

MUST HAVE - Projects must be implemented for the organizational design to be considered successful.

SHOULD HAVE - Projects are high priority that should be included in the implementation if possible.

COULD HAVE - Projects are desirable but not necessary and could be included if resources are available.

WON'T HAVE - Projects won’t be in the next release, but will be considered for the future releases.

The MoSCoW model was introduced by Dai Clegg of Oracle UK in 1994.

Keep the following criteria in mind as you determine your priorities

Effective Prioritization Criteria

Prioritize the change projects within your team/department to be executed during the reorganization

2.3 3 hours

Input

• Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool

Output

• Prioritized list of projects

Materials

• Whiteboard, sticky notes
• OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

Participants

• Implementation Team
• Extended Implementation Team

1. Divide the group into their department teams. Draw 4 columns on a whiteboard, including the following:
   • Must have
   • Should have
   • Could have
   • Won’t have
2. As a group, review each project and collaboratively identify which projects fall within each category. You should have a strong balance between each of the categories.
3. Beginning with the “must have” projects, determine if each has any dependencies. If any of the projects are dependent on another, add the dependency project to the “must have” category. Group and circle the dependent projects.
4. Continue the same exercise with the “should have” and “could have” options.
5. Record the results on tab “2. Project List” of the Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool using the drop down option.

Determine resource availability for completing your change projects

2.4 2 hours

Input

• Constructive group discussion

Output

• Thorough list of all reorganization projects

Materials

• Whiteboard, sticky notes
• OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

Participants

• Implementation Team
• CIO
• Senior Management

1. Divide the group into their department teams to plan the execution of the high-level list of projects developed in activity 2.2.
2. Review the list of high-level projects and starting with the “must do” projects, consider each in turn and brainstorm all of the tasks required to complete these projects. Write down each task on a sticky note and place it under the high-level project.
3. On the same sticky note as the task, estimate how much time would be required to complete each task. Be realistic about time frames since these projects will be on top of all of the regular day-to-day work.
4. Along with the time frame, document the resources that will be required and who will be responsible for the tasks. If you have a documented Project Portfolio, use this to determine resourcing.
5. After mapping out the tasks, bring the group back together to present their list of projects, tasks, and required resources.

• Go through the project task lists to make sure that nothing is missed.
• Review the timelines to make sure they are feasible.
• Review the resources to ensure that they are available and realistic based on constraints (time, current workload, etc.).
• Repeat the process for the Should do and Could do projects.

1. Document the tasks and resources in tab “3. Task Monitoring” in the OD Implementation Project Planning Tool after the activity is complete.

Map out the change project dependencies at the departmental level

2.5 2 hours

Input

• Constructive group discussion

Output

• Thorough list of all reorganization projects

Materials

• Whiteboard, sticky notes
• OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

Participants

• Implementation Team
• CIO
• Senior Management

1. Divide the group into their department teams to map the dependencies of their tasks created in activity 2.3.
2. Take the project task sticky notes created in the previous activity and lay them out along a timeline from start to finish.
3. Determine the dependencies of the tasks internal to the department. Map out the types of dependencies.
   • Finish to Start: Preceding task must be completed before the next can start.
   • Start to Start: Preceding task must start before the next task can start.
   • Finish to Finish: Predecessor must finish before successor can finish.
   • Start to Finish: Predecessor must start before successor can finish.
4. Bring the group back together and review each group’s timeline and dependencies to make sure that nothing has been missed.
5. As a group, determine whether there are dependencies that span the departmental lists of projects.
6. Document all of the dependencies within the department and between departmental lists of projects and tasks in the OD Implementation Project Planning Tool.

Amalgamate all of the departmental change planning tools into a master copy

2.6 3 hours

Input

• Department-specific copies of the OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

Output

• Universal list of all of the change projects

Materials

• Whiteboard and sticky notes

Participants

• Implementation Project Manager
• Members of the implementation team for support (optional)

1. Before starting the activity, gather all of the OD Implementation Project Planning Tools completed at the departmental level.
2. Review each completed tool and write all of the individual projects with their timelines on sticky notes and place them on the whiteboard.
3. Build timelines using the documented dependencies for each department. Verify that the resources (time, people, physical) are adequate and feasible.
4. Combine all of the departmental project planning tools into one master tool to be used to monitor the overall status of the reorganization. Separate the projects based on the departments they are specific to.
5. Finalize the timeline based on resource approval and using the dependencies mapped out in the previous exercise.
6. Approve the planning tools and store them in a shared drive so they can be accessed by the implementation team members.

Create a progress monitoring schedule

2.7 1 hour weekly

Input

• OD Implementation Project Planning Tools (departmental & organizational)

Output

• Actions to be taken before the next pulse meeting

Participants

• Implementation Project Manager
• Members of the implementation team for support
• Senior Management

1. Hold weekly pulse meetings to keep track of project progress.
2. The agenda of each meeting should include:
   • Resolutions to problems/complications raised at the previous week’s meeting.
   • Updates on each department’s progress.
   • Raising any issues/complications that have appeared that week.
   • A discussion of potential solutions to the issues/complications.
   • Validating the work that will be completed before the next meeting.
   • Raising any general questions or concerns that have been voiced by staff about the reorganization.
3. Upload notes from the meeting about resolutions and changes to the schedules to the shared drive containing the tools.
4. Increase the frequency of the meetings towards the end of the project if necessary.

Building a holistic change plan enables adoption of the new organizational structure

CASE STUDY

Industry: Manufacturing

Source: CIO

Challenge

The CIO was worried about the impending reorganization due to problems that they had run into during the last reorganization they had conducted. The change management projects were not planned well and they led to a lot of uncertainty before and after the implementation.

No one on the staff was ready for the reorganization. Change projects were completed four months after implementation since many of them had not been predicted and cataloged. This caused major disruptions to their user services leading to drops in user satisfaction.

Solution

Using their large and diverse implementation team, they spent a great deal of time during the early stages of planning devoted to brainstorming and documenting all of the potential change projects.

Through regular meetings, the implementation team was able to iteratively adjust the portfolio of change projects to fit changing needs.

Results

Despite having to undergo a major reorganization that involved centralizing their service desk in a different state, there were no disruptions to their user services.

Since all of the change projects were documented and completed, they were able to move their service desk staff over a weekend to a workspace that was already set up. There were no changes to the user satisfaction scores over the period of their reorganization.

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

• To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
• Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
• Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

2.2 Brainstorm Your List of Change Projects

Review your reorganization plans and facilitate a brainstorming session to identify a complete list of all of the projects needed to implement your new organizational design.

2.5 Map Out the Dependencies and Resources for Your Change Projects

Examine your complete list of change projects and determine the dependencies between all of your change projects. Align your project portfolio and resource levels to the projects in order to resource them adequately.

Phase 3

Lead Staff Through the Reorganization

Train managers to lead through change

Outcomes of this Section:

• Completed the workshop: Lead Staff Through Organizational Change
• Managers possess stakeholder engagement plans for each employee
• Managers are prepared to fulfil their roles in implementing the organizational change

This section involves the following participants:

• CIO
• IT leadership team
• IT staff

Key Section Insight:

The majority of IT managers were promoted because they excelled at the technical aspect of their job rather than in people management. Not providing training is setting your organization up for failure. Train managers to effectively lead through change to see a 72% decrease in change management issues. (Source: Abilla, 2009)

Phase 3 outline

Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

Guided Implementation 3: Train Managers to Lead Through Change

Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1-2 weeks

Step 3.1: Train Your Managers to Lead Through the Change

Start with an analyst kick off call:

• Go over the manager training workshop section of this deck.
• Review the deliverables generated from the workshop (stakeholder engagement plan and conflict style self-assessment).

Then complete these activities…

• Conduct the workshop with your managers.

With these tools & templates:

• Organizational Design Implementation Manager Training Guide
• Organizational Design Implementation Stakeholder Engagement Plan Template

Step 3.2: Debrief After the Workshop

Review findings with analyst:

• Discuss the outcomes of the manager training.
• Mention any feedback.
• High-level overview of the workshop deliverables.

Then complete these activities…

• Encourage participants to review and revise their stakeholder engagement plans.
• Review the Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template and next steps.

Get managers involved to address the majority of obstacles to successful change

Managers all well-positioned to translate how the organizational change will directly impact individuals on their teams.

Reasons Why Change Fails

EMPLOYEE RESISTANCE TO CHANGE - 39%

MANAGEMENT BEHAVIOR NOT SUPPORTIVE OF CHANGE - 33%

INADEQUATE RESOURCE OR BUDGET - 14%

OTHER OBSTACLES - 14%

72% of change management issues can be directly improved by management.

(Source: shmula)

Why are managers crucial to organizational change?

• Managers are extremely well-connected.
  • They have extensive horizontal and vertical networks spanning the organization.
  • Managers understand the informal networks of the organization.
• Managers are valuable communicators.
  • Managers have established strong relationships with employees.
  • Managers influence the way staff perceive messaging.

Conduct a workshop with managers to help them lead their teams through change

Organizational Design Implementation Manager Training Guide

Give managers the tools and skills to support their employees and carry out difficult conversations.

Understand the role of management in communicating the change

Understand reactions to change

Resolve conflict

Respond to FAQs

Monitor and measure employee engagement

Prepare managers to effectively execute their role in the organizational change by running a 2-hour training workshop.

Complete the activities on the following slides to:

• Plan and prepare for the workshop.
• Execute the group exercises.
• Help managers develop stakeholder engagement plans for each of their employees.
• Initiate the McLean Leadership Index™ survey to measure employee engagement.

Plan and prepare for the workshop

3.1 Plan and prepare for the workshop.

Output

• Workshop participants
• Completed workshop prep

Materials

• Organizational Design Implementation Manager Training Guide

Instructions

1. Create a list of all managers that will be responsible for leading their teams through the change.
2. Select a date for the workshop.
   • The training session will run approximately 2 hours and should be scheduled within a week of when the implementation plan is communicated organization-wide.
3. Review the material outlined in the presentation and prepare the Organizational Design Implementation Manager Training Guide for the workshop:
   • Copy and print the “Pre-workshop Facilitator Instructions” and “Facilitator Notes” located in the notes section below each slide.
   • Revise frequently asked questions (FAQs) and responses.
   • Delete instruction slides.

Invite managers to the workshop

Workshop Invitation Email Template

Make necessary modifications to the Workshop Invitation Email Template and send invitations to managers.

Hi ________,

As you are aware, we are starting to roll out some of the initiatives associated with our organizational change mandate. A key component of our implementation plan is to ensure that managers are well-prepared to lead their teams through the transition.

To help you proactively address the questions and concerns of your staff, and to ensure that the changes are implemented effectively, we will be conducting a workshop for managers on .

While the change team is tasked with most of the duties around planning, implementing, and communicating the change organization-wide, you and other managers are responsible for ensuring that your employees understand how the change will impact them specifically. The workshop will prepare you for your role in implementing the organizational changes in the coming weeks, and help you refine the skills and techniques necessary to engage in challenging conversations, resolve conflicts, and reduce uncertainty.

Please confirm your attendance for the workshop. We look forward to your participation.

Kind regards,

Change team

Prepare managers for the change by helping them build useful deliverables

ODI Stakeholder Engagement Plan Template & Conflict Style Self-Assessment

Help managers create useful deliverables that continue to provide value after the workshop is completed.

Workshop Deliverables

Organizational Design Implementation Stakeholder Engagement Plan Template

• Document the areas of change resistance, detachment, uncertainty, and support for each employee.
• Document strategies to overcome resistance, increase engagement, reduce uncertainty, and leverage their support.
• Create action items to execute after the workshop.

Conflict Style Self-Assessment

• Determine how you approach conflicts.
• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.
• Identify ways to adopt different conflict styles depending on the situation.

Book a follow-up meeting with managers and determine which strategies to Start, Stop, or Continue

3.2 1 hour

Output

• Stakeholder engagement templates

Materials

• Sticky notes
• Pen and paper

Participants

• Implementation Team
• Managers

1. Schedule a follow-up meeting 2–3 weeks after the workshop.
2. Facilitate an open conversation on approaches and strategies that have been used or could be used to:
   • Overcome resistance
   • Increase engagement
   • Reduce uncertainty
   • Leverage support
3. During the discussion, document ideas on the whiteboard.
4. Have participants vote on whether the approaches and strategies should be started, stopped, or continued.
   • Start: actions that the team would like to begin.
   • Stop: actions that the team would like to stop.
   • Continue: actions that work for the team and should proceed.
5. Encourage participants to review and revise their stakeholder engagement plans.

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

• To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
• Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
• Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

3.1 The Change Maze

Break the ice with an activity that illustrates the discomfort of unexpected change, and the value of timely and instructive communication.

3.2 Perform a Change Management Retrospective

Leverage the collective experience of the group. Share challenges and successes from previous organizational changes and apply those lessons to the current transition.

3.3 Create a Stakeholder Engagement Plan

Have managers identify areas of resistance, detachment, uncertainty, and support for each employee and share strategies for overcoming resistance and leveraging support to craft an action plan for each of their employees.

3.4 Conduct a Conflict Style Self-Assessment

Give participants an opportunity to better understand how they approach conflicts. Administer the Conflict Style Self-Assessment to identify conflict styles and jumpstart a conversation about how to effectively resolve conflicts.

Transition your staff to their new roles

Outcomes of this Section:

• Identified key responsibilities to transition
• Identified key relationships to be built
• Built staff individual transition plans and timing

This section involves the following participants:

• All IT staff members

Key Section Insight

In order to ensure a smooth transition, you need to identify the transition scheduled for each employee. Knowing when they will retire and assume responsibilities and aligning this with the organizational transition will be crucial.

Phase 3b outline

Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

Guided Implementation 3b: Transition Staff to New Roles

Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 2-4

Step 4.1: Build Your Transition Plans

Start with an analyst kick off call:

• Review the Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template and its contents.
• Return to the new org structure and project planning tool for information to fill in the template.

Then complete these activities…

• Present the template to your managers.
• Have them fill in the template with their staff.
• Approve the completed templates.

With these tools & templates:

• Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool
• Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template

Step 4.2: Finalize Your Transition Plans

Review findings with analyst:

• Discuss strategies for timing the transition of your employees.
• Determine the readiness of your departments for transitioning.

Then complete these activities…

• Build a transition readiness timeline of your departments.
• Move your employees to their new roles.

With these tools & templates:

• Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool
• Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template

Use Info-Tech’s transition plan template to map out all of the changes your employees will face during reorganization

Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template

• Use Info-Tech’s Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template to document (in consultation with your employees) all of the changes individual staff members need to go through in order to transition into their new roles.
• It provides a holistic view of all of the changes aligned to the change planning dimensions, including:
  • Current and new job responsibilities
  • Outstanding projects
  • Documenting where the employee may be moving
  • Technology changes
  • Required training
  • New relationships that need to be made
  • Risk mitigation
• The template is designed to be completed by managers for their direct reports.

Customize the transition plan template for all affected staff members

4.1 30 minutes per employee

Output

• Completed transition plans

Materials

• Individual transition plan templates (for each employee)

Participants

• Implementation Team
• Managers

1. Implementation team members should hold one-on-one meetings with the managers from the departments they represent to go through the transition plan template.
2. Some elements of the transition plan can be completed at the initial meeting with knowledge from the implementation team and documentation from the new organizational structure:
   • Employee information (except for the planned transition date)
   • New job responsibilities
   • Logistics and technology changes
   • Relationships (recommendations can be made about beneficial relationships to form if the employee is transitioning to a new role)
3. After the meeting, managers can continue filling in information based on their own knowledge of their employees:
   • Current job responsibilities
   • Outstanding projects
   • Training (identify gaps in the employee’s knowledge if their role is changing)
   • Risks (potential concerns or problems for the employee during the reorganization)

Verify and complete the individual transition plans by holding one-on-one meetings with the staff

4.2 30 minutes per employee

Output

• Completed transition plans

Materials

• Individual transition plan templates (for each employee)

Participants

• Managers
• Staff (Managers’ Direct Reports)

1. After the managers complete everything they can in the transition plan templates, they should schedule one-on-one meetings with their staff to review the completed document to ensure the information is correct.
2. Begin the meeting by verifying the elements that require the most information from the employee:
   • Current job responsibilities
   • Outstanding projects
   • Risks (ask about any problems or concerns they may have about the reorganization)
3. Discuss the following elements of the transition plan to get feedback:
   • Training (ask if there is any training they feel they may need to be successful at the organization)
   • Relationships (determine if there are any relationships that the employee would like to develop that you may have missed)
4. Since this may be the first opportunity that the staff member has had to discuss their new role (if they are moving to one), review their new job title and new job responsibilities with them. If employees are prepared for their new role, they may feel more accountable for quickly adopting the reorganization.
5. Document any questions that they may have so that they can be answered in future communications from the implementation team.
6. After completing the template, managers will sign off on the document in the approval section.

Validate plans with organizational change project manager and build the transition timeline

4.3 3 hours

Input

• Individual transition plans
• Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool

Output

• Timeline outlining departmental transition readiness

Materials

• Whiteboard

Participants

• Implementation Project Manager
• Implementation Team
• Managers

1. After receiving all of the completed individual transition plan templates from managers, members of the implementation team need to approve the contents of the templates (for the departments that they represent).
2. Review the logistics and technology requirements for transition in each of the templates and align them with the completion dates of the related projects in the Project Planning Tool. These dates will serve as the earliest possible time to transition the employee. Use the latest date from the list to serve as the date that the whole department will be ready to transition.
3. Hand the approved transition plan templates and the dates at which the departments will be ready for transitioning to the Implementation Project Manager.
4. The Project Manager needs to verify the contents of the transition plans and approve them.
5. On a calendar or whiteboard, list the dates that each department will be ready for transitioning.
6. Review the master copy of the Project Planning Tool. Determine if the outstanding projects limit your ability to transition the departments (when they are ready to transition). Change the ready dates of the departments to align with the completion dates of those projects.
7. Use these dates to determine the timeline for when you would like to transition your employees to their new roles.

Overcoming inexperience by training managers to lead through change

CASE STUDY

Industry: Manufacturing

Source: CIO

Challenge

The IT department had not undergone a major reorganization in several years. When they last reorganized, they experienced high turnover and decreased business satisfaction with IT.

Many of the managers were new to their roles and only one of them had been around for the earlier reorganization. They lacked experience in leading their staff through major organizational changes.

One of the major problems they faced was addressing the concerns, fears, and resistance of their staff properly.

Solution

The implementation team ran a workshop for all of the managers in the department to train them on the change and how to communicate the impending changes to their staff. The workshop included information on resistance and conflict resolution.

The workshop was conducted early on in the planning phases of the reorganization so that any rumors or gossip could be addressed properly and quickly.

Results

The reorganization was well accepted by the staff due to the positive reinforcement from their managers. Rumors and gossip about the reorganization were under control and the staff adopted the new organizational structure quickly.

Engagement levels of the staff were maintained and actually improved by 5% immediately after the reorganization.

Voluntary turnover was minimal throughout the change as opposed to the previous reorganization where they lost 10% of their staff. There was an estimated cost savings of $250,000–$300,000.

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

• To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
• Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
• Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

3.2.1 Build Your Staff Transition Plan

Review the contends of the staff transition plan, and using the organizational change map as a guide, build the transition schedule for one employee.

3.2.1 Review the Transition Plan With the Transition Team

Review and validate the results for your transition team schedule with other team members. As a group, discuss what makes this exercise difficult and any ideas for how to simplify the exercise.

Works cited

American Productivity and Quality Center. “Motivation Strategies.” Potentials Magazine. Dec. 2004. Web. November 2014.

Bersin, Josh. “Time to Scrap Performance Appraisals?” Forbes Magazine. 5 June 2013. Web. 30 Oct 2013.

Bridges, William. Managing Transitions, 3rd Ed. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2009.

Buckley, Phil. Change with Confidence – Answers to the 50 Biggest Questions that Keep Change Leaders up at Night. Canada: Jossey-Bass, 2013.

“Change and project management.” Change First. 2014. Web. December 2009. <http://www.changefirst.com/uploads/documents/Change_and_project_management.pdf>.

Cheese, Peter, et al. “Creating an Agile Organization.” Accenture. Oct. 2009. Web. Nov. 2013.

Croxon, Bruce et al. “Dinner Series: Performance Management with Bruce Croxon from CBC's 'Dragon's Den.'” HRPA Toronto Chapter. Sheraton Hotel, Toronto, ON. 12 Nov. 2013. Panel discussion.

Culbert, Samuel. “10 Reasons to Get Rid of Performance Reviews.” Huffington Post Business. 18 Dec. 2012. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-culbert/performance-reviews_b_2325104.html>.

Denning, Steve. “The Case Against Agile: Ten Perennial Management Objections.” Forbes Magazine. 17 Apr. 2012. Web. Nov. 2013.

Works cited cont.

“Establish A Change Management Structure.” Human Technology. Web. December 2014.

Estis, Ryan. “Blowing up the Performance Review: Interview with Adobe’s Donna Morris.” Ryan Estis & Associates. 17 June 2013. Web. Oct. 2013. <http://ryanestis.com/adobe-interview/>.

Ford, Edward L. “Leveraging Recognition: Noncash incentives to Improve Performance.” Workspan Magazine. Nov 2006. Web. Accessed May 12, 2014.

Gallup, Inc. “Gallup Study: Engaged Employees Inspire Company Innovation.” Gallup Management Journal. 12 Oct. 2006. Web. 12 Jan 2012.

Gartside, David, et al. “Trends Reshaping the Future of HR.” Accenture. 2013. Web. 5 Nov. 2013.

Grenville-Cleave, Bridget. “Change and Negative Emotions.” Positive Psychology News Daily. 2009.

Heath, Chip, and Dan Heath. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Portland: Broadway Books. 2010.

HR Commitment AB. Communicating organizational change. 2008.

Keller, Scott, and Carolyn Aiken. “The Inconvenient Truth about Change Management.” McKinsey & Company, 2009. <http://www.mckinsey.com/en.aspx>.

Works cited cont.

Kotter, John. “LeadingChange: Why Transformation Efforts Fail.” Harvard Business Review. March-April 1995. <http://hbr.org>.

Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth and David Kessler. On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss. New York: Scribner. 2007.

Lowlings, Caroline. “The Dangers of Changing without Change Management.” The Project Manager Magazine. December 2012. Web. December 2014. <http://changestory.co.za/the-dangers-of-changing-without-change-management/>.

“Managing Change.” Innovative Edge, Inc. 2011. Web. January 2015. <http://www.getcoherent.com/managing.html>.

Muchinsky, Paul M. Psychology Applied to Work. Florence: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.

Nelson, Kate and Stacy Aaron. The Change Management Pocket Guide, First Ed., USA: Change Guides LLC, 2005.

Nguyen Huy, Quy. “In Praise of Middle Managers.” Harvard Business Review. 2001. Web. December 2014. <https://hbr.org/2001/09/in-praise-of-middle-managers/ar/1>

“Only One-Quarter of Employers Are Sustaining Gains From Change Management Initiatives, Towers Watson Survey Finds.” Towers Watson. August 2013. Web. January 2015. <http://www.towerswatson.com/en/Press/2013/08/Only-One-Quarter-of-Employers-Are-Sustaining-Gains-From-Change-Management>.

Shmula. “Why Transformation Efforts Fail.” Shmula.com. September 28, 2009. <http://www.shmula.com/why-transformation-efforts-fail/1510/>

Build Better Workflows

Go beyond draft one to refine and pressure test your process.

Analyst Perspective

Remove friction as you document workflows

Emily Sugerman Research Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations Info-Tech Research Group

You can’t mature processes without also documenting them. Process documentation is most effective when workflows are both written out and also visualized in the form of flow charts. Your workflows may appear in standard operating procedures, in business continuity and disaster recovery plans, or anywhere else a process’ steps need to be made explicit. Often, just getting something down on paper is a win. However, the best workflows usually do not emerge fully-formed out of a first draft. Your workflow documentation must achieve two things: Be an accurate representation of how you currently operate or how you will operate in the near future as a target state. Be the output of a series of refinements and improvements as the workflow is reviewed and iterated. This research will use the example of improving an onboarding workflow. Ask the right questions and pressure test the workflow so the documentation is as helpful as possible to all who consult it.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Don’t just document – target your future state as you document your workflows. Find opportunities for automation, pinpoint key handoff points, and turn cold handoffs into warm handoffs.

Follow these steps to build, analyze, and improve the workflow

Insight Summary

Keep future state in mind.
Don’t just document – target your future state as you document your workflows. Find opportunities for automation, pinpoint key handoff points, and turn cold handoffs into warm handoffs.

Promote the benefits of documenting workflows as flowcharts.
Foreground to the IT team how this will improve customer experience. End-users will benefit from more efficient workflows.

Remember the principle of constructive criticism.
Don’t be afraid to critique the workflow but remember this can be a team-building experience. Focus on how these changes will be mutually beneficial, not assigning blame for workflow friction.

Don’t waste time building shelfware.
Establish a review cadence to ensure the flowchart is a living document that people actually use.

Benefits of building better workflows

Why are visualized workflows useful?

Use these talking points to build commitment toward documenting/updating processes.

Risk reduction
“Our outdated documentation is a risk, as people will assume the documented process is accurate.”

Transparency
“The activity of mapping our processes will bring transparency to everyone involved.”

Accountability
“Flow charts will help us clarify task ownership at a glance.”

Accessibility
“Some team members prefer diagrams over written steps, so we should provide both.”

Knowledge centralization
“Our flow charts will include links to other supporting documentation (checklists, vendor documentation, other flowcharts).”

Role clarification
“Separating steps into swim lanes can clarify different tiers, process stages, and ownership, while breaking down silos.”

Communication
To leadership/upper management: “This process flow chart quickly depicts the big picture.”

Knowledge transfer
“Flow charts will help bring new staff up to speed more quickly.”

Consistency
“Documenting a process standardizes it and enables everyone to do it in the same way.”

Review what process mapping is

A pictorial representation of a process that is used to achieve transparency.

This research will use one specific example of an onboarding process workflow. Before drilling down into onboarding workflows specifically, review Info-Tech’s Process Mapping Guide for general guidance on what to do before you begin:

• Know the purpose of process mapping.
• Articulate the benefits of process mapping.
• Recognize the risks of not process mapping.
• Understand the different levels of processes.
• Adopt BPMN 2.0 as a standard.
• Consider tools for process mapping.
• Select a process to map.
• Learn methods to gather information.

Download the Process Mapping Guide

Select the workflow your team will focus upon

Good candidates include:

• Processes you don’t have documented and need to build from scratch.
• An existing process that results in an output your users are currently dissatisfied with (if you run an annual IT satisfaction survey, use this data to find this information).
• An existing process that is overly manual, lacks automation, and causes work slowdown for your staff.

Info-Tech workflow examples

Active Directory Processes

Application Development Process

Application Maintenance Process

Backup Process

Benefits Legitimacy Workflow

Business Continuity Plan Business Process

Business Continuity Plan Recovery Process

Commitment Purchasing Workflow

Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Process

Crisis Management Process

Data Protection Recovery Workflow

Disaster Recovery Process

Disaster Recovery Plan/Business Continuity Plan Review Workflow

End-User Device Management Workflow Library

Expense Process

Event Management Process

Incident Management and Service Desk Workflows

MACD Workflow Mapping

Problem Management Process

Project Management Process

Ransomware Response Process

Sales Process for New Clients

Security Policy Exception Process

Self-Service Resolution Process

Service Definition Process

Service Desk Ticket Intake by Channel

Software Asset Management Processes

Target State Maintenance Workflow

Example: Onboarding workflow

Onboarding is a perennial challenge due to the large number of separate teams and departments who are implicated in the process.

There can be resistance to alignment. As a result, everyone needs to be pulled in to see the big picture and the impact of an overly manual and disconnected process.

Additionally, the quality of the overall onboarding process (of which IT is but one part) has a significant impact on the employee experience of new hires, and the long-term experience of those employees. This workflow is therefore often a good one to target for improvement.

“Organizations with a standardized onboarding process experience 62% greater new hire productivity, along with 50% greater new hire retention.”1

“Companies that focus on onboarding retain 50% more new employees than companies that don’t.”2

1. Carucci, “To Retain New Hires, Spend More Time Onboarding Them,” 2018

2. Uzialko, “What Does Poor Onboarding, 2023

Tabletop exercise: Generate first draft

In the tabletop exercise, your team will walk through your onboarding process step by step and document what happens at each stage. Prep for this meeting with the following steps:

1. Identify roles: facilitator, notetaker, and participants. Determine who should be involved in the working group in addition to IT (HR, Hiring Team, Facilities, etc.).
2. Decide what method of documentation you will use in the meeting. If meeting in person, cue cards are useful because they can be easily rearranged or inserted. If meeting remotely, the notetaker or facilitator will need to share their screen and capture each step with software (such as Visio, PowerPoint, or a whiteboarding software).
3. Before you even begin mapping out the process, conduct a quick brainstorming session. What are your current challenges with it? What is working? Document on a whiteboard (electronic or hard copy).
4. Document each step of the process as it currently happens. You will improve it later. Include task ownership.

Roles

Facilitator
Tasks:

• Guide discussion – restate contributors’ ideas, ask probing questions.
• Keep group on track – cut off or redirect conversation when off track.

Notetaker
Tasks:

• Ensure the steps are documented via the agreed-upon tools (e.g. cue cards). If the process is being documented in software, the notetaker may be solely responsible for documentation.
• The notetaker may be the same person as the facilitator.

Document your workflow challenges: Onboarding

Brainstorm and document. Group similar challenges together to pull out themes.

Establish flowcharting standards

If you don’t have existing flowchart standards, use the basic notation conventions used in the examples here.

Start, End, and Connector. Traditional flowcharting standards reserve this shape for connectors to other flowcharts or other points in the existing flowchart. Unified modeling language (UML) also uses the circle for start and end points. Start, End. Traditional flowcharting standards use this for start and end. However, Info-Tech recommends using the circle shape to reduce the number of shapes and avoid confusion with other similar shapes. Process Step. Individual process steps or activities (e.g. create ticket or escalate ticket). If it’s a series of steps, then use the sub-process symbol and flowchart the sub-process separately. Sub-Process. A series of steps. For example, a critical incident standard operating procedure (SOP) might reference a recovery process as one of the possible actions. Marking it as a sub-process, rather than listing each step within the critical incident SOP, streamlines the flowchart and avoids overlap with other flowcharts (e.g. the recovery process). Decision. Represents decision points, typically with yes/no branches, but you could have other branches depending on the question (e.g. a “Priority” question could branch into separate streams for Priority 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 issues). Document/Report Output. For example, the output from a backup process might include an error log.

Map the current process

Prompt the working group with the following questions.

• What happens when the ticket comes in? Who submits it? Where is it coming from? What are the trigger events? Are there any input channels we should eliminate?
• What is the terminal event? Where does the workflow end?
• Do we have a triage step?
• Is the ticket prioritized? Does this need to be a step?
• Do we create child tickets? Separate tasks for different teams? Do we create a primary/main ticket and sub-tickets? How should we represent this in the flowchart?
• How should we represent escalations? How should we represent task ownership by different teams?
• What are our decision points: points when the path can potentially branch (e.g. into yes/no branches)?

Map the process: First pass

Tabletop exercise: Revise workflow

Time to review and revise the workflow. What gaps exist? How can you improve the process? What documentation gaps have been overlooked?

Consider the following refinements for the onboarding workflow:

• Identify missing steps
• Clearly identify task ownership
• Establish SLAs and timepoints
• Capture/implement user feedback
• Identify approval roadblocks
• Identify communication points
• Identify opportunities for automation
• Create personas
• Create onboarding checklist

Roles

Facilitator
Tasks:

• Guide discussion – restate contributors’ ideas, ask probing questions.
• Keep group on track – cut off or redirect conversation when off track.

Notetaker
Tasks:

• Ensure the steps are documented via the agreed-upon tools (e.g. cue cards). If the process is being documented in software, the notetaker may be solely responsible for documentation.
• The notetaker may be the same person as the facilitator, but this takes some practice.

Map the process: Critique draft

Solicit feedback from the group.

"

• Our workflow is slowed down by hidden approvals that we haven’t mapped.
• We have no efficient way to prevent submission of incomplete requests.
• Our workflow doesn’t clearly show how different tasks are assigned to different teams.
• We still don’t know how long this all takes.
• We’re missing some tasks – what about including facilities?
• We’re missing next steps for some of the decision points.

Review: Identify missing steps

Consider the following refinements.

Be complete.

The workflow should surface tacit knowledge, so make it explicit (Haddadpoor et al.):

• Where are the inputs coming from? Do you need to account for various input channels? Have you forgotten any?
• Are there any input channels that you want to eliminate?
• Have you overlooked any hardware, software, or services entitlements that should be called out?
• Have all decision paths been worked through? Do you need to add any missing decision points?
• Add information flows and annotations as needed.

Review: Task ownership

Identify task ownership.

The flow chart will be more useful if it clearly identifies who does what in the process.

• Consider organizing the sub-processes within the overall onboarding process into swim lanes, one for each team or group involved in the process.
• Swim lanes help clarify who does what in the overall process (e.g. all the tasks completed by HR appear in the HR swim lane, all the tasks completed by service desk appear in the service desk swim lane).
• They can also help draw attention to escalation points or handoff points between different teams. Assess the steps around the boundary of each swim lane. Does the working group experience/know of friction at these handoff points? What might solve it?
• In what order should the tasks occur? What dependencies do they have?

“Each task has an owner, and the task list is visible to the employee and other stakeholders, so there's visibility about whether each person has done their actions.”

Matthew Stibbe, qtd. in Zapier, 2022

Review: The time the workflow takes

For onboarding, this means setting SLOs/SLAs and internal timepoints.

Add internal timepoints for the major steps/tasks in the workflow. Begin to track these service level objectives and adjust as necessary.

• Review old onboarding tickets and track how long each main step/task takes (or should take). Every additional approval risks adding days.
• Consider where there are opportunities to increase automation or use templates to save time.
• Zero in on which task within the onboarding workflow is slowing down the process.
• Create an overall service level objective that communicates how many days the onboarding workflow is expected to take. Decide where escalations go when the SLA is breached.

When you have validated the service level objectives are accurate and you can meet them an acceptable amount of time, communicate the overall SLA to your users. This will ensure they submit future onboarding requests to your team with enough lead time to fulfill the request. Try to place the SLA directly in the service catalog.

“Tracking the time within the workflow can be a powerful way to show the working group why there is user dissatisfaction.”

Sandi Conrad, Principal Advisory Director, Info-Tech Research Group

Review: Capture user feedback

For onboarding, this means implementing a transactional survey.

The onboarding workflow will be subject to periodic reviews and continual improvement. Suggestions for improvement should come not only from the internal IT team, but also the users themselves.

• Transactional surveys, launched at the close of a ticket, allow the ticket submitter to provide feedback on their customer service experience.
• Onboarding tickets are somewhat more complex than the average incident or service request, since the ticket is often opened by one user (e.g. in HR) on behalf of another (the new employee).
• Decide whose experience you want feedback on – the submitter of the request or the new user. Investigate your ITSM tool’s capabilities: is it possible to direct the survey to someone who is not the ticket submitter?

Use Info-Tech’s Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback for more guidance on creating these surveys.

Review: Identify approval roadblocks

For onboarding, approvals can be the main roadblock to fulfilling requests

• How are the requests coming in? Do we have a predefined service catalog?
• What kinds of approvals do we receive (manager, financial, legal, security, regulatory)? Ask the team to think about where there are instances of back and forth and clean that up.
• Identify where approvals interrupt the technical flow.
  • Confirm that these approvals are indeed necessary (e.g. are certain approval requests ever declined? If not, follow up on whether they are necessary or whether some can be made into preapprovals).
  • Avoid putting agents in charge of waiting on or following up about approvals.
  • Investigate whether interruptive approvals can be moved.

Review: Identify communication points

A positive onboarding experience is an important part of a new employee’s success.

Though IT is only one part of an employee’s onboarding experience, it’s an important part. Delays for hardware procurement and a lack of communication can lead to employee disengagement. Ask the team:

• Are we communicating with our users when delays occur? When do delays occur most often?
• How can we mitigate delays? Though we can’t resolve larger supply chain problems, can we increase stock in the meantime?
• Can we start tracking delays to incorporate into the SLA
• Do we offer loaner devices in the meantime?

Place communication bullet points in the flow chart to indicate where the team will reach out to users to update or notify them of delays.

Review: Identify opportunities for automation

Where can we automate for onboarding?

Identify when the process is dragged out due to waiting times (e.g. times when the technician can’t address the ticket right away).

• Analyze the workflow to identify which tasks tend to stagnate because technician is busy elsewhere. Are these candidates for automation?
• Is our ITSM tool capable of setting up automatically routed child tickets triggered by the main onboarding ticket? Does it generate a series of tasks? Is it a manual process? Which teams do these tasks/tickets go to?
• Can we automate notifications if devices are delayed?
• Can we use mobile device management for automated software installation?
• If we have a robust service catalog, can we provide it to the users to download what they need? Or is this too many extra steps for our users?
• Can we create personas to speed up onboarding?

Avoid reinforcing manual processes, which make it even harder for departmental silos to work together.

Review: Automation example – create personas

Create role-based templates.

Does HR know which applications our users need? Are they deferring to the manager, who then asks IT to simply duplicate an existing user?

Personas are asset profiles that apply to multiple users (e.g. in a department) and that can be easily duplicated for new hires. You might create three persona groups in a department, with variations within each subgroup or title. To do this, you need accurate information upfront.

Then, if you’re doing zero touch deployment, you can automate software to automatically load.

Many HRIS systems have the ability to create a persona, and also to add users to the AD, email, and distribution groups without IT getting involved. This can alleviate work from the sysadmin. Does our HRIS do this?

• Review old onboarding tickets. Do they include manual steps like setting up mailboxes, creating user accounts, adding to groups?
• Investigate your ITSM tool’s onboarding template. Does it allow you to create a form through which to create dynamic required fields?
• Identify the key information service desk needs from the department supervisor, or equivalent role, to begin the onboarding request – employee type, access level, hardware and software entitlements, etc.

Revised workflow

How does the group feel about the revised workflow?

• Are any outputs still missing?
• Can we add any more annotations to provide more context to someone reading this for the first time?
• Do the task names follow a “verb-noun” format?
• Are the handoffs clear?
• Are some of the steps overly detailed compared to others?
• Does it help resolve the challenges we listed?
• Does it achieve the benefits we want to achieve?

Download the Workflow Activity: Onboarding Example

Remember the principle of constructive criticism.

Don’t be afraid to critique the workflow but remember this can also be a team-building experience. Focus on how these changes will be mutually beneficial, not assigning blame for workflow friction.

Post-review: Revised workflow

Final check

• Do we need to run this by Legal?
• Have we included too many sub-processes? Not enough?
• Is the flowchart easy to read and follow?

Decide how often this workflow will be revised.

• Is this workflow part of a larger piece of documentation that has a set review cadence? Where is it stored?
• If not, what is a realistic time frame for regular review?
• Who will own this process in an ongoing way and be in charge of convening a future review working group?

Validation with stakeholders

• What documentation does the flowchart belong to? When will you review it again?
• Who do you need to validate the flowchart with?

Share the flowchart and set up a review meeting.

• Walk through the workflow with stakeholders who did not participate in building it.
• Do they find it easy to follow?
• Can they identify missing steps?

Don’t waste time building shelfware.

Establish a review cadence to ensure the flowchart is a living document that people actually use.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

Guided Implementation

“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

Workshop

“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

Consulting

“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Bibliography

Bushkill, Claire. “The top 5 ways to automate your onboarding checklist.” Rippling Blog. 18 Mar 2022. Accessed 29 Nov 2022. Ha https://www.rippling.com/blog/the-top-5-ways-to-automate-your-onboarding-checklist
Carucci, Ron. “To Retain New Hires, Spend More Time Onboarding Them.” Harvard Business Review, 3 Dec 2018
Haddadpoor, Asefeh, et al. “Process Documentation: A Model for Knowledge Management in Organizations.” Materia Socio-Medica, vol. 27, no. 5, Oct. 2015, pp. 347–50. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.5455/msm.2015.27.347-350.
King, Melissa. “New hire checklist: An employee onboarding checklist template for 2022.” Zapier. 14 Jul 2022. Accessed 29 Nov 2022. https://zapier.com/blog/onboarding-checklist/
Uzialko, Adam. “What Does Poor Onboarding Really Do to Your Team?” Business News Daily. 23 Jan 2023.
https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk...

Contributors

Sandi Conrad, Principal Advisory Director, Infrastructure and Operations, Info-Tech Research Group

Christine Coz, Executive Counselor, Info-Tech Research Group

Allison Kinnaird, Practice Lead, Infrastructure and Operations, Info-Tech Research Group

Natalie Sansone, Research Director, Infrastructure and Operations, Info-Tech Research Group

Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan

Put your DRP on a diet – keep it fit, trim, and ready for action.

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

The traditional disaster recovery plan (DRP) “red binder” is dead. It takes too long to create, it’s too hard to maintain, and it’s not usable in a crisis.

“This blueprint outlines the following key tactics to streamline your documentation effort and produce a better result:

• Write for an IT audience and focus on how to recover. You don’t need 30 pages of fluff describing the purpose of the document.
• Use flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams over traditional manuals. This drives documentation that is more concise, easier to maintain, and effective in a crisis.
• Create your DRP in layers to get tangible results faster, starting with a recovery workflow that outlines your DR strategy, and then build out the specific documentation needed to support recovery.”

This project is about DRP documentation after you have clarified your DR strategy; create these necessary inputs first

These artifacts are the cornerstone for any disaster recovery plan.

• Business Impact Analysis
• DR Roles and Responsibilities
• Recovery Workflow

Missing a component? Start here. ➔ Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan

This blueprint walks you through building these inputs.
Our approach saves clients on average US$16,825.22. (Clients self-reported an average saving of US$16,869.21 while completing the Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan blueprint through advisory calls, guided implementations, or workshops (Info-Tech Research Group, 2017, N=129).)

How this blueprint will help you document your DRP

This Research is Designed For:

• IT managers in charge of disaster recovery planning (DRP) and execution.
• Organizations seeking to optimize their DRP using best-practice methodology.
• Business continuity professionals that are involved with disaster recovery.

This Research Will Help You:

• Divide the process of creating DR documentation into manageable chunks, providing a defined scope for you to work in.
• Identify an appropriate DRP document management and distribution strategy.
• Ensure that DR documentation is up to date and accessible.

This Research Will Also Assist:

• IT managers preparing for a DR audit.
• IT managers looking to incorporate components of DR into an IT operations document.

This Research Will Help Them:

• Follow a structured approach in building DR documentation using best practices.
• Integrate DR into day-to-day IT operations.

Executive summary

Situation

• DR documentation is often driven by audit or compliance requirements, rather than aimed at the team that would need to execute recovery.
• Traditional DRPs are text-heavy, 300+ page manuals that are simply not usable in a crisis.
• Compounding the problem, DR documentation is rarely updated, so it’s just shelf-ware.

Complication

• DRP is often given lower priority as day-to-day IT projects displace DR documentation efforts.
• Inefficient publishing strategies result in your DRP not being accessible during disasters or key staff not knowing where to find the latest version.
• Organizations that create traditional DRPs end up with massive manuals that are difficult to maintain, so they quickly become unreliable.

Resolution

• Create visual and concise DR documentation that strips out unnecessary content and is written for an IT audience – the team that would actually be executing the recovery. Your business leaders can take the same approach to create separate business response plans – don’t mix the two into an all-in-one plan that is not effective for either audience.
• Determine a documentation distribution strategy that supports ease of maintenance and accessibility during a disaster.
• Incorporate DRP maintenance into change management and project intake procedures to systematically update and refine the DR documentation. Don’t save up changes for a year-end blitz, which turns document maintenance into an onerous project.

Info-Tech Insight

1. DR documentation fails when organizations try to boil the ocean with an all-in-one plan aimed at auditors, business leaders, and IT. It’s too long, too hard to maintain, and ends up being little more than shelf-ware.
2. Using flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams aimed at an IT audience is more concise and effective in a disaster, quicker to create, and easier to maintain.
3. Create your DRP in layers to keep the work manageable. Start with a recovery workflow to ensure a coordinated response, and build out supporting documentation over time.

An effective DRP that mitigates a wide range of potential outages is critical to minimizing the impact of downtime

The criticality of having an effective DRP is underestimated.

Cost of Downtime for the Fortune 1000

• Cost of unplanned apps downtime per year: $1.25B to $2.5B
• Cost of critical apps failure per hour: $500,000 to $1M
• Cost of infrastructure failure per hour: $100,000
• 35% reported to have recovered within 12 hours.
• 17% of infrastructure failures took more than 24 hours to recover.
• 13% of application failures took more than 24 hours to recover.

Size of Impact Increasing Across Industries

• The cost of downtime is rising across the board and not just for organizations that traditionally depend on IT (e.g. e-commerce).
• Downtime cost increase since 2010:
  • Hospitality: 129% increase
  • Transportation: 108% increase
  • Media organizations: 104% increase

Potential Lost Revenue

The impact of downtime increases significantly over time, not just in terms of lost revenue (as illustrated here) but also goodwill/reputation and health/safety. An effective DR solution and overall resiliency that mitigate a wide range of potential outages are critical to minimizing the impact of downtime.

Without an effective DRP, your organization is gambling on being able to define and implement a recovery strategy during a time of crisis. At the very least, this means extended downtime – potentially weeks – and substantial impact.

Only 38% of those with a full or mostly complete DRP believe their DRPs would be effective in a real crisis

Organizations continue to struggle with creating DRPs, let alone making them actionable.

Why are so many living with either an incomplete or ineffective DRP? For the same reasons that IT documentation in general continues to be a pain point:

• It is an outdated model of what documentation should be – the traditional manual with detailed (lengthy) descriptions and procedures.
• Despite the importance of DR, low priority is placed on creating a DRP and the day-to-day SOPs required to support a recovery.
• There is a lack of effective processes for ensuring documentation stays up to date.

(Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=165)

(Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=69 (includes only those who indicated DRP is mostly completed or completed))

Improve usability and effectiveness with visual-based and more-concise documentation

Choose flowcharts over process guides, checklists over lengthy procedures, and diagrams over descriptions.

If you need a three-inch binder to hold your DRP, imagine having to flip through it to determine next steps during a crisis.

DR documentation needs to be concise, scannable, and quickly understood to be effective. Visual-based documentation meets these requirements, so it’s no surprise that it also leads to higher DR success.

DR success scores are based on:

• Meeting recovery time objectives (RTOs).
• Meeting recovery point objectives (RPOs).
• IT staff’s confidence in their ability to meet RTOs/RPOs.

“Without question, 300-page DRPs are not effective. I mean, auditors love them because of the detail, but give me a 10-page DRP with contact lists, process flows, diagrams, and recovery checklists that are easy to follow.” (Bernard Jones, MBCI, CBCP, CORP, Manager Disaster Recovery/BCP, ActiveHealth Management)

Maintainability is another argument for visual-based, concise documentation

There are two end goals for your DR documentation: effectiveness and maintainability. Without either, you will not have success during a disaster.

Organizations using a visual-based approach were 30% more likely to find that DR documentation is easy to maintain.	➔	“Easy to maintain” leads to a 46% higher rate of DR success.

Not only are visual-based disaster recovery plans more effective, but they are also easier to maintain.

Overcome documentation inertia with a tiered model that allows you to eat the elephant one bite at a time

Start with a recovery workflow to at least ensure a coordinated response. Then use that workflow to determine required supporting documentation.

Recovery Workflow: Starting the project with overly detailed documentation can slow down the entire process. Overcome planning inertia by starting with high-level incident response plans in a flowchart format. For examples and additional information, see XMPL Medical’s Recovery Workflows.

Recovery Procedures (Systems Recovery Playbook): For each step in the high-level flowchart, create recovery procedures where necessary using additional flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams as appropriate. Leverage Info-Tech’s Systems Recovery Playbook example as a starting point.

Additional Reference Documentation: Reference existing IT documentation, such as network diagrams and configuration documents, as well as more detailed step-by-step procedures where necessary (e.g. vendor documentation), particularly where needed to support alternate recovery staff who may not be as well versed as the primary system owners.

Info-Tech Insight

Organizations that use flowcharts, checklist, and diagrams over traditional, dense DRP manuals are far more likely to meet their RTOs/RPOs because their documentation is more usable and easier to maintain.

Use a DRP summary document to satisfy executives, auditors, and clients

Stakeholders don’t have time to sift through a pile of paper. Summarize your overall continuity capabilities in one, easy-to-read place.

DRP Summary Document

• Summarize BIA results
• Summarize DR strategy (including DR sites)
• Summarize backup strategy
• Summarize testing and maintenance plans

Follow Info-Tech’s methodology to make DRP documentation efficient and effective

Follow XMPL Medical’s journey through DR documentation

CASE STUDY

Industry Healthcare
Source Created by amalgamating data from Info-Tech’s client base

Streamline your documentation and maintenance process by following the approach outlined in XMPL Medical’s journey to an end-to-end DRP.

Outline of the Disaster Recovery Plan

XMPL’s disaster recovery plan includes its business impact analysis and a subset of tier 1 and tier 2 patient care applications.

Its DRP includes incident response flowcharts, system recovery checklists, and a communication plan. Its DRP also references IT operations documentation (e.g. asset management documents, system specs, and system configuration docs), but this material is not published with the example documentation.

Resulting Disaster Recovery Plan

XMPL’s DRP includes actionable documents in the form of high-level disaster response plan flowcharts and system recovery checklists. During an incident, the DR team is able to clearly see the items for which they are responsible.

Disaster Recovery Plan

• Recovery Workflow
• Business Impact Analysis
• DRP Summary
• System Recovery Checklists
• Communication, Assessment, and Disaster Declaration Plan

Info-Tech Best Practice

XMPL Medical’s disaster recovery plan illustrates an effective DRP. Model your end-to-end disaster recovery plan after XMPL’s completed templates. The specific data points will differ from organization to organization, but the structure of each document will be similar.

Model your disaster recovery documentation off of our example

CASE STUDY

Industry Healthcare
Source Created by amalgamating data from Info-Tech’s client base

Recovery Workflow:

• Recovery Workflows (PDF, VSDX)

Recovery Procedures (Systems Recovery Playbook):

• DR Notification, Assessment, and Disaster Declaration Plan
• Systems Recovery Playbook
• Network Topology Diagrams

Additional Reference Documentation:

• DRP Workbook
• Business Impact Analysis
• DRP Summary Document

Use Info-Tech’s DRP Maturity Scorecard to evaluate your progress

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan – Project Overview

	1. Streamline DRP Documentation	2. Select the Optimal DRP Publishing Strategy	3. Keep Your DRP Relevant
Best-Practice Toolkit	1.1 Start with a recovery workflow 1.2 Create supporting DRP documentation 1.3 Write the DRP summary	2.1 Create Committee Profiles	3.1 Build Governance Structure Map 3.2 Create Committee Profiles
Guided Implementations	Review Info-Tech’s approach to DRP documentation. Create a high-level recovery workflow. Create supporting DRP documentation. Write the DRP summary.	Identify criteria for selecting a DRP publishing strategy. Select a DRP publishing strategy. Optional: Select requirements for a BCM tool and issue an RFP. Optional: Review responses to RFP.	Learn best practices for integrating DRP maintenance into day-to-day IT processes. Learn best practices for DRP-focused reviews.
Onsite Workshop	Module 1: Streamline DRP documentation	Module 2: Select the optimal DRP publishing strategy	Module 3: Learn best practices for keeping your DRP relevant
	Phase 1 Outcome: A complete end-to-end DRP	Phase 2 Outcome: Selection of a publishing and management tool for your DRP documentation	Phase 3 Outcome: Strategy for maintaining your DRP documentation

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

Workshop Goal: Learn how to document and maintain your DRP.

Use these icons to help direct you as you navigate this research

Use these icons to help guide you through each step of the blueprint and direct you to content related to the recommended activities.

This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.

This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members, who will come onsite to facilitate a workshop for your organization.

Phase 1: Streamline DRP Documentation

Step 1.1: Start with a recovery workflow

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Review a model DRP.
• Review your recovery workflow.
• Identify documentation required to support the recovery workflow.

This step involves the following participants:

• DRP Owner
• System SMEs
• Alternate DR Personnel

Outcomes of this step

• Understanding the visual-based, concise approach to DR documentation.
• Creating a recovery workflow that provides a roadmap for coordinating incident response and identifying required supporting documentation.

Info-Tech Insights

A DRP is a collection of procedures and supporting documents that allow an organization to recover its IT services to minimize system downtime for the business.

1.1 — Start with a recovery workflow to ensure a coordinated response and identify required supporting documentation

The recovery workflow clarifies your DR strategy and ensures the DR team is on the same page.

“We use flowcharts for our declaration procedures. Flowcharts are more effective when you have to explain status and next steps to upper management.” (Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry)

Review business impact analysis (BIA) results to plan your recovery workflow

The BIA defines system criticality from the business’s perspective. Use it to guide system recovery order.

Specifically, review the following from your BIA:

• The list of tier 1, 2, and 3 applications. This will dictate the recovery order in your recovery workflow.
• Application dependencies. This will outline what needs to be included as part of an application recovery workflow.
• The recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) for each application. This will also guide the recovery, and enable you to identify gaps where the recovery workflow does not meet RTOs and RPOs.

CASE STUDY: The XMPL DRP documentation is based on this Business Impact Analysis Tool.

Haven’t conducted a BIA? Use Info-Tech’s streamlined approach.

Info-Tech’s publication Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan takes a very practical approach to BIA work. Our process gives IT leaders a mechanism to quickly get agreement on system recovery order and DR investment priorities.

Conduct a tabletop planning exercise to determine your recovery workflow

1.1.1 Tabletop Planning Exercise

1. Define a scenario to drive the tabletop planning exercise:
   • Use a scenario that forces a full failover to your DR environment, so you can capture an end-to-end recovery workflow.
   • Avoid scenarios that impact health and safety such as tornados or a fire. You want to focus on IT recovery.
   • Example scenarios: Burst water pipe that causes data-center-wide damage or a gas leak that forces evacuation and power to be shut down for at least two days.

Note: You may have already completed this exercise as part of Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan.

Info-Tech Insight

Use scenarios to provide context for DR planning, and to test your plans, but don’t create a separate plan for every possibility.

The high-level recovery plan will be the same whether the incident is a fire, flood, or tornado. While there might be some variances and outliers, these scenarios can be addressed by adding decision points and/or separate, supplementary instructions.

Walk through the scenario and capture the recovery workflow

2. Capture the following information for tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 systems:
   1. On white cue cards, record the steps and track start and end times for each step (where 00:00 is when the incident occurred).
   2. On yellow cue cards, document gaps in people, process, and technology requirements to complete the step.
   3. On red cue cards, indicate risks (e.g. no backup person for a key staff member).

Note:

• Ensure the language is sufficiently genericized (e.g. refer to events, not specifically a burst water pipe).
• Review isolated failures (e.g. hardware, software). Typically, the recovery procedure documented for individual systems covers the essence of the recovery workflow whether it’s just the one system that failed or it’s part of a site-wide recovery.

Note: You may have already completed this exercise as part of Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan.

Document your current-state recovery workflow based on the results of the tabletop planning

After you finish the tabletop planning exercise, the steps on the set of cue cards define your recovery workflow. Capture this in a flowchart format.

Use the sample DRP to guide your own flowchart. Some notes on the example are:

• XMPL’s Incident Management to DR flowchart shows the connection between its standard Service Desk processes and DR processes.
• XMPL’s high-level workflows outline its recovery of tier 1, 2, and 3 systems.
• Where more detail is required, include links to supporting documentation. In this example, XMPL Medical includes links to its Systems Recovery Playbook.

This sample flowchart is included in XMPL Recovery Workflows.

Step 1.2: Create Supporting DRP Documentation

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Create checklists for your playbook.
• Document more complex procedures with flowcharts.
• Gather and/or write network topology diagrams.
• Compile a contact list.
• Ensure there is enough material for backup personnel.

This step involves the following participants:

• DRP Owner
• System SMEs
• Backup DR Personnel

Outcomes of this step

• Actionable supporting documentation for your disaster recovery plan.
• Contact list for IT personnel, business personnel, and vendor support.

1.2 — Create supporting documentation for your disaster recovery plan

Now that you have a high-level incident response plan, collect the information you need for executing that plan.

Info-Tech Insight

Write for your audience. The playbook is for IT; include only the information they need to execute the plan. DRP summaries are for executives and auditors; do not include information intended for IT. Similarly, your disaster recovery plan is not for business units; keep BCP content out of your DRP.

Use checklists to streamline step-by-step procedures

Checklists are ideal when staff just need a reminder of what to do, not how to do it.

XMPL Medical used its high-level flowcharts as a roadmap for creating its Systems Recovery Playbook.

• Since its Playbook is intended for experienced IT staff, the writing style in the checklists is concise. XMPL includes links to reference material to support recovery, especially for alternate staff who might need additional instruction.
• XMPL includes key parameters (e.g. IP addresses) rather than assume those details would be memorized, especially in a stressful DR scenario.
• Similarly, include links to other useful resources such as VM templates.

Included in the XMPL Systems Recovery Playbook are checklists for recovering XMPL’s virtual desktop infrastructure, mission-critical applications, and core infrastructure components.

Use flowcharts to document processes with concurrent tasks not easily captured in a checklist

Recovery procedures can consist of flowcharts, checklists, or both, as well as diagrams. The main goal is to be clear and concise.

• XMPL Medical created a flowchart to capture its phone services recovery procedure to capture concurrent tasks.
• Additional instructions, where required, could still be captured in a Playbook checklist or other supporting documentation.
• The flowchart could have also included key settings or other details as appropriate, particularly if the DR team chose to maintain this recovery procedure just in a flowchart format.

Included in the XMPL DR documentation is an example flowchart for recovering phone systems. This flowchart is in Recovery Workflows.

Reference this blueprint for more SOP flowchart examples: Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

Use topology diagrams to capture network layout, integrations, and system information

Topology diagrams, key checklists, and configuration settings are often enough for experienced networking staff to carry out their DR tasks.

• XMPL Medical includes these diagrams with its DRP. Instead of recreating these diagrams, the XMPL Medical DR Manager asked their network team for these diagrams:
  • Primary data center diagram
  • DR site diagram
  • High-level network diagrams
• Often, organizations already have network topology diagrams for reference purposes.

“Our network engineers came to me and said our standard SOP template didn't work for them. They're now using a lot of diagrams and flowcharts, and that has worked out better for them.” (Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry)

You can download a PDF and a VSD version of these Data Center and Network Diagrams from Info-Tech’s website.

Create a list of organizational, IT, and vendor contacts that may be required to assist with recovery

If there is something strange happening to your IT infrastructure, who you gonna call?

Many DR managers have their team on speed dial. However, having the contact info of alternate staff, BCP leads, and vendors can be very helpful during a disaster. XMPL Medical lists the following information in its DRP Workbook:

• The DR Teams, SMEs critical to disaster recovery, their backups, and key contacts (e.g. BC Management team leads, vendor contacts) that would be involved in:
  • Declaring a disaster.
  • Coordinating a response at an organizational level.
  • Executing recovery.
• The people that have authority to declare a disaster.
• Each person’s spending authority.
• The rules for delegating authority.
• Primary and alternate staff for each role.

Confirm with your DR team that you have all of the documentation that you need to recover during a disaster

DISCUSS: Is there enough information in your DRP for both primary and backup DR personnel?

• Is it clear who is responsible for each DR task, including notification steps?
• Have alternate staff for each role been identified?
• Does the recovery workflow capture all of the high-level steps?
• Is there enough documentation for alternate staff (e.g. network specs)?

Step 1.3: Write the DRP Summary