Now that the Vision, Strategies and Measurement System are established it is time to identify Initiatives. Initiatives are the most important changes needed at this time to make progress toward achieving the Vision. Initiatives could also be thought of as projects. Once implemented the Initiatives will bring about improvements that will be reflected in the Key Performance Indicator graphs with progress toward goals.
The process for selecting the Initiatives is as follows. All members of the leadership team should identify the “three most important” changes needed at this time. The reason for choosing only three is that this is the start of a process for prioritization. A key reason many organizations are not successful with Managing Change is that they try to make too many changes at the same time. Typically, they do not have the resources needed be that people or funds. The result is Initiatives that are only partially implemented. A small number of things done well is much better that several things done half way. The individual members of the leadership team should do this without dialogue with others. Things to consider when developing their list are:
-Vision documents
-Strategies
-KPI graphs and comparing current performance against goals
-Customer needs
-Employee needs
-Processes needing improvement
-Current or possible future government regulations
-Competition actions or possible plans
-Resource development needs
-Organizational needs
-Culture changes needed
-System needs
-Assessments that might have been done
-Other
When all of the leadership team members have finished selecting their top three, a compiled list should be developed. There should be no discussion at this time. It is not time to start discussing which are the most important. Now duplications should be eliminated resulting in probably a long list of possible Initiatives. Next it is important to ensure all team members understand what each possible Initiative means. Anyone that does not understand a possible Initiative should ask the person that suggested it to explain what it means. This is to be done for understanding only and not debating on its priority. Once everyone understands each Initiative it is time for discussion. The discussion should prepare the team to make the most appropriate decision regarding which are the most important. The discussion needs to be conducted so that a few do not dominate and everyone participates. A good technique for doing this is to go around the table and let each team member have time to give a “sixty second commercial”. This is their time to lobby for which ones are the most important in their opinion. They could use this time to indicate why they feel some Initiatives should not be considered. There is to be no discussion at this time. Each person should speak uninterrupted. Once every person has had their time to present their viewpoints it is time to start prioritizing. Everyone should pick out what is now their top three realizing that this may not be their original top three since they possibly did not understand other candidates. The leader or facilitator should determine how many votes each item received. Then the list should be sorted with the ones at the top that received the most votes. Discussion should continue until a consensus is reached on the top three which we will call the Active Initiatives. The others should be kept on a list that could be called Possible Future Initiatives. Once an Initiative is completed others can be added to the Active Initiative list.
