Managing Change: Monitor

The Monitoring section of the model represents the ongoing meeting process of the leadership team to monitor the overall process and make changes as appropriate to ensure that the plan works and the Vision is achieved. This is the most important section of the model.

This is typically a monthly meeting for half of a day. The meeting starts by reviewing the KPI graphs and comparing current performance against goals. Should progress toward goals not be adequate either the appropriate Active Initiatives have not been selected or Implementation of the Active Initiatives is not progressing appropriately. Leadership should determine which it is and take the appropriate action. The list of Initiatives should be reviewed to see if list of Active Initiatives is appropriate. Leadership could decide at this time to start another Initiative. However, remember to not start more initiatives that you have resources to support. A small number of things done well is better than doing an incomplete job on many. Many organizations are not effective with Managing Change because they attempt to make too many changes at once. The majority of the time in the meetings is spent reviewing the Implementation plans of each Active Initiative. The Sponsor for each Initiative is responsible for providing the update and should include a review of the updated Gantt chart. The Sponsor could determine to have the team leader provide the update. Leadership must hold the teams accountable for accomplishing their objective. Should leadership feel they are not on target for accomplishing the concerns should be shared with the team. Discussions should take place to determine what needs to be done to get on track.

Effective teamwork on the part of the leadership team is critical. Training is usually needed but the leaders frequently feel that it is not important. Having a consultant or facilitator is also critical. The leader needs to be engaged in the discussion and that is difficult to do and also manage the meeting process. Meetings should close by conducting a Process Check. This is a technique to determine the effectiveness of the meeting. The process works as follows. Each team member is to silently make notes in the following three areas. 1) Rate the overall effectiveness of the meeting from 1-10 with one being a waste of time and ten being an outstanding meeting. 2) Identify 2-3 things that were good about the meeting. 3) Identify 2-3 things about the meeting that could have been done differently to have made it a more effective meeting. Then the information should be gathered and discussed with conclusions made regarding how what will be done at future meetings to improve their effectiveness. Conducting a Process Check is most effectively done by a facilitator. Should the leader attempt to do this, the members are less likely to be honest.