The Evolution (and Future?) of the Change Professional

Warning: I may lose some friends if this piece is read too literally as they will feel they do (much) more than my simplifications suggest. The terms in change are a common cause of confusion, ie what a project manager is in one organisation often differs from the same role in another. What I hope is that the reader can accept the simplification I have used and understand the essence of the illustration and the underlying messages.

In the beginning there was the Business and life was good. The Business did not change much and what change there was, was managed by the BUSINESS MANAGER. He may not have been an expert in change, but he knew his business and was focussed on making it successful and that was good enough.

From this world emerged an individual who found that he (or she) enjoyed managing change, was good at it and wanted to specialise in it. At the same time change was becoming more challenging and benefitted from his (or her) expertise. This was PROJECT MANAGER who was able to focus on the delivery of change and over time has been equipped with tools and techniques to help plan, organise and manage a discrete and specific endeavour that has criteria that can and will be used to judge success of failure.

Of course, once someone else is involved there are those who want to know what is going on, to ensure enough “control”. The “PMO” emerged as the person (or persons) who were happy to collect and collate information on what the PROJECT MANAGER was and should be doing. The PMO set the rules and demanded satisfaction else they invoked “Red Reporting" and “escalation”.

The initial “P” in  PMO was initially an abbreviation for project, but as the change professional evolved into PROGRAMME MANAGER and PORTFOLIO MANAGER so the P was used as an abbreviation of programme or portfolio – or indeed in some cases such as P3O, all three.

As projects became more complex and inter-dependent, and indeed the Business became more critical of whether they were getting the benefits they expected and were paying for, so PROJECT MANAGER evolved into PROGRAMME MANAGER. He (or she) focussed more on outcomes and stakeholders, deploying and directing PROJECT MANAGER to deliver components of change while keeping a broader perspective and working with the business to realise benefits. While a programme has a longer life than its component projects, it still has a finite life with ultimate judgement about its success or failure.

With the growth in the scale and complexity of change came a compounding risk that something catastrophic would be carelessly done to the Business; something that would embarrass management or cause the ultimate failure of the enterprise. To address this the CHANGE MANAGER appeared on the scene. The focus of CHANGE MANAGER was to understand what PROJECT MANAGER and PROGRAMME MANAGER planned to do to the business and ensure that it was properly planned, tested and implemented in way that reduced the risk of failure, whether that be to clients, owners, regulators, etc.

CHANGE MANAGER is more loyal to preserving business as usual and doing things in proven tested ways than to driving innovative change.

More recently PORTFOLIO MANAGER has emerged from the PMO. PORTFOLIO MANAGER is more active and looks to maximise the use of constrained resources through prioritisation, scheduling, and identifying synergies and economies of scale. He manages a diverse set of changes often without a common benefit or expected outcome other than the ultimate development of the total business.

This is largely where the evolution of the change professional has brought us today. So where next?

Well my prediction is a convergence of the evolutionary lines of PROGRAMME MANAGER and PORTFOLIO MANAGER; a being I call “THEME” MANAGER. A theme is broad area of concern or interest in the Business that may face a variety of demands and expectations, that may or may not have been already co-ordinated, but in general will emerge and change as time passes.

An example in financial service relates to the whole field of regulation. Here any substantial Business is subject to many sets of rules and regulations that seem to be changing daily and often conflict in timing, detail and even intent. The approach of PROGRAMME MANAGER would typically be to look at the whole of one set of requirements eg MiFID II  or Dodd Frank.  This gives a sense of constrained scope, yet can be costly in terms of duplication, mis-timing and missed opportunity.

In comparison one could see three of four themes. One that covers changes to product development and treating clients; another that looks at how the Business works in and interacts with its regulated markets; a third that looks at how the business is structured and governs itself and a fourth that looks at all of its reporting requirements. Of course a “theme” has to be relevant to the Business, but will then garner all the change related to that theme, no matter where it comes from and look to optimise the opportunity or opportunities (ie benefits and utilisation). A theme will not necessarily have an end date and its “success” may be measured differently.

This suits a Business where change is prevalent if not dominant and “business as usual” while important is far from the whole story. One could say that in these businesses there is no opportunity to stand still or do nothing.

Both graphically on the evolutionary tree and in terms of importance in ensuring the continuing success of the Business there is more than a passing similarity between BUSINESS MANAGER and THEME MANAGER.  They do say life is full of circles and this may be another one.

So what does this mean in terms of professional mutation? Well I think the THEME MANAGER will need more business skills and understanding than today's typical project or programme manager who is often more of a gun for hire, executing process and protecting their own interests. The THEME MANAGER will also need to deal with ambiguity and take risks better, with well-developed judgement of when to hold a line in terms of scope or requirements and when to flex. They should be someone who can be trusted with delegated authority in this respect. Lastly I think the THEME MANAGER will need more "line" style skills as his team will look more like a normal business with longevity (and rising productivity?) rather than the mosaic of assignments that is much more common today.

Do you agree with the history and the vision? Please do let me know.