The Business Change Lifecycle–Implementation and Realisation
Introduction
The business analyst is a vital role in business change and improvement. An improvement project may require many responsibilities, including stakeholder management, design, development and deployment. The business analyst isn’t the main role performing these tasks but does have a key impact and influence on the decisions and actions taken by the wider team. This blog covers the business change lifecycle, which is a five-stage lifecycle that covers the key areas of activity required to enable successful business change.
These five stages are:
Alignment
Any new project and software development should ensure that it matches the organisation’s objectives and strategy, any proposed changes should meet internal policies and legal requirements.
This is a key stage when process mapping, the To-Be process needs to be compliant with the policies and legislation of the process. This can mean that proposed changes might not be possible due to these factors. Find out more about process mapping here.
Definition
The definition stage focuses on defining business change proposals in order to uncover the root cause, analyse the situation and define the requirements.
Design
The design stage covers the design specification, development and testing of the solution, including the business processes and software needed.
Implementation
Implementation covers the planning and preparation for the deployment of business change.
Realisation
Realisation is the review of the predicted business changes to identify which have been met and which need investigation. For example, through the use of the Engage Process Modeler an estimate time and cost-saving can be produced broken down by role. This can then be investigated to see if the time saving has been realised by the new process and or product.
This series of blogs is going to uncover the business analyst’s role across these five stages. This blog will cover the implementation and realisation stages.
Implementation
The implementation stage covers the design specification, development and testing of the solution, including the business processes and software needed. Therefore, there is a great deal of planning and preparation required in this stage. The key factor to consider as a business analyst in this stage is the impact on the staff effected by the change. It is vital to get people onboard, through means such as using service area lead transformation. The impact on staff members can be split into five sections based on the SARAH model.
The first stage is Shock, which is the initial reaction to the change proposed. This is usually due to a lack of awareness and communication about the proposed changes prior to implementation. This then moves to the second reaction of Anger as they come to the realisation of how the changes will impact them and their current role. This anger is usually focused at senior management and the business change team. If someone is unhappy about the changes they might move to Rejection, this is where the person is angry about the changes and therefore tries to reject the ideas and direction being set. Eventually, an acceptance of the proposed changes is developed, this may not mean they are confident in the changes, but at least believes in the positive impact is can have on the service and role. Finally, Hope. People begin to see the positive impact and benefits available with the transformation and believes in its success.
In conclusion, not keeping staff informed about the transformation project is an easy way for staff to fall into these categories. Therefore, use of service area lead transformation is an effective way to combat this. A good way of achieving this is to use a visual process mapping tool. The Engage Process Modeler is a visual BPMN based tool that can be used to facilitate workshops so that the service area can see it being built in the workshop and has impact over how the new processes are designed.
Realisation
For benefits to be realised effectively, the proposed changes have to be designed, planned and managed effectively. It is common for the majority of the team’s effort to be spent defining, developing and delivering the solution, and less on how the expected business benefits are going to be achieved. Therefore, a complete benefits plan is vital to achieving the projects goals.
A benefits plan outlines the following sections: Context and vision, Benefits profiles, Benefits dependency network, Responsibilities and Tracking procedures.
Some of these sections can be made easier by using the Engage Process Modeler, which is an easy to use process mapping tool that can be used in a workshop and has the capability to capture and calculate process timing and costings. Find out more about the Engage Process Modeler.