Often, organizations complete lessons learned sessions after a project, but don’t always know how to leverage these as they move to the next initiative. They can get lost in the shuffle, quickly forgotten, or overshadowed by other concerns. I once heard a client call them “lessons documented” since many times they are captured but not learned.
Leveraging organizational change management (OCM) lessons learned and best practices across projects can include reusing or repurposing previously developed processes and readiness resources such as presentations, training and communication materials, project plans, etc., across different forums, formats, and channels.
When applied with intention, these lessons represent a powerful strategy for working smarter, not harder. It allows OCM professionals to maximize the value of their efforts by building strong foundational processes, tools, templates, and materials that can be adapted and reused with minimal effort. This saves time, effort, and resources and ensures consistency and quality across change initiatives.
These can also be leveraged to help organizations build their approach to change management and serve as templates and best practices when establishing a centralized change management team, such as an Enterprise Change Management Office.
Key Considerations
Evaluating what is appropriate to pull forward to your next change initiative is essential to ensure success. What works for one project may not be suitable for another; as such, it is always a good idea to do an assessment to determine applicability. Ask yourself the following:
Change Scope
- How big and complex is the change initiative?
- How many separate processes are critical to this initiative?
- Are there other related or peripheral processes that should also be considered?
It is essential to avoid underestimating the impact of what appears to be a minor or insignificant process. Even minor processes can have significant consequences if ignored.
Applicability
- Are existing OCM processes, tools, templates, and materials aligned with the current initiative’s goals and requirements?
- Do they cover at least 50% of what’s needed for the new or existing initiative?
Adaptability
- Can they be easily adapted to engage stakeholders, reduce resistance, and boost adoption?
- Can they be meaningfully tailored to tell the right story across audiences, forums, and communication channels?
Best Practices
The process begins with the initial review of core content, such as tools, templates, detailed project plans, presentations, etc. From there, we:
- Identify adaptable content that can serve multiple purposes.
- Make minor modifications to align with the new initiative, context, or audience.
- Repurpose strategically across various touch points, including sponsor updates, change agent communications, people leader activities, and customer engagement.
- Optimize and improve content with each application.
- Reevaluate, refine, and repeat as needed.
Multipurpose Use
When foundational processes and content are well-developed, they become versatile assets. They can be used to:
- Assess stakeholder change capacity, commitment, and resilience.
- Gather insights into experiences, skills, capabilities, expertise, and know-how.
- Identify key activities that drive adoption.
- Create a comprehensive change management strategy and action plan.
- Conduct multi-directional alignment and set clear priorities.
- Strategically engage stakeholders, change agents, and people leaders.
- Implement proactive risk management strategies.
- Optimize stakeholder collaboration, knowledge sharing, and information exchange.
- Leverage proven data-driven continuous improvements.
- Achieve expected outcomes.
- Serve as templates for the organization's Enterprise Change Management Office.
Overall Benefits
The advantages of utilizing lessons learned are numerous, including:
- Process and Efficiency Gains: By reusing existing processes and materials, teams can streamline their workflows and reduce or eliminate the time spent creating new content.
- Leveraging Existing Tools and Templates: Tested and proven resources can be quickly adapted, reducing the need to start from scratch.
- Cross-Channel Application: Well-crafted content can be used across various communication channels, engagement, and training opportunities with only minor adjustments.
- Scalability: General and comprehensive information can be scaled and tailored to meet the needs of different audiences and initiatives.
- Improved Quality: Reusing well-crafted, tested materials enhances the overall quality of communications and engagement tools.
- Knowledge Retention: These lessons help maintain institutional knowledge by capturing, preserving, adapting, and reapplying valuable insights.
In essence, applying lessons learned in OCM is about building smarter, more sustainable change strategies that carry forward the insights and successes of the past to inform the future. By investing in high-quality, adaptable processes and content upfront, organizations can drive consistent messaging, increase engagement, accelerate readiness, easily adapt and adjust, and enhance their change initiatives' overall impact and success.
If you need help evaluating your lessons learned and best practices and building a strategy to apply them across projects, reach out to our Avaap team!
Brenda Robinson is a principal consultant for Avaap’s Organizational Transformation Solutions business unit. She has broad, cross-industry experience developing and executing Organizational Change Management and Lean business strategies and solutions in government, higher education, K-12 education, and healthcare. She has led organizational change management initiatives and held leadership roles in healthcare and manufacturing, focused on optimized call center operations and streamlined clinical care delivery, operational efficiencies, lean business processes, and global cost savings.