Change Management and JIT: You cannot have this cake and eat it too!

Back in February, I was hired by a large, healthcare org as their "Senior CM Advisor" to provide the following CM services on a systems implementation project.

• To review and provide direction on best practices for ensuring optimal organizational change management, and
• Provide techniques and templates as well as guidance on best practices for aspects of organizational change management such as communication plans, training plans, and organizational readiness.

As per my usual standards, I did quick assessments and recommendations resulting in communication and training plans, along with org design action plans that these folks needed in order to be even somewhat successful. I was also there to guide and transfer CM knowledge to the CM Lead who is an internal resource. The problem was nobody ever listened to me me, read my reports/work products, or -- god forbid -- used any of them to run/manage the project.

I recently confronted the CM Lead and PM with this fact (not mentioning that the project pays $150/hour for me to give advice that nobody uses. And it's great advice theat they should heed!) The CM Lead apologized and said she would make more of an effort to listen and use my ideas, tools, and templates. In the two weks that she has been doing so, lo and behold, the team is working much more collaboratively and efficiently, and resources are happier all around.

The PM had a completely different reaction. She said, "This project has always been run JIT, and we have been very successful so far. That's the way it is. Get used to it." One cannot have change mngmt in a JIT environment because JIT violates the entire premise of CM as proactive, planned, and managed. Trying to do reactive or JIT CM contradicts the whole concept. In a JIT project, change is not really managed becuase there is no element of predictive analysis or planning. Really, you just have comms and training or "change damage control". This is why nobody was reading my work products, because they're proactive, and not JIT. The weirdest thing of all was when I explained this to the PM, she completely agreed with me. I did not then ask her why she hired me. So the question becomes how long I can continue working in this role with little satisfaction.