We have carved out an experiential approach based on the projects we have undertaken in the past, which led to successful Change implementation. For majority of change programs, be it people transition or ERP implementation projects, this approach remains the same. There are different stages to this BIA approach:
Phase I – Identify Change: What is changing, who are the impacted personas and what will change at a granular level in their day-today work needs to be made clear. Change management will work with each initiative to understand what will be different for whom, initially at a high level and later at a detailed level
Phase II – Impact Analysis: Being a change management consultant, it is important to share the initial studies with the impacted stakeholders to further refine it to bring in more clarity. This phase enabled to identify and validate impacts with the appropriate stakeholder representative. Change manager consolidates the persona impacts & reviews it with the cross-functional representatives.
Phase III – Recommendation & Remediation: At this stage, we suggest the change interventions. This is discussed with the leadership stakeholders and we move to the solution part. OCM & Cross functional team formulates recommendations to address the impacts or gaps. Change Management also helps to co-ordinate and delegate certain activities that go across stakeholder groups (e.g. Training, Job Role Definitions or handoffs, etc.)
We will be specifically be explaining about the Process, Preparation and Know your Stakeholder in this section.
BIA Process
BIA is the process of identifying, evaluating and analysing the potential effects of an interruption or stoppage of critical operations, functions and processes of a business due to any foreseen or unforeseen exigencies. This builds a case of consequences in a worst-case scenario.
There is no thumb rule or fixed guidelines to conduct a BIA. The BIA process can be tailor made considering the organization size and the business environment. However, below is a process that we have developed to initiate a BIA. We keep tweaking this process depending on the change requirement and the stage of OCM intervention.
Preparing for the BIA
People keep joining the organization at different phases of a change process. It is crucial for you to know how much your interviewee knows about the change before starting the BIA process. Small talks at the beginning of the interview help you assess the understanding of the interviewee. It is always advisable to create a presentation which describes a program and make it familiar to the stakeholder before you start the interview. The 5-6 slider presentation may include pointers like project overview, challenges, strategic goals, etc. This activity should not be more than 5 minutes of the interview.
Who are the Stakeholders?
It is important to identify relevant stakeholders for different lines of business or IT competency as part of the process. We will have to decide how many stakeholders we must interview. The interviews are conducted depending upon the project and organizational complexities. The more stakeholders, more the work. With our experience we have charted a list of stakeholders which we call ‘Representative Stakeholder (40)’. Here is the list:
As discussed in the earlier section of the article, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to conduct a BIA, however; the process, preparation and knowing your stakeholders forms the foundation for the BIA. There are further steps to the approach of the BIA which you could read in our next article named – BIA Approach – Types of Impact, Recommendations, Leadership/Sponsor Alignment, Conducting Interviews.
Read also:
Use of Business Impact analysis (BIA) in Change Management
