Change Management Process Improvement

Changes to the Change Management service delivery that improves the quality, change throughput and business case / value realisation with reduced overall effort and cost.

Bord Gáis Energy (BGE) is a leading Irish all-island gas, power and home services company currently supplying products to over 1 million customers with revenues of €1.5billion and over 1,000 employees.

BGE is a progressive company with a reputation for experience and expertise in the energy market and is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers.

In October 2011 Ennovate were asked by the CIO to perform a review of the existing end-to-end Billing system Change Management Structure, Process and Governance.

BGE was in the process of implementing significant change viz;

• Separation of the Bord Gáis Networks and Energy businesses into separate Legal and Operational entities.
• Major outsourcing of a number of IT key services
• Transitioning to a new IT Organisational & Operating Model
• Transitioning the operational mindset from a Post Implementation service support focus to a stable controlled operating model (following a major Billing system implementation).

This was being delivered against the backdrop of an increasingly deregulated and more competitive marketplace.

The objective was to identify the drivers and reduce levels of change demand whilst finding solutions to better evaluate, manage and deliver business critical change, within a tightly controlled budgetary environment.

Ennovate assessed the effectiveness and performance of the:

• End to end change process(requirements through to deployment) and associated value realisation process
• Related Governance and Control structures
• Planning and fulfilment process including the demand, capacity and resource management.

In order to deliver the objective the challenge was to separate out and modify elements of the structures and controls that would reduce the change demand from business stakeholders groups, whilst ensuring that business critical change activities were supported.

We identified that there were a number of contributory factors driving the high levels of demand. These centred around:

• Process and control when assessing and prioritising demand
• Capacity Planning
• Management information and data to drive planning, decision making and communication.
• Governance at key decision points.
• A need for ‘fit for purpose’ process management tools
• Quality control / assurance.

Changes in these areas would allow the existing change management team to considerably improve the management and control of the change pipeline and its delivery whilst at the same time achieving an overall reduction of cost in providing the service.

We deployed a variety of consulting disciplines; Process diagnostics, Data Analysis, Change Management, Leadership Coaching and Mentoring, Project Management and Process Measurement KPIs.

We undertook an initial review over a 15 day period and presented 14 focussed operational change recommendations, prioritised into 3 priority categories.

We then mobilised a change design and implementation programme to deliver the priority 1 & 2 recommendations. Working with the existing Change Management team and a number of key operations stakeholders, we:

• Mobilised a change programme that clarified and re-enforced the accountabilities and responsibilities of the Team that would manage the process going forward.
• Designed an aggressive project plan focussed on delivering ‘real’ change outcomes every week.
• Implemented a ‘lite’ project structure that allowed the flexible and agile piloting and delivery of changes to support our recommendations.
• Recycled examples of good process and management practice from around the organisation to quickly deliver key tools for assessing, planning, tracking and reporting Demand, Capacity and Process Performance.
• Re designed the Governance and Planning Structures to rebalance control of the process.
• Designed and delivered a series of requests and coaching conversations that led to decisive actions, commitment and new levels of accountability from within the IT leadership structure.
• Designed and mobilised a communications programme that built buy-in and commitment to change throughout the business.
• Designed and implemented the processes and practices to embed and sustain the change.

"We made the call to ennovate because we wanted a low stress, high impact intervention, they know how to get things done and have worked with our people to get them to change their working practices"
- ASHLING CUNNINGHAM, CIO, BORD GAIS ENERGY

The new Change structure and process was rolled out in January 2012 and is delivering increased quality and control around systems change. The Change team have the key management processes, tools and practices to proactively manage the process.

Stakeholder expectations are now being set and managed around the prevailing economic budgetary reality and Change is planned and delivered in a controlled and well communicated manner.