The Enterprise Change Office

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Moving On From The False Binary Paradigm Of Project Manager v Change Manager

From Professional Boundaries to Enterprise Capability

Contents
Introduction

Discussions about the relationship between Project Managers and Change Managers have become commonplace.

Articles, conference presentations and social media posts regularly compare their responsibilities, debate where ownership should sit and offer advice on how the two “professions” can collaborate more effectively. The debate has undoubtedly helped organisations recognise the importance of combining technical delivery with behavioural adoption. However, it has also become so familiar that few people now question whether it represents the right way to think about organisational change in the first place.

The Evolution Of “Project Management” and “Change Management”

The origins of modern “Project Management” can be traced to the increasing scale and complexity of engineering, defence and infrastructure projects that emerged during and immediately after the Second World War. Organisations were confronted with the challenge of coordinating thousands of interdependent activities, large multidisciplinary teams and substantial financial investments, often under demanding timescales and significant uncertainty. This created a need for more systematic approaches to planning, scheduling, resource management and control. Over subsequent decades these practices matured into a recognised profession through the development of formal methodologies, bodies of knowledge, professional institutions and internationally recognised standards. By the end of the twentieth century, “Project Management” had become an established discipline with a clearly defined identity and purpose.

The behavioural aspects of organisational change have much deeper roots than the term “change management” itself. Throughout the twentieth century, researchers and practitioners developed important ideas about organisational development, organisational psychology, motivation, adult learning, leadership, organisational culture and organisational learning. Thinkers such as Lewin, Maslow, McGregor, Beckhard, Argyris and Schein each made significant contributions to our understanding of how organisations and the people within them adapt to change. However, these contributions emerged from different academic disciplines and professional communities. They pursued different research questions, employed different theoretical frameworks and addressed different organisational challenges. They did not collectively describe their work as “change management”.

During the 1990s, the term “change management” began to gain widespread acceptance as organisations sought more structured approaches to the human aspects of implementing projects and business initiatives. Consultancy firms and methodology providers increasingly brought together ideas from organisational development, psychology, learning, communications and leadership under the umbrella of change management, packaging them into practical frameworks that organisations could adopt.

One proprietary methodology explicitly positioned “Change Management” as a discipline that complemented “Project Management”. This proved to be both an accessible way of explaining the relationship between technical delivery and behavioural adoption and a highly successful commercial proposition. Over time, it reinforced the perception that organisational change could be understood primarily through the interaction of two distinct professional domains: “Project Management” and “Change Management”.

Organisational Change Management As A Team Sport
The difficulty with viewing organisational change through the relationship between “Project Managers” and “Change Managers” is that it overlooks the reality of how successful organisational change actually happens. Organisations do not change because two job titles collaborate effectively. They adapt because many people, bringing different expertise and occupying different organisational roles, work together towards a common strategic purpose. This broader perspective follows naturally from the definition of organisational change itself. If organisational change is understood as:
“The adaptation of an organisation’s Enterprise System and, where necessary, its Governance Logic to support the achievement of its strategy and objectives”(1)

then it becomes clear that no single role or job title can reasonably claim ownership. Achieving such change requires strategic leadership, effective governance, initiative delivery, behavioural engagement, operational knowledge, technical expertise and informed decision-making, all working in concert towards a common objective. Organisational change is therefore best understood not as the responsibility of an individual, but as a team sport.

There is the well-known story from NASA’s Apollo programme in which a visitor asked a janitor what he was doing. Rather than replying that he was sweeping the floor, he is said to have responded, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.” The story illustrates an important principle. Success was not delivered solely by the astronauts, engineers or mission controllers. It depended upon thousands of people, each understanding how their contribution supported a shared strategic objective.

The same principle applies to organisational change. In the terminology used throughout this website, the Initiative Sponsor provides strategic direction, secures commitment and remains accountable for the intended outcomes. The Initiative Lead coordinates the delivery of the initiative. The Change Architect ensures that the proposed changes are coherent with the wider Enterprise System. The Change Engagement Lead helps leaders, managers and teams understand, prepare for and adopt new ways of working. Workstream Leads contribute specialist expertise within their respective domains. Alongside them sit Risk Leads, Benefits Leads, Finance Leads, operational managers, subject matter experts and many others whose knowledge is essential to achieving successful organisational change.

The question is therefore not whether one of these individuals is the “Change Manager”. Each is managing change within the context of their own responsibilities and expertise. The more useful question is whether the organisation has created the governance, capability and shared understanding that enables these different contributors to function as a coherent team.

Once organisational change is viewed in this way, the familiar distinction between “Project Managers” and “Change Managers” begins to lose much of its significance. The challenge is no longer to define the boundaries between two roles, but to ensure that all those responsible for organisational change are equipped to contribute effectively towards a common strategic purpose. Organisational change is not delivered by a “Project Manager” and a “Change Manager” working together; it is delivered by an organisation that has developed the capability to function as a coordinated team.

Enterprise Capability

Viewing organisational change as a team sport naturally leads to a different question. Rather than asking how “Project Managers” and “Change Managers” should work together, organisations should ask what capability they require to undertake organisational change successfully. This shifts the focus from individual roles and responsibilities to the capability of the enterprise as a whole.

Initiative Management, Behavioural Change Engagement, Business Analysis, Enterprise Architecture, Organisation Design, Benefits Management, Risk Management and many other practice areas should therefore not be viewed as competing for ownership of organisational change. Each contributes specialist expertise, but none delivers organisational change in isolation. Their collective purpose is to enable the organisation to adapt its Enterprise System and, where necessary, its Governance Logic in pursuit of strategic objectives.

This perspective underpins the concept of an Enterprise Change Office. Rather than representing another functional silo, the Enterprise Change Office exists to develop, integrate and continually improve the organisation’s organisational change capability. Its purpose is not to replace existing practice areas, but to ensure they operate as components of a coherent enterprise capability.

The Enterprise Change Office

If organisational change is an enterprise capability rather than the responsibility of individual job titles or practice areas, then organisations require some means of deliberately developing, integrating and continually improving that capability. An Enterprise Change Office provides one organisational mechanism for doing so.

The ECO exists to help the organisation become progressively better at undertaking organisational change. Its concern is not simply whether individual initiatives succeed, nor even whether the organisation is investing in the right portfolio of initiatives, but whether it is systematically developing the capability required to adapt its Enterprise System and, where necessary, its Governance Logic in pursuit of its strategic objectives.

This is achieved not by replacing existing practice areas such as Initiative Management or Behavioural Change Engagement, but by enabling them to operate as components of a coherent enterprise capability. The ECO provides the governance, standards, knowledge stewardship, assurance, capability development and continual improvement needed to integrate these practice areas into a coordinated approach to organisational change. In doing so, it helps ensure that organisational change becomes an enduring organisational capability rather than the responsibility of individual functions or job titles.

Conclusion

The distinction between “Project Managers” and “Change Managers” has undoubtedly advanced thinking about organisational change by recognising that successful initiatives require both technical delivery and behavioural adoption. However, it has also encouraged organisations to view organisational change through the interaction of two job titles rather than through the capability of the enterprise. Organisational change is a team sport. It draws upon many different practice areas, each contributing specialist expertise towards a common strategic purpose.

The challenge for organisations is therefore not to define ever more precisely the boundaries between “Project Management” and “Change Management”, but to develop the enterprise capability required to adapt the Enterprise System and, where necessary, the Governance Logic in pursuit of strategic objectives. That represents a fundamental shift in perspective – from professional boundaries to enterprise capability.

(1)Source: A Definition Of Organisational Change

Read On

Key Roles In Organisational Change

This website adopts a strategy-led framework that examines the relationships between strategy, the Enterprise System, Operational Continuity, Governance Logic, and the Two Orders of Organisational Change.
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Does First-Order And Second-Order Change Still Apply?

First-Order and Second-Order Change were developed long before current descriptions of organisational environments such as VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) and BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible). Organisations are now seen as continually adapting, rather than moving episodically between stable states. It is therefore reasonable to question whether a distinction from an earlier context remains useful.

The distinction remains relevant because First-Order Change does not necessarily mean simple, predictable, or incremental change. It can be extensive, continuous, complicated, complex, emergent, and highly uncertain. Organisations may repeatedly adapt structures, processes, technologies, and ways of working while their underlying organisational order remains intact.

VUCA and BANI may increase the frequency, interconnectedness, and unpredictability of adaptation. However, neither uncertainty nor complexity determines the order of change. An organisation can experiment, learn, and adapt continuously without fundamentally changing its organisational order.

Second-Order Change identifies a qualitatively different situation: the underlying organisational order itself becomes subject to reconsideration and potential change. Developments in markets, technology, regulation, societal expectations or other conditions may eventually challenge fundamental assumptions about how an organisation creates value, understands its identity, exercises authority, allocates resources or determines accountability. Adaptation within the existing order may then no longer be sufficient.

The boundary is not always clear. Successive First-Order adaptations may gradually challenge the existing organisational order. However, uncertainty, emergent outcomes, or experimentation alone do not make change Second-Order. The distinction lies in the level at which change occurs, not its size, frequency, or predictability.

Although the organisational environment has changed since these concepts were introduced, the distinction remains relevant. In fact, under ongoing uncertainty and adaptation, distinguishing between change within an existing order and change to that order may be even more important.

Linda Ackerman and Three Types of Change

Linda Ackerman developed an influential distinction between Developmental, Transitional and Transformational Change in Ackerman (1986). At the time, she was primarily an Organisation Development practitioner and consultant.

Ackerman defined Developmental Change as improving existing conditions. Transitional Change involves moving from a current state to a clearly defined new state, with the transition managed over a controlled period. In contrast, Transformational Change results in a fundamentally different state that emerges over time and cannot be fully specified in advance.

This distinction means Transformational Change is qualitatively different from improving an existing organisation or implementing a predetermined design. Figure 2 illustrates these three forms.

Developmental Change Improvement of what is; new state is a prescribed enhancement of the old state. 26_11
Transitional Change Design and implementation of a desired new state that solves an old state problem; requires management of the transition process to dismantle the old state while putting in place the new state; managed timetable. 26_12
Transformational Change

Market requirements force fundamental changes in strategy, operations, and worldview.

New state is unknown - it emerges from visioning, trial and error discovery, and learnings.

New state requires fundamental shift in mindset, organising principles, behaviour, and or culture, as well as organisational changes, all designed to support new business directions.

Critical mass of organisation must operate from new mindset and behaviour for transformation to succeed and new business model or direction to be sustained.

 		26_13

Figure best viewed on tablet or above

Adapted from Ackerman (1986) and Ackerman Anderson (2016) 

Figure 2: Ackerman’s Classification Of Change

On this website, daschange.info, Ackerman’s Developmental and Transitional Change are interpreted as forms of First-Order System Change, while her Transformational Change is interpreted as Second-Order Transformational Change. This is an analytical mapping made within this website and is not part of Ackerman’s original model:

  • Developmental and Transitional Change are treated as forms of First-Order Change because both can occur while the underlying organisational order remains substantially intact.
  • Transformational Change is associated with Second-Order Change, where that underlying organisational order itself becomes subject to reconsideration and potential change, and the eventual future state cannot necessarily be specified in advance.

References

Ackerman, L. S. (1986) ‘Development, Transition, or Transformation: The Question of Change in Organizations’, OD Practitioner, 18(4), pp. 1–8.

Ackerman Anderson, L. (2016) ‘Organization Development and Transformation: What It Takes’, in Rothwell, W.J., Stavros, J.M. and Sullivan, R.L. (eds.) Practicing Organization Development: Leading Transformation and Change. 4th edn. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 60–78

Jean Bartunek And Michael Moch And The Orders Of Change

The Organisational Development scholars Jean Bartunek and Michael Moch developed the distinction between different orders of organisational change from a cognitive perspective. In Bartunek and Moch (1987), they examined how schemata could help explain different forms of organisational change.

Schemata are organising frameworks people use to understand and interpret events. Bartunek and Moch described First-Order Change as incremental change occurring within schemata already shared by organisational members. Second-Order Change involves modification of those shared schemata themselves.

They also introduced Third-Order Change, which they described as developing the capacity of an organisation’s members to recognise their existing schemata and change them as circumstances require.

Their work suggests that fundamental organisational change may require changes to the shared frameworks through which organisational reality is understood, rather than only to structures, processes or behaviours.

References

Bartunek, J. M. & Moch, M. K. (1987) ‘First-Order, Second-Order, and Third-Order Change and Organization Development Interventions: A Cognitive Approach’, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 23(4), pp. 483–500.

Amir Levy And Second-Order Change

Amir Levy was an organisational theorist whose work in the 1980s helped apply First-Order and Second-Order Change specifically to organisations.

Levy (1986) distinguished between change within an existing organisational framework and Second-Order Change, which involves more fundamental organisational transformation. Together with Uri Merry, he further developed these ideas in Levy and Merry (1986), examining organisational transformation through perspectives including organisational paradigms, culture, myths, purpose, and approaches to managing Second-Order Change.

Their work reinforced an important distinction: organisational transformation concerns a qualitative shift in the organisation and its underlying paradigm, rather than simply the quantity, scale or difficulty of change undertaken.

References

Levy, A. (1986) ‘Second-Order Planned Change: Definition and Conceptualization’, Organizational Dynamics, 15(1), pp. 5–23.

Levy, A. & Merry, U. (1986) Organizational Transformation: Approaches, Strategies, and Theories. New York: Praeger.

Paul Watzlawick And The Two Orders Of Change

Paul Watzlawick was a psychologist, communication theorist and influential figure at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California. Working with John Weakland and Richard Fisch, he drew on systems theory to examine why attempts to solve problems sometimes leave the underlying conditions that generate them unchanged.

Watzlawick et al. (1974) distinguished between First-Order and Second-Order Change. First-Order Change occurs within an existing system: its components, behaviours or processes may change while the rules governing the system remain substantially intact. Second-Order Change alters the system itself by changing the rules, assumptions or relationships through which it operates.

This distinction provides an important conceptual foundation for the Two Orders of Organisational Change used within this website.

References

Watzlawick, P., Weakland, J. H. & Fisch, R. (1974) Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Ecosystem

The Office of Government Commerce And P3O®

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) was a UK government body established in 2000 to promote efficiency and best practices in public sector procurement, project management, and programme management. One of its significant contributions was the development of the P3O® (Portfolio, Programme, and Project Offices) framework, first published in 2008. This framework provides principles and guidance on designing and operating effective support structures for delivering change. P3O® was created in response to the growing need for organisations to align their strategies with execution and to standardise the roles of PMOs across different contexts.

In 2014, the stewardship of the OGC’s best practice portfolio was transferred to AXELOS, a joint venture between the UK Cabinet Office and Capita. AXELOS continues to maintain and publish the official P3O® guidance, with the most recent version being “Portfolio, Programme and Project Offices: P3O® Guidance” (AXELOS, 2013).

The guidance outlines a hierarchy of structures, which is summarised in Exhibit 1. It also notes that “projects” can stand alone and do not need to be part of a “programme”.

Exhibit 1: P30® Hierarchy