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 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.
