Enter Centric: Supporting a Successful Change Management Movement
Swagelok partnered with Centric Consulting’s People and Change team in Cleveland because of our expertise and experience in enterprise change management, cultural fit with the organization, and thorough understanding of the company’s needs and objectives.
Swagelok needed us to:
- Benchmark its current change management program against industry best practices.
- Measure the organization’s change management maturity
- Formulate an action plan to achieve program goals and support change management efforts.
We began the project with a discovery phase, which entailed a healthy dose of listening in a series of key stakeholder interviews. We met with individuals and teams to hear firsthand how they used existing tools and to gain insight into both their current needs and the program’s maturity level.
Taking the needs and priorities gathered from both Swagelok personnel and other change management practitioners, we benchmarked the Swagelok change management approach against industry best practices. We uncovered prominent themes that allowed us to refine their maturity goal and create a toolset roadmap.
Here’s what we did over the course of our 10-week engagement:
Benchmarking
We leveraged our Change Management Maturity Model to aid in the best practice benchmarking of the Swagelok change management methodology and toolset. Our local project team customized a proprietary tool developed by our National People and Change practice for Swagelok’s use. After taking a baseline of the Swagelok program, we recommended a set of goals to reach the desired future state.
We also developed a comparison of Kotter and Prosci change models, drawing from our existing knowledge base but customizing it to suit Swagelok’s needs. This allowed Swagelok to easily compare its program with these two models and smartly evaluate maturity goals and our roadmap recommendations.
Toolsets
Based on stakeholder feedback, we learned that many team members found the current toolset difficult to use. It was either overwhelming or not granular enough to be effective for their projects. Some practitioners had reverted to their own tools over time, and Swagelok lacked a consistent way to share knowledge across the organization.
To get the best, most consistent results, we recommended that Swagelok address the pain points and adopt a consistent, easy-to-access toolset across its organization. The toolset needed to be scalable according to the practitioner’s experience level and project need. Our solution also required an educational component to teach newer practitioners foundational change concepts and best practices. Swagelok agreed with our approach and worked with us to develop a roadmap to implement recommended improvements.
Roadmap
Bringing it all together, we worked with Swagelok to refine benchmark and change management program goals, and we developed a roadmap to help them close the gaps. As a company, Swagelok is practical and pragmatic, and we created the roadmap with the organization’s culture top-of-mind, while also integrating more modern methodologies with the work they were already doing.
“Centric Consulting met our organization where we were. Together, we decided on a path forward that would benefit everyone at Swagelok, and the process really demonstrated how much Centric was centered on us and our success,” says Dave Krabill, Director of Swagelok’s Enterprise Program Office.
The Results: Following the Roadmap to Phase Two and Beyond
Swagelok’s leaders had four broad objectives. They wanted to:
- Ensure a scalable and measurable approach that is applicable across a comprehensive continuum of change efforts
- Develop change leadership as a critical leadership competency
- Educate the organization on change leadership and change management
- Define an organizational structure that supports the delivery of successful change efforts.
Upon completion of phase one, our recommended roadmap provided clarity for future work while fulfilling each of Swagelok’s objectives. With the skills and confidence they acquired in phase one, the Swagelok team is now ready to proceed with phase two and beyond.
We look forward to seeing Swagelok achieve its goal of building excellent change management capabilities among its project and program management leadership and practitioners. Doing so will have a significant, positive impact on completed projects and enable Swagelok to continue to “make it better.”
