Change is a familiar theme these days, a concept attached to every act of persuasion behind every new project. At our own February meeting, change was featured as "your competitive advantage," as speaker Karl Schoemer illustrated how moving rapidly through each change cycle can incrementally produce net gains in both productivity and quality. How, though, do you, as project manager, effect that change? More importantly, how do you establish an environment in which change is embraced, not temporarily tolerated? I suggest that training for change can be the most efficient means of guiding your team through the troughs of change.

•   Shift that paradigm

Synonym for the noun change are  transformation and conversion. When planning the training component of your project, does the formal and informal instruction support, not only the goals of your project, but a shift in the current paradigm of how team members apply new skills? When the new software, the new process or procedure is implemented, will employees seek out innovative ways to improve productivity, quality and profitability? If members of the team don't clearly understand why and how an innovation is necessary for progress, old habits are likely to manifest themselves, reducing, if not defeating, the intended benefits. Transforming the understanding of your entire team membership to a common perspective isn't automatic; it is, however, crucial to maximizing the effect of any change.

•   Adjust your training based upon levels of buy in

Don't assume that change for change's sake will produce the net improvements without first teaching team members how to use the new implementation as more than a replacement. A good place to start is to identify the level of understanding each team member has of the project's big picture. Use a series of short, easy-to-assess surveys to track individual progress in what can accurately be called buy in. If the individual doesn't see why implementing change will result in an improved bottom line, level of quality and productivity, then you're setting yourself up for duplicating old results with new methods, thereby losing the advantage afforded by the change. Reinforce the project's goals by challenging each team member to think differently about the new software, process or procedure. By comparing periodic feedback as to how members perceive their own contributions using the new product, process or procedure, you can make changes in training that actually serve to meet the learner's needs while transforming the attitudes about your project's value.

•   Learning Styles

Is your current experience with training a "one-size-fits-all" approach? While lecture formats are still common in some training circles, only about thirty percent of the population learns editorially, while more than twice that percentage learns from visual interaction with information. Aligning your training to the individual learning styles of your team members allows for rigorous training without losing the interest of those being trained. Often times, human resource departments have resources that help determine the best means for trainers to present material to members, so don't overlook this local resource when you, the project manager, plan your training components.

Though counterintuitive to many, effective training must produce a level of frustration within the learner. Employee training that doesn't challenge the learner to find new ways to internalize new concepts won't result in the transformation of how change is processed to the ends of better efficiency, and thus, a better net bottom line. To be clear, the learning experience should produce a sufficient level of what's known as cognitive dissonance, a state of frustration in which one's brain struggles to make sense of new information by forming new ways of understanding, but the frustration should come from intellectual rigor, not poor instruction techniques.

Conclusion

New programs, the latest software, innovative processes and procedures may produce change, but change for its own sake won't yield results in productivity or profits; training for change will. While project managers may not perform the training, they can, by more deliberate and considerate planning during the initial stages of a project's life, greatly increase the rate at which change translates into the improved results that justified the decision to implement change.