Monitoring Change Team Progress

Self-managed Change Teams must manage their own progress and performance. Change Teams require management tools and perspectives different from those traditionally used by managers (production goals, milestones and performance objectives).

Traditional management techniques measure progress against the plan that was created before work began. Transformation projects measure progress against the possibilities. To create something entirely new -- not just to improve the current way -- we must always remain open to new possibilities as they come into view. That makes the plan less important. The Change Team must not be limited to producing only what it could see before it began the work.

Goals and objectives -- as management tools -- tend to limit a Change Team 's ability to truly reinvent.
They focus on managing results. As they do this, they tend to prevent exploration and experimentation along the way. Change Teams, by nature, explore the unknown.

Change Initiatives must stay on course, though. The Change Team must complete its Change Initiative in a reasonably short period of time (before opposition grows strong enough to block completion). Change Teams need a monitoring tool to manage the journey along the way; they can't wait until after results are achieved to check their work. By using On-Track and Off-Track Indicators rather than goals and objectives, a Change Team monitors its progress without limiting its exploration of possibilities.

Your Change Team is taking a journey into the unknown; there is no reliable map to guide you. On-Track and Off-Track Indicators are like gauges on the dashboard of your car. As the Change Initiative progresses, the needles on the gauges should move in the right direction. The Change Team has to drive the initiative by the compass, speedometer and odometer. Think of the warning lights (brakes, oil, engine temperature) on the dashboard as Off-Track Indicators. Think about what might go wrong as you reinvent a work process; these Off-Track Indicators can let you know you are headed in the wrong direction or are in danger.

Both objectives and On/Off-Track Indicators must be specific and observable. But, while objectives target the point (and time) that the work will be finished, On-Track and Off-Track Indicators leave those issues open.

Because you need to monitor the exploration process (long before results are achieved), set On-Track Indicators by determining what you hope will visibly change during the time your initiative is moving forward. (Avoid focusing on the results you expect to occur after implementation; these are objectives.) Look for indicators that only change -- and will always change -- when you move in the right direction. Come up with a list of three or four "gauges" to watch; these indicators will tell you when the initiative is headed in the right direction.

Similarly, come up with a list of three or four "gauges" to serve as Off-Track Indicators. Things that might go wrong during implementation. These indicators will provide feedback that the initiative is not headed in the right direction.

Example:

If your initiative was to replace four computer systems in a department with a single computer system, the On-Track Indicators might be:

• Employees attending training for the new system
• Questions about the new system answered by Tech-support
• Software or hardware installed for the new system

The Off-Track Indicators might be:

• People hired for their knowledge of one of the old systems
• Upgrades of software for an old system
• People trained in the new system refusing to use it

  Written by Heidi Jeanne Hess and Doug Wesley (Veronica Boaz contributed)  

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Updated: July 5, 1998