The Dutch Experience - part 7 in the series on SMMs - read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6 -

An SMM is a method, and subject matter experts (organizational change agents) can be trained to apply the method. A framework, a set of optimized instruments for that specific SMM, can be made available for deployment projects, preferably by qualified experts in the specific SMM of your choice. These providers then have a business model based on the specification of the SMM, in a similar way as many providers have developed their business around open source products like Drupal or WordPress.

If the SMM is a proprietary product, there will be one formalized framework, available through sales agents. If the SMM is an open source product, providers will develop their own frameworks in an open competition model.

An SMM can be introduced in various ways, ranging from fully standardized projects, up to any bespoke project or your own do-it-yourself approach (DIY).

Standardized deployment projects

In case of a proprietary SMM product, a formally standardized approach normally includes a guarantee of the result, the availability of dedicated instruments, and the use of all available technology and knowledge that was developed in previous SMM projects. Of course this only comes at a price, through (accredited) providers in the chosen SMM market.

Organizations that follow a standardized SMM deployment project are supported during and after the project by professional SMM resources. For some SMMs, employees of these organizations can even join a dedicated SMM community, exchanging knowledge and material from their projects.

Standardized SMM deployment projects will be adapted to local conditions, but only to a certain level: they will apply a standardized set of rules and decisions on the use of the SMM. The project focuses at the decisions each organization should take, within the standardized framework, and on coaching the organization in applying these decisions within the SMM specifications, in a continuous improvement approach.

This is quite contrary to the traditional bespoke projects that allow for full localization of decisions, involving all internal resources. This approach was used for decades in organizational change management. The knowledge and experience of the involved consultant determines the outcome of such a project to a certain level, but a formally standardized specification is normally missing. Supposedly, this approach provides for awareness and acceptance of results, because all decisions were taken “by all involved”. The downside of this approach is threefold:

  1. huge project cost in terms of meeting time
  2. most decisions will be a compromise, because all involved staff had to agree to an outcome
  3. many are involved without having the explicit skills that are required for managing organizational change projects.

The results of these projects normally include lots of fall-back behavior because the compromise didn’t solve the issues, and resistance against new projects because of ‘change fatigue’.

The simplified standard

Instead of going through all of the decisions that need to be taken in the SMM, organizations can also build on the experience of others. In this case, many decisions are largely copied from what others had previously chosen in successful deployments of the SMM, and only core involved staff are taking the remaining decisions that determine the local use of the SMM. This is what we call a ‘light SMM’.

A mature and experienced SMM coach can provide these light SMM solutions, and the associated cases to illustrate how they worked in practice.

Applying a ‘light’ SMM would mean that roughly 70% of all decisions in the deployment are fully standardized, 20% are largely standardized with some localization, and 10% is typically determined by local conditions. You can imagine that this will highly reduce the effort, improve the speed of the deployment, and reduce its cost. But it requires that you can trust the decisions of others, so the SMM needs to have a large installed base.

7.3   DIY projects

An SMM can also be used in a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach, but in these cases organizations will have to use their local instruments for their SMM framework, and they are not part of a supported SMM community. Some SMMs are documented in a public format, and the books can be ordered through their publishers (including TSO and Inform-IT), making the details of the SMM largely available at a very low price.

DIY projects can be as simple as:

  • Buying a book about the selected SMM, and applying what it says.
  • Training a few staff members in the selected SMM, and staffing the internal organizational change project with these trained individuals.
  • Buying the SMM Framework from a provider, and using it in your internal project.
  • Hiring an expert of the selected SMM for a limited number of days, to support your project staff.
  • Any combination of these.

With these three project types, an organization will always be able to benefit from a chosen SMM. The available funding for improvement projects largely determines the choice.

In my next column I will discuss the practical goals of an SMM.