So, let’s simplify this discussion. There are three main categories of activities you’ll need to address. The three areas are:

Change management. Customer experience initiatives involve guiding the organization through complex and never-ending change. Change management is largely focused on the people aspects of change. It centers around ensuring that employees understand, embrace and successfully adapt to changes. Prosci’s ADKAR® Model and John Kotter’s Leading Change Model are common approaches. And governance is an important part of change management. Change management is distinct from and overarching to process improvement and project management.

Change management has always suffered from an identity crisis. IT professionals talk about change management in terms of rolling out new versions of software. Here, we’re referring to the people side of change management. Both are necessary and should not be equated.

Process improvement. Your team will need effective methods to guide ongoing diagnosis and improvements to processes. In any CX initiative, process improvements are plentiful, diverse and ongoing. Examples include the ongoing adjustments and improvements to apps, websites, communication, forecasts, quality standards, reporting, knowledge management, and many others.

Bring on the alphabet soup—Lean, DMAIC, Six Sigma, Kaizen and others. Many tools that have been around for years remain indispensable: flow charts, cause and effect diagrams, statistical control charts and others. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. The key as leader is to ensure your team uses a methodology and tools that get things done. As your CX initiatives grow, your process improvement toolkit will expand. It’s helpful for CX practitioners to be adaptable—your team is working across functions and often within activities that are already underway.

Project management. Your team will need an approach that keeps projects on track and within budget. Typical examples of CX projects include evaluating and implementing new technology, significant redesign of a cross-functional process, or creating a new CX-oriented workshop curriculum. In many organizations, larger projects are managed by dedicated project

managers.

It is helpful to adopt a go-to approach for managing projects. Examples include Project Management Institute® standards and JPACE. The rigor in these methodologies can boost project success and reduce confusion and uncertainty. The one caveat is that one size does not fit all—you’ll need to find a balance between too little and too much project management. There’s managing and there’s doing, and you’ll want the right amount of both.

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