The Change Team - Important Roles

In my last blog I introduced a technique for visualizing the stakeholders of a change effort - called a wHolistic Framework.  Identifying the impacted stakeholders is crucial to the change effort, but let's go a step beyond that.There are other roles you'll need for successful change, including: facilitator, integrator, communicator, champion, sponsor, change agent, subject matter expert, along with a named owner for each impacted stakeholder you've identified on your wHolistic Framework.What do each of these roles cover?  Here's a brief description and then we'll dive into more detailed descriptions going forward.Facilitator: this role knows how to get everybody talking in an effective mannerIntegrator: the integrator can take all of the different pieces and put them together into a whole that makes senseCommunicator: this is probably the most important role when it comes to making change successful and less painful -- you can never over-communicate!Champion: there will likely be resistance and barriers to adoption that your champion(s) will help you push pastSponsor: every effort needs a sponsor who will ensure the needed resources are available -- both financial and human resourcesChange Agent: for the new world to catch on and go, you will need people in the trenches who are change agents - they will have the passion to make it work and to maintain it long termSubject Matter Expert: to truly glean improvements from a change effort, you need a complete understanding of the current world, and what your future world could be -- subject matter experts provide thisOwner: each impacted stakeholder needs to provide somebody who is the owner of their world, who will participate in the change and govern the on-going operations after the change is implementedMore to come in future blog posts!