Very few transformations deliver on their goals. Over the past decade, project management offices (PMOs) and change management offices (CMOs) have been able to reduce the percentage of transformations that fail from 38% in 2013 to 13% in 2023, according to research by Bain.

But while PMOs and CMOs have helped prevent failures, they haven’t been as successful in improving desired business outcomes. Despite everything companies have learned about change and transformation in the last 10 years, just 12% of transformations met or exceeded expectations in 2023—the same percentage as in 2013.

That’s why a growing number of organizations are turning to a new approach in effecting and managing change: the transformation office. A transformation office serves as a leader and hub for enterprise-wide changes, allocating resources and investments holistically.

This allows the transformation office to enable concurrent initiatives and build a full picture of transformation across a portfolio, rather than sprinkling change support across the company. This plays a critical role in proactively aligning efforts to existing strategy and planning efforts while building enterprise muscle (capability) in landing large, complex change.

What a transformation office does

Historically, change is managed through foundational change-management tactics like communication, training, project integration, sponsorship and stakeholder enablement. HR teams often coordinated large-scale change efforts through their PMO or had a separate resource pool for the change management needed to drive adoption on core projects.

Today, as organizations launch major changes in rapid succession and change saturation is on the rise, many companies are experiencing employee burnout and reduced change adoption. As foundational change-management tactics are stretched thin, organizations are increasingly turning to a transformation office to increase the success of change efforts.

In fact, more than 90% of respondents in one survey said they believe a permanent transformation office improves the alignment between strategy and execution and the orchestration of multiple initiatives. With a single office running multiple transformations, resourcing is more efficient and silos are diminished.

While each transformation office takes a slightly different form, they are often charged with:

• Strategy development: Defining the vision, objectives and strategic direction for transformations, often fed by ideas and innovation set by executives or curated from teams across the organization.
• Governance: Managing the decision-making, prioritization and resource allocation for potential and in-flight transformations to ensure consistency and alignment.
• Program management: Overseeing a portfolio of transformation projects, ensuring that they align with strategic goals.
• Change management: Facilitating the organizational, cultural and behavioral changes required for the individual and cumulative transformations.
• Performance tracking: Monitoring, measuring and reporting against predefined metrics and KPIs.

How the transformation office differs from a PMO/CMO

A traditional PMO or CMO has a focused remit. Its top-line objective is project execution and change adoption at the project level. It’s generally tactical, applying a strategic lens to each program in the portfolio as needed. And its projects often proceed with a waterfall approach, with a defined start and finish and teams charged with bringing a defined plan to life.

The transformation office, in contrast, has a broader, enterprise-wide remit. With a top-line objective of evolving the business and building organizational resilience, it considers how everything is connected and the strategy the changes ladder up to. With initiatives that proceed iteratively, the office can better manage how change layers against stakeholder groups and personas and adapt to ensure maximal adoption.

How to get started with a transformation office

There is no exact recipe to build a transformation office, as its organization and operations need to be driven by strategy and ideal value delivered, but a few key steps can help HR leaders lay the foundation for success.

1. Orient on broad strategy

Start with the goal and key measures that the company is trying to achieve using the broadest lens possible. A healthcare company, for example, might center on patient care and work to ensure that the makeup of the transformation office reflects everything that impacts patient experience, from digital experience to clinical care and more. A technology company might focus on getting products to market more quickly. This core focus will then determine the scope of the office and influence how transformations are chosen and prioritized.

2. Ensure interconnection

The benefit of a transformation office is that HR departments are managing a whole swath of initiatives under one portfolio, enabling collaboration and visibility into dependencies and connections, but to do this well requires structure and governance. HR may set up one arm of the transformation office to handle program management and another for change management, but processes need to ensure that they are connected to avoid creating new siloes.

3. Measure impact

Evaluate the impact on HR’s overall strategy. If the primary goal is to improve patient experience, for example, every transformation initiative should have a measure related to the quality of care so HR teams can evaluate the effectiveness of both individual initiatives and the broad transformation portfolio. Measurement shouldn’t end when a new process or technology launches, either. Create an ongoing engine that measures HR’s target metrics on an ongoing basis to test the value of changes one month, six months and one year later.

4. Instill a culture of transformation

With a focus on continual improvement, HR leaders can help ensure that the transformation office doesn’t just execute but also fosters a culture of transformation. A transformation office not only builds best practices but also enables people to perform through transformations, bringing additional evidence of success, which in turn increases employees’ openness to ongoing growth and change.

5. Build organization-wide transformation visibility

With an overall perspective that stitches individual transformations together, HR leaders can ensure that each individual transformation isn’t operating in a vacuum, minimize redundant efforts and maximize connections between initiatives. It also allows for the transformation office to see where there are gaps and find opportunities for innovation. This visibility also becomes a powerful tool for leaders across the organization to fully understand the experience of their teams and advocate for the transformations they see as high-impact.

The time to start is now

Take a moment to self-reflect: How successful have your past transformations been? How much change is your organization likely to experience in the next three to five years, and will your current HR structures be able to sustain the level of change and transformation you are aiming for? By building a transformation office that’s right-sized to your organization’s needs, your HR department can link innovation and strategy with execution, maximizing the business value of your transformations.

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