Change Management — managing the change in organisation

Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with the transition or transformation of an organization’s goals, processes or technologies.

- George Lawton

Recently, I had to take up a course for academics based on an elective subject that addressed management change and the steps to be taken to ensure that the change is done as efficiently as possible.

Stock photo from pexels.com

There were several guidelines along with the stages to be completed for effective completion of the objective, which will be discussed further along the article.

Note that this article contains my personal notes based on the learning outcomes of the course I took. This may be a relatively shorter article when compared to the recent ones I have published, but still contains a good amount of information based on this topic.

Change in management may occur due to:

• A merger
• System changes
• Compliance reviews
• Changing legislation

Benefits of planning ahead of a change in management:

• More engagement
• Outcome buy-in
• Increased return on investment
• Growth and innovation

Nomenclature used:

Case for change — The case for change management is inextricably connected to project and organizational success. This includes the role of the individual in successful change, data supporting the value of change management, three “people side” of change ROI factors.

Stakeholder analysis — a process of identifying internal people and teams who the project will involve or affect before the project begins; grouping them according to their levels of participation, interest, and influence in the project; and determining how best to involve and communicate each of these stakeholder groups throughout.

Business impact analysis — a tool to help plan for the inevitability of consequences and their cost. It’s another arrow in the quiver to battle risk. If that sounds like it’s important, it is. Risk is always on the horizon and the better-equipped businesses are to discern and prepare for them, the more likely they’ll be able to continue doing business in the future.

Communications plan — an outline of how you’re going to communicate important, ongoing project information to key stakeholders. Your communication plan will help your team understand who should be getting which notifications and when to loop in project stakeholders. As part of your communication plan, you’ll clarify which channel stakeholders should use and when, how frequently different details should be communicated, and who is responsible for each of the different channels.

Stages for change in management:

On the roadmap to change in management, one has to go through these stages::Setup for success

Step 1: Setup for success

Step 2: Mobilize leaderships and stakeholders

Step 3: Project implementation approach

Step 4: Change Strategy and plan

These steps are further discussed in detail below.

1. Setup for success

• Craft a change vision — what do you hope to achieve, how is the outcome of the change aligned with your corporate vision, mission, and purpose, challenges and benefits associated with change outcome, impacts of change
• Build the case for change — describe current situation, reason for change, future step
• Challenge — new project team, team members just starting to work on team initiative and scoping, case for change will help clarify project outcomes and rationale for change
• Solution — describe current situation, reason for change, future state change vision
• The sales promotion is the reason for taking action right now.
• You should begin with a clear objective statement to begin crafting your vision of change.

1. Mobilize leaderships and stakeholders

• Identify impacted teams and business areas — identify directly affected teams, work through organizational process maps to identify hand-off points between teams
• Change agents — people that want to see your change succeed, can help create tipping point for change
• Change communication plan — (wording and crafting your message) use the project team as testing ground, ask project sponsors and executives to review change narrative and message, ask for reviews from corporate communications, marketing, or human resources.
• Communication channels — email, employee portals, corporate social media, team meetings, big corporate event
• You can identify specific cohorts who are involved in the process that will be changed by using organizational process maps to identify impacted stakeholders.
• include human resources and marketing personnel in your communications review team as they contact stakeholders on a regular basis.

1. Project implementation approach

• Align project and change management — align approach, milestones, responsibilities
• Define change management roles — change manager or lead, communications expert, business impacts expert, learning and development expert
• Change manager — responsible for defining a change plan, analyzing stakeholders and their needs, creating and managing a communications plan, identifying business impacts, creating training plan.
• Change sponsor — acts as face of change
• Change leaders — tasked with realizing benefits
• Change agents or champions — vital supporters of change effort
• Change management is more continuous and more focused on people as compared to project management. Change management is an ongoing effort involving behavior.

1. Change strategy and plan

• Identify business impacts — list impacted stakeholders and teams, document current state for particular group
• Change impact categories — process, technology, culture and behavior, talent and capabilities, organizational impacts
• Detail anticipated change activities in terms of communications, training, and other actions.
• Design change management plan — understand organizational culture, align timelines, milestones, activities with project management, plan out change activities according to business impacts, plan for engagements with extended change team, make plan visual
• Build a change impact assessment to evaluate and document the transformation. The purpose is to provide a methodology for analyzing differences between present and future states.

References:

1. Christina Charenkova, Change Management: Roadmap to Planning, LinkedIn Learning
2. George lawton, Change Mangement, TechTagret.com

Note :

This article is not sponsored and is purely based on the author’s opinions and personal experience on the journey of learning. None of the links provided here are affiliate links and are provided only for the purpose of learning.

Check out this article on my Medium Blog : Managing the change in organisation — change in management