Organizational Change Management How-To Series 2 of 5

Article #2

Topics:

1. Assessments

2. Strategies and Plans

3. Change Readiness Assessment

4. Communication & Engagement

5. Measuring Change and Adoption

Change Strategies and Plans

This is the second article in a short series of articles on the basics of how organizational change management is conducted. The first article focused on understanding what is changing, why the changes are being made, and who is impacted.

In addition to capturing Stakeholder and Change Impact Assessment information, more information is needed to form the Change Strategy, which describes the overall approach to managing change for a project. This additional information includes the vision and case for change for the project, the organization’s change history, communication and engagement approaches that work well and do not work well, people and applications needed to execute the change effort, metrics that will be used to measure the success of the change effort, the timeline of the project, etc. Using a mixture of art and science, a Change Strategy is then formed from all of this information. The Change Strategy describes at a medium or high level the overall change journey for the project, which includes the approaches to be used, who will execute them, when, how, roles and responsibilities, how change will be measured, and any applications or materials that will be used. To take the Change Strategy to an operational level, a Change Plan contains a more detailed view of the activities needed to execute the Change Strategy. This detailed view, or at least the key activities and milestones, should be integrated into the overall plan for the project.

There are many different definitions of what is included in a Change Strategy and a Change Plan, and even what they are called. The concepts, however, are generally the same – collect data and information and then form the strategy and detailed plan. The purpose of a Change Strategy and Change Plan is to make sure everyone is aware of how change will be managed for a project, especially the key stakeholders. The larger and more complex a project is, the greater the need is for capturing the overall approach and plan for managing the change it will bring to an organization.

When you need help forming and managing an organizational change management effort for your large and complex project, it is critical to find the right company to help you. TAM Training has the experience and flexibility to help you define and execute the right approach for your organization, project, and budget.

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