Change management

Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with the transition or transformation of

an organization's goals, processes or technologies. The purpose of change management is to
implement strategies for effecting change, controlling change and helping people to adapt to
change.

This checklist can be used to create a simple change management plan.

To be effective, the change management strategy must take into consideration how an adjustment
or replacement will impact processes, systems and employees within the organization. There
must be a process for planning and testing change, communicating change, scheduling and
implementing change, documenting change and evaluating its effects. Documentation is a critical
component of change management -- not only to maintain an audit trail should a rollback
become necessary, but also to ensure compliance with internal and external controls, including
regulatory compliance.

How does change management work?

To understand how change management works, it helps to apply its concepts and tools to specific
areas of business. Below are examples of how change management works for project
management, software development and IT infrastructure.

 Scope. Change requests must be evaluated to determine how they will affect the project
scope.
 Schedule. Change requests must be assessed to determine how they will alter the project
schedule.
 Costs. Change requests must be evaluated to determine how they will affect project costs.
Labor is typically the largest expense on a project, so overages on completing project
tasks can quickly drive changes to the project costs.
 Quality. Change requests must be evaluated to determine how they will affect the quality
of the completed project. An acceleration of the project schedule, in particular, can affect
quality as defects can occur if work is rushed.
 Human resources. Change requests must be evaluated to determine if additional or
specialized labor is required. When the project schedule changes, the project manager
may lose key resources to other assignments.
 Communications. Approved change requests must be communicated to the appropriate
stakeholders at the appropriate time.
 Risk. Change requests must be evaluated to determine what risks they pose. Even minor
changes can have a domino effect on the project and introduce logistical, financial or
security risks.
 Procurement. Changes to the project may affect procurement of materials and contract
labor.

When an incremental change has been approved, the project manager documents the change in
one of four standard change control systems to ensure all thoughts and insight have been
captured with the change request. Changes that are not entered through a control system are
labeled defects. When a change request is declined, this is also documented and kept as part of
the project archives.

Types of organizational change

Change management can be used to manage many types of organizational change. The three
most common types are the following:

1. Developmental change. Any organizational change that improves on previously

established processes and procedures.
2. Transitional change. Change that moves an organization away from its current state to a
new state to solve a problem, such as implementing a merger and acquisition or
automating a task or process.
3. Transformational change. Change that radically and fundamentally alters the culture
and operation of an organization. In transformational change, the end result might not be
known. For example, a company may pursue entirely different products or markets.

Kotter's 8-Step Process for Leading Change.

Harvard University professor John Kotter's model has eight steps:

1. Create a sense of urgency.

2. Build a guiding coalition.
3. Form a strategic vision and initiatives.
4. Enlist a volunteer army.
5. Enable action by removing barriers.
6. Generate short-term wins.
7. Sustain acceleration.
8. Institute change.
 Lewin's Change Management Model. Psychologist Kurt Lewin created a three-step
framework that is also referred to as the Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze
 McKinsey 7-S. Business consultants Robert H. Waterman Jr. and Tom Peters designed a
model to look holistically at seven factors that affect change:
1. shared values
2. strategy
3. structure
4. systems
5. style
6. staff
7. skills

What are the benefits of change management?

As laid out in other sections of this definition, taking a structured approach to change
management helps organizations mitigate disruption, reduce costs, reduce time to
implementation, improve leadership skills, drive innovation and improve morale.

In addition, here are some ways that change management can help add structure to IT and
operations:

 improved documentation of enterprise systems;

 greater alignment between suggested change and what gets implemented;
 better starting point for automation initiatives;
 understanding of why systems were made;
 ability to reverse-engineer changes made to existing business processes and
infrastructure; and
 better ability to identify what can be safely eliminated or updated.

Challenges of change management

Companies developing a change management program from the ground up often face daunting
challenges. In addition to a thorough understanding of company culture, the change management
process requires an accurate accounting of the systems, applications and employees to be
affected by a change. Additional change management challenges include the following:

 Resource management. Managing the physical, financial, human, informational, and

intangible assets and resources that contribute to an organization's strategic plan becomes
increasingly difficult when implementing change.
 Resistance. The executives and employees who are most affected by a change may resist
it. Since change may result in unwanted extra work, ongoing resistance is common.
Transparency, training, planning and patience can help quell resistance and improve
overall morale.
 Communication. Companies often fail to consistently communicate change initiatives or
include employees in the process. Change-related communication requires an adequate
number of messages, the involvement of enough stakeholders to get the message out and
multiple communication channels.
 New technology. The application of new technologies can disrupt an employee's entire
workflow. Companies can improve adoption of new technology by creating a network of
early learners who champion the new technology to colleagues.
 Multiple points of view. In any change initiative, success factors differ for people based
on their roles in the organization and incentives. Managing these various priorities is
challenging.
 Scheduling issues. Deciding whether a change program will be long or short term and
clearly defining milestone deadlines are complicated. Some organizations believe that
shorter change programs are most effective. Others believe a more gradual approach to
change reduces resistance and errors.
Importance and effects of change management

As a conceptual business framework for people, processes and the organization, change
management increases the success of critical projects and improves a company's ability to adapt
quickly.

Business change is constant and inevitable, and when poorly managed, it has the potential to
cause organizational stress, as well as unnecessary and costly rework.

By standardizing the consistency and efficiency of assigned work, change management assures
that the people side of an organization is not overlooked. As changes to work occur, change
management helps employees understand their new roles and build a more process-driven
culture.

Change management also encourages future company growth by enabling it to remain dynamic
in the marketplace.

Principles of change management

Three principles of change management build on the three stages of change management
introduced by Kurt Lewin in his seminal book, Principles of Topological Psychology:

 Unfreeze the current state. Change agents need to identify what precisely they want to
change. At this stage, they need to formulate a "why" that other participants are likely to
buy into. In essence, they need to reverse-engineer the future state and translate this
benefit to other possible participants. Then, they need to enroll people who can
participate in the new idea. This could include executive sponsorship for a big change or
co-workers for a departmental change.
 Change the system. At this stage, change agents and any collaborators can begin to put
the change into practice. The change agents need to work with collaborators to
communicate the idea and bring other participants on board. It is important to pay
attention to any pushback and find areas of shared understanding to either help move the
change forward or shift its implementation in response to feedback. Tensions might be
high as everyone gets used to the new system. It's important to be respectful of their
feelings and ideas.
 Refreeze. Eventually, people get used to the new system, or they revert back to what was
working before. At this stage, it is important to declare that the change is over -- whether
the change was accepted or rejected. Even if the change was rejected, declaring it over
gives everyone a chance to relax. It is also helpful at this stage to document what
happened for future reference.

Popular change management tools

Digital and nondigital change management tools can help change management officers research,
analyze, organize and implement changes. In a small company, the tools may simply consist of
spreadsheets, Gantt charts and flowcharts. Larger organizations typically use software suites to
maintain change logs digitally and provide stakeholders with an integrated, holistic view of
change and its effects.

Overcoming resistance to change

In general, no one likes to change, even it is for the better in some way. Here are some best
practices to help mitigate this resistance to change:

 Clarify the goal of the change being made, and identify how it can benefit others.
 Listen to objections, and find ways to address them.
 Take the time to build consensus rather than bulldoze dissenters.
 Consider feedback as a guide rather than an obstacle.
 Celebrate success at the end to plant the seeds for further change.
 Be willing to backtrack when the change does not meet desired goals.