Keys To Success: Six Keys To Prepare For Change

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Author(s): Anonymous

Change Management Learning Center

Below is a compact summary to utilize when preparing for change. Each of the six keys to preparing for change are summarized, and their importance is explained. Use this model in your organization when preparing for change to provide a solid foundation for the change management plans you will create in the next phase of managing change.

Key #1-Identifying Change Characteristics

What it means:

Identifying change characteristics will help you understand how much change management support will be required and will help you scale the change management approach accordingly.

Why it is important:

When beginning the change management project, one of the most important steps you can take is to understand the nature of the change. Using a characteristics worksheet and assessment tool will help you understand the type of change, the size of the change, who is impacted (and who's not), the number of impacted employees and other critical scope questions. Each of these factors will influence your change management strategy.

Key #2-Audience Impact Analysis

What it means:

Some changes impact different groups in different ways. When this occurs, you must assess the impact by group in order to prepare an appropriate change management strategy.

Why it is important:

Treating all groups involved in a change the same way can be detrimental to your project success. Some groups may have very little change affecting their day-to-day work, while others may be doing something entirely different in their day-to-day work due to the change. The audience impact analysis allows you to customize your change management strategy to assist each group in the best way possible.

Key #3-Assessing The Organization

What it means:

Each organization has unique characteristics that make managing change easier or more challenging. Your organization's culture and history play an important role in the change process.

Why it is important:

These organizational attributes are important to understand so that you can educate your team and sponsors about the potential obstacles to successfully implementing your business change.

Key #4-Assessing The Project Risk

What it means:

The project risk will be a function of the organizational attributes and the change characteristics. If your organization has attributes that support change, then the project will have less risk. Likewise, small and incremental changes will face less risk than those that are large and very disruptive.

Why it is important:

This key assesses how critical change management will be for success and how much change management will be required. Documenting risks that your organization will face during the change provides the needed information for you to communicate to your primary project sponsor. This communication allows proper planning of special tactics for these risks.

Key #5-Identify Special Tactics

What it means:

Special tactics in your change management strategy may be required given your change and your organization. You should be able to identify special circumstances or possible resistance before the program even begins.

Why it is important:

Counter anticipated points of resistance proactively-before they become a problem.

Key #6-Strategy Presentation

What it means:

Your change management strategy brings together your change characteristics profile and organizational attributes profile to define at a high level how much change management is needed. You will also examine the team and sponsor structures needed for your specific change.

Why it is important:

After keys one through five, you can see how each and every business change is unique. Effective change management comes when your change management plans match the unique attributes of your change and the people who are changing. A strategy presentation provides a point of collection for all the unique and different elements of your change management strategy. Some initiatives will require more change management while others may require less.

"More" or "less" change management refers to the following work areas:

* Change management team model used, number of team members, amount of time required and team development (training)

* Sponsorship models and support systems (e.g. single sponsor, leadership council or steering committee)

* Leadership coaching and development

* Communications planning and implementation (frequency, channels, size and number of topics)

* Supervisor interventions and training

* Resistance management

* Employee education and training programs

* Feedback and assessment of change compliance

* Corrective action and recognizing early successes

The strategy presentation allows you to present the case for change management and show exactly where and how your organization can benefit from change management in the upcoming project.

Summary

The six keys described in this tutorial are essential to unlocking success when preparing for change. Completing each of these key steps when preparing for change will provide a solid foundation for launching each of the five essential plans found in the next stage-managing change.

Used with permission (materials and data taken from) from Prosci and the Change Management Learning Center at http://www.change-/ management.com.

© Copyright National Association of Credit Management Jan 2006
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