Free Clip from Change Management: Closing the Plan - Introduction to Closing the Plan

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This course was published via Pluralsight.

Properly closing out a change is a critical, yet often ignored step. It's easy for those tactically leading the change to want to skip this step so they can focus their time and efforts on something more urgent, and it's easy for those strategically leading the change to quite simply forget about following through with its proper closure, especially if things are going well. But closing the plan should be viewed with as much importance as every other aspect of change management.

In addition to providing everyone with a sense of closure, it ensures the desired outcomes were either met or there are plans in place to ensure they will be met in the near future. It also formally signals when the project team rolls off and they transition the ongoing maintenance of the change to the operations team. Finally, it provides the organization and each individual involved with the change an opportunity to grow by looking back and reflecting on what went well and what could be improved upon next time.

When a change is not properly closed, there is a sense of unease among the project team since no one really knows when they're done. The desired outcomes, the whole point of the change, may not be delivered, and without a plan to get them delivered in the near future, the change and everyone involved will be viewed as a failure. What do you suppose that does to morale when future changes are announced? Without a formal transition from the project team to operations, you end up with a lot of tension between the two groups of people as one group is trying to get something off of their plates, but the other group is trying to keep something from coming on to their already overloaded plates, and of course the individuals involved and the organization as a whole become stagnant. Things that were done well may be forgotten and mistakes from the past will haunt projects of the future.

This course was published via Pluralsight.