Change Management: Evaluating Impact and Organizational Readiness

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Updated: October 13, 2022

Prior to developing a change management plan, you should have a strategy. In this course, Change Management: Evaluating Impact and Organizational Readiness, you’ll learn how to properly evaluate the impact of a proposed change and the organizational readiness for change in general. First, you’ll explore how to define a change, develop a vision, and identify goals, objectives, and success criteria. Next, you’ll learn how to properly identify change sponsors to be accountable for the change and all the stakeholders affected by the change. Finally, you'll walk through nine change assessments and discover what each is and why you need them. When you’re finished with this course, you’ll have the skills and knowledge needed to gather all the information necessary to formulate a change management strategy.

Project Management Institute (PMI)® PDUs/Contact Hours: 2.0

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Develop a Clear Vision for the Future State

You've determined what the change is and why it needs to happen now. The purpose of developing a clear vision for the future state process is to determine what success looks like. When people can't see the finish line, they get a sense of despair. But when people can see the finish line, the change no longer looks endless and overwhelming. Knowing the future state ahead of time gives people hope, which keeps them motivated to complete the change.

Here are the commonly accepted inputs and outputs for this process. Ultimately, you want to end up with a vision statement, which is a description of the future state. I touched on the benefits of a vision statement in my previous course, Change Management: Getting Started. Let's do a quick recap and then look at some examples.

A vision statement is critical to a company since it creates the initial and foundational link with change management. A vision statement that is well-written and has the support of change management provides clarity of direction and focus for the organization and its stakeholders. The vision statement also identifies high-level results and expected benefits to be achieved. This is the finish line I was talking about earlier. The vision statement also sets the stage for leaders to align stakeholders around a common plan. Finally, it acts as a guide for decision-making, communications, and engagement. When in doubt, referring back to and referencing the vision statement usually clears things up and makes things easier.

Vision statements need to be consistent, achievable, inspiring, easily understood, and aspirational. These attributes are just as important as the content. A poorly written vision statement will be ignored. A well-written vision statement will get people out of bed in the morning to come to work.

People often wonder if a vision statement is the same as a mission statement. Sometimes, it is. But more often, a vision statement is focused on the future, while a mission statement is focused on the present.

Here is the mission statement for the non-profit Alzheimer's Association. Notice how it is focused on the present. It explains what they do and how they do it. Their vision statement is much shorter, just nine words, and is focused on the future. It's simple and easily understood, inspiring, aspirational, and consistent with their mission. Is it achievable? I sure hope so. Employees, volunteers, and donors believe it is, and that's what matters.

Here is the mission statement for the non-profit Feed the Children. In only nine words, it explains what they do and who they do it for. Their vision statement is just 10 words and is focused on the future. Just like with the previous example, it's simple and easily understood, inspiring, aspirational, consistent with their mission, and achievable in the minds of their employees, volunteers, and donors.

Speaking of donors, if you were inspired by either of the two non-profit organizations I used in my examples, consider using these QR codes to make a donation.

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Identify Goals, Objectives and Success Criteria

With the finish line identified, we now need ways to track our progress. The purpose of identifying goals, objectives, and success criteria is to provide tangible, concrete, measurable, and manageable goals that represent planned progress toward the adoption of the future state.

Here are the commonly accepted inputs and outputs for this process. This process directs focus on actual change results and anticipated outcomes rather than tracking the change process. It should establish key change objectives and goals that define progress toward the change. The process should also describe the key parameters that measure when goals and objectives are attained, which will enable the associated success criteria to be identified. This process can be tricky because people either don't know what data to capture or want to capture too much data.

This image is from a course I released a few years ago called Managing IT: Metrics and Measurements. It explains how each component of the trail should be used to define the component below it, starting with the organization's vision and continuing down the path to specific measurements, and how each component should tie back to the component above it. If done properly, every measurement should be able to walk its way back up the trail to the organization's vision. This prevents things from getting measured just because they can be, which causes a slew of problems. I highly recommend giving my previous course a watch the next time you need to perform this change management process.

Assessing the Change Impact

Your seventh process is assessing the change's impact. The purpose of this process is to analyze how stakeholders will be impacted by the change and the change's specific impact on people, processes, tools, organizational structures, roles, and technology. As you are well aware by now, large changes are never as simple as they seem on the surface.

I like to think of any large change as an iceberg. Take, for example, a strategic decision to switch to a new software tool. On the surface, the organization has to install the new tool and provide some training. But below the surface, the organization has to uninstall the old tool, assign user permissions, update process documentation, write knowledge base articles, modify the automated phone system for the help desk, update the new workstation images, review contracts and licensing agreements, and so on and so forth.

This process involves identifying and categorizing who and what will be affected, assessing the degree of change occurring within these areas, and describing the change.

Here are the commonly accepted inputs for this process. The change definition, vision statement, and stakeholder analysis are outputs from processes I covered in previous modules. I promised you that prework would pay off, and here it is. This process will yield a change impact assessment, which is one of the most critical outputs of all the processes. I'm going to demonstrate how to complete one in the next clip, but first, I want to tell you why you need it.

The change impact assessment determines the size, scope, timing, and complexity of the change effort. Take a moment to look over that list. Those are some of the most important pieces of information you and your organization are going to need when it comes to any change. It's also why this process is in the middle and not at the end of your list. The change impact assessment will be either a direct input or indirect input for at least five other processes.

It is used to inform and guide the formation of the change strategy and identify activities required to manage risk and resistance that may be associated with the change. In the next clip, I'm going to demonstrate how to complete a change impact assessment.

The change impact assessment provides a way to estimate how much change management effort and how many change management resources you will need. All of the files and examples you see in this clip are available for you to download in the exercise files for this course.

Here's the blank assessment form with 10 factors to consider. Use the process inputs I discussed in the previous clip to help you determine the appropriate severity level for each factor. As you start filling in the values, you'll see the score at the bottom automatically updated. When you are finished, if the score is 16 or lower, it will remain green. This indicates a minimal change and will require a small amount of change management effort and resources. A score between 17 and 23 will turn yellow and indicate a medium change, which will require more change management effort and resources. A score of 24 or more will turn red and indicate a large and complex change, which will require a significant amount of change management effort and resources. Obviously, what's considered significant by one organization could be considered small by a different organization.

Your final score will help you formulate a change strategy, which I'll cover how to do in the next course in this learning path. This course is all about evaluating impact and organizational readiness. With the impact portion complete, we can now move on to evaluating organizational readiness.

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Watch Full Course on Pluralsight

Change Management: Evaluating Impact and Organizational Readiness

Free Clips

Develop a Clear Vision for the Future State

Identify Goals, Objectives and Success Criteria

Assessing the Change Impact

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