A Guide to Successful Change Management Implementation in Your Organization

How do you successfully implement a change management process in your organization, and why does it matter? Change in the workplace is inevitable, and it’s easy to focus too much or only on the technology or solution. Your implementation needs a structured and integrated approach to succeed.

Organizations Need a Structured Approach to Change Management Implementation

A change management implementation provides a structured approach designed to prepare, equip, and support individuals through organizational transformations and change initiatives. It involves a collection of steps and activities an organization should take to move from its current state to a desired future state and maximize your organization’s desired ROI from change.

Key aspects of implementing a change management process include:

Defining the scope of change to achieve success

A structured approach to change management ensures that organizations know what’s required to move from a current state through a transition state to arrive at a f1uture state. Considering the technical and people side of change helps achieve a common goal of success, as shown in our Unified Value Proposition (UVP):

Without defining the scope and incorporating both sides, an implementation may only complete the technical side of the change. But if people don’t adopt the solution, success will be at risk.

Outlining the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders

Change management requires individuals in key roles to engage with and support the change in defined ways. A structured change management process helps stakeholders understand their roles and responsibilities, positioning employees in the right places to support and sustain the change.

The core roles needed to achieve success include:

•  Sponsors
• People managers
• People (impacted employees)
• Project managers
• Change practitioners

Each role plays a unique and valuable part in a successful change process.

Using tools to understand the impacts

Once you understand what needs to change and get the stakeholders' commitment, you need to define and assess the affected groups. Change practitioners must translate organizational change to the individual level. To be effective, organizations must understand how changes impact various groups and then support employees on their individual change journeys.

Tools like the 10 aspects of change impact help organizations understand the impact of change on an individual level.

Preparing comprehensive change management plans

Change management plans are formal documents that contain the steps and strategies used to execute a change initiative. Executing comprehensive change management plans offers major benefits to organizations, including:

• Enabling a structured transition to break down complex processes into manageable steps
• Aligning resources—including time, budget and personnel—with the organization’s business goals
• Preventing resistance to change early in the process
• Reducing disruptions to daily operations
• Improving communication and enabling consistent messaging across the workforce
• Proactive risk management
• Improving employee engagement by building a sense of ownership

Types of plans

Practitioners may need unique plans to address specific areas in the organizational change management process. The following core change management plans are specific, high-value plans Prosci recommends for most change initiatives:

• Sponsor Plan is intended to engage sponsors and help them demonstrate effective sponsorship.
• People Manager Plan outlines the steps for involving managers in change management activities.
• Communications Plan identifies audiences, develops key messages, and determines frequency, mechanisms and senders.
• Training Plan is used to identify the audiences that need training, conduct skill gap analyses, and decide on change management training for sponsors and people managers.

Prosci 3-Phase Process for Successful Change Implementations

The Prosci 3-Phase Process provides a structured yet flexible framework for achieving change at the organizational level. Practitioners also use the Prosci ADKAR® Model to help individuals move through the change.

Each phase includes three stages with activities designed to provide a process you can use to drive organizational change.

Phase 1 - Prepare Approach

The first phase supports change and project teams in developing their change management strategy with the end in mind. Consider the end goal to clearly define the scope of the change and position it for success. The three stages involved are:

• Define Success clarifies what the change initiative aims to achieve. It involves setting clear objectives and aligning them with organizational goals.
• Define Impact identifies who will be affected by the change and how their roles or tasks will need to be adjusted. This stage helps in understanding the scope of the change.
• Define Approach involves outlining the strategies and actions required to reach the defined success. It includes planning the resources and support needed to implement the change effectively.

The deliverable for this phase is the Change Management Strategy. It establishes the approach needed to achieve project success and deliver the desired outcomes.

Phase 2 - Manage Change

The second phase involves developing change management plans and tactics to bring the strategy to life. The key stages include:

• Plan and Act is about preparing, equipping, and supporting individuals to adapt to the change. It involves creating detailed plans like Communications, Training and Sponsor plans.
• Track Performance means monitoring the progress of the change initiative to ensure it is on track. It involves measuring rates of adoption and usage, and gathering feedback.
• Adapt Actions is based on performance tracking and requires adjusting plans and strategies to address any issues or resistance, and ensure successful change adoption.

The deliverable for this phase is the Master Change Management Plan. It consolidates individual plans and serves as the team's guiding document.

Phase 3 - Sustain Outcomes

The final phase is designed to support the long-term success of the change and embed it into the organization’s culture. The key stages include:

• Review Performance involves evaluating the current state of the change initiative, assessing whether the objectives have been met, and identifying any gaps.
• Activate Sustainment means implementing measures to ensure that the changes are maintained over time. This may include reinforcement strategies and ongoing support.
• Transfer Ownership involves handing over the responsibility for sustaining the change to the appropriate individuals or teams within the organization.

The deliverable for this phase is the Change Management Closeout. Use this to document the change performance status and prepare the organization to sustain change outcomes.

Lasting change requires sustainment planning that ingrains a change into your organizational culture.

Challenges of Change Management Implementations

When implementing a change management process, organizations encounter many challenges that can hinder the success of change initiatives. Four of the key challenges they face include:

1. Change fatigue

When individuals feel overwhelmed by an unrelenting pace of organizational changes, they can experience change fatigue. Organizations without a change management process can lack the tools and approaches needed to minimize the risk of change fatigue. Deploying a change management process helps ensure leadership and individuals feel supported through a people-first approach.

2. Leadership challenges

Prosci’s Best Practices in Change Management research reveals that active and visible sponsorship is the top contributor to project success. Despite this, many practitioners may find that the level of sponsorship they need to achieve successful change is lacking. True sponsorship during change requires leaders to fulfill the ABCs of Sponsorship:

• Active and visible participation throughout the project
• Build a coalition of sponsorship
• Communicate, support and promote the change to impacted groups

Change practitioners are critical in enabling sponsors and equipping them to execute the critical actions needed for success.

3. Resource constraints

Proper resourcing is one of the most pressing challenges change practitioners face. When leaders and managers lack knowledge about change management and its value to an organization, acquiring the resources and budget necessary for success can be more difficult. However, realizing the benefits of change requires resourcing change management needs for success.

4. Employee resistance

Employee resistance has many root causes, and addressing it can be very difficult when it is widespread. Although resistant behaviors are natural, employees are more likely to react poorly to change initiatives that lack a structured approach that prevents resistance. A proactive approach accounts for the change’s degree of impact, the credibility of the people leading the change, and the organization’s history of handling previous initiatives.