6 Mins
Updated: December 13, 2024
Published: October 1, 2024
Effective change can increase the chances of project success by sevenfold. However, to achieve these results, practitioners must carefully plan and execute organizational change initiatives.
A great change management strategy sets the foundation for a smooth transition, but the actual outcomes of a change depend on how this strategy is implemented.
Successful change implementation requires focusing on the people involved in the change. Focusing on people means getting strong leadership commitment and supporting employees through the change process. You also need to ensure that projects follow the change management plan, which includes critical activities like communications, training, performance tracking and more.
In this article, we’ll guide you in implementing organizational change through 10 detailed steps backed by research and decades of experience in change management.
How Structured Change Management Impacts Organizational Change Implementation
Change implementation is the process of executing a change management strategy, monitoring progress, and carrying out activities to sustain the new process, system, policy or technology.
To develop and implement change, professionals use a structured framework, like the Prosci Methodology, and supporting models and tools. These include a planning phase, during which change practitioners assess the organization and the people within it to create a tailored change management strategy. From there, practitioners build and carry out change management plans to address areas like communications, training and sponsorship.
Using a specific methodology during implementation increases the effectiveness of change management and the chances of success. Fifty-nine percent of practitioners who used one achieved good or excellent levels of change management effectiveness, but only 26% of those without a structured approach got the same results.
Impact of Use of a Methodology on Overall Change Management Effectiveness
10 Steps for Implementing Change in the Workplace
After developing a detailed strategy for implementing change, you must focus on the required actions to carry out the strategy and create a smooth transition. While every organization has unique needs, these 10 high-level steps can guide you in creating an effective change management process.
1. Gain leadership commitment
Every initiative requires commitment from the primary sponsor, a leader who authorizes the change. This sponsor is supported by other senior leaders and managers, who also act as sponsors and change advocates at different organizational levels.
Prosci research shows a direct correlation between sponsor effectiveness and meeting change objectives, with 79% of projects with extremely effective sponsors meeting their goals.
While crucial, many sponsors need help performing their roles. Many lack time or resources, or have a poor understanding of the people side of change.
Sponsor Challenges
As a change practitioner, you must provide support and structure to ensure sponsors can actively support the change throughout the implementation process. A Sponsor Plan outlines the tactics they will use to achieve the required level of commitment from sponsors and help them understand and fulfill their roles.
2. Conduct a Risk Assessment
Before implementing change, you need to assess its specific characteristics and organizational attributes to gauge potential impacts and associated risks. With this understanding, you can effectively inform sponsors about these risks and use the insights to customize and refine your change management strategies.
Change practitioners use this grid to understand project risks:
Prosci Risk Assessment Grid
This step also helps customize and scale your change management approach effectively, ensuring you're prepared to address any challenges that may arise.
3. Prepare people
Organizational change hinges on individual change across all levels. To secure employee commitment, change management teams need to actively motivate and support employees throughout the implementation process.
People-centric organizations often excel in this context. They tend to create environments where employees are significantly more likely to perceive change as well-managed and a positive experience.
The Prosci Methodology effectively guides people through transitions. At its core is the Prosci ADKAR® Model, which practitioners use to prepare and equip impacted employees to successfully adopt change.
The Prosci ADKAR Model
The ADKAR Model consists of five elements:
- Awareness – Helps employees understand why the change is needed.
- Desire – Builds a desire to embrace and support the change at the personal level.
- Knowledge – Provides information on how to change and perform well in the future state.
- Ability – Enables individuals to build the new skills and behaviors needed to thrive in the future state.
- Reinforcement – Sustains the change outcomes after the initial implementation.
Prosci provides activities, assessments and resources for practitioners to effectively equip managers, sponsors and employees for change.
4. Equip people managers
People managers support their team members and help employees adopt and use changes. They are crucial for successful change implementation as they directly impact the mindsets and motivations of front-line employees.
Interpersonal relationships between employees and managers directly correlate with engagement in the change, with recent research showing that 70% of the variance in team engagement can be attributed to the manager.
A people manager has five key roles during change:
- Communicator – Builds awareness for the change by sharing personal impact messages with their direct reports.
- Liaison – Liaises with the project team and employees to provide information and feedback.
- Advocate – Actively and visibly supports the change to influence employees’ Desire to participate in the change.
- Resistance management – Identifies root causes of employee resistance and unique barriers for their team. Helps practitioners plan the change management process to prevent resistance.
- Coach – Provides the necessary training, information and support to help employees gain the Knowledge and Ability to implement the required skills.
Practitioners use a People Manager Plan to guide people managers and ensure they understand their involvement in the change process.
5. Develop a comprehensive change management plan
Practitioners use change management plans to guide people as they move through the elements of the ADKAR Model. They are built during Phase 2 – Manage Change of the Prosci 3-Phase Process.
There are four Core Plans: the Sponsor Plan, People Manager Plan, Communications Plan and Training Plan. These plans address different elements of the ADKAR Model and ensure a well-rounded strategy.
Change practitioners also develop the Master Change Management Plan, which is the guiding document for the change management team. It consolidates all the individual plans.
6. Address potential resistance proactively
Resistance is a natural human reaction to change. It shows that people are aware of and responding to a change.
The Prosci Methodology focuses on preventing employee resistance using the ADKAR Blueprint to identify potential sources of resistance, engage key stakeholders early, and address the root causes of barrier points.
When practitioners implement the Prosci 3-Phase Process, they can remove obstacles before people ever encounter them. Proactive resistance prevention is cost-effective, increases the chances of success, and requires less effort and resources than reactive resistance response.
7. Integrate project management and change management
There are two sides to change—project management (the technical side) and change management (the people side), usually led by different teams. Integrating them creates a shared objective for both teams to focus on, enables a proactive approach, improves alignment during the project lifecycle, and leads to effective communication throughout change planning and implementation.
The Prosci Unified Value Proposition (UVP) model highlights the importance of integrating the people side and technical side of change.
Prosci Unified Value Proposition
To integrate project and change management, teams should establish a common language between the two teams. They should organize joint workshops to ensure everyone understands the shared objectives and methodologies. And they need to develop an integrated project plan that includes both technical milestones and change management activities. This unified plan will help maintain alignment and ensure both teams work towards the same goals throughout the project lifecycle.
8. Monitor progress
Practitioners use the Prosci Change Triangle (PCT) Model during implementation to monitor, track and improve project health. The model highlights the link between four vital aspects of successful change: success, leadership/sponsorship, change management and project management. Practitioners use the PCT Assessment to establish a baseline, and then monitor project health and performance at key milestones over the project’s lifecycle.
Prosci Change Triangle (PCT) Model
You can also use specific key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of change implementation. Measuring and monitoring effectiveness at these three levels of performance helps create clarity and alignment on what your change aims to deliver:
- Change management performance – Measure the completion, execution and effectiveness of the Prosci Methodology application. Examples of metrics include completeness of the Master Change Management Plan and progress in implementingting the change management strategy.
- Individual performance – Assess how individuals and groups progress through the ADKAR Model elements. Once they reach the Ability stage, you measure the outcomes by assessing the speed of adoption, ultimate utilization, and proficiency in applying the change.
- Organizational performance – Determine whether the change was successful by tracking whether the initiative met or exceeded objectives and gained the intended benefits.
By consistently evaluating these performance levels, organizations can ensure they remain on track to achieve their change objectives and make necessary adjustments.
9. Make adjustments
The results of these assessments and tracking metrics allow you to evaluate how the change is progressing. You can use this data and employee feedback to adjust your actions, keeping the initiative on track.
For example, change practitioners typically create a Training Plan for impacted individuals to gain the required Knowledge and Ability. However, they may extend or modify the training programs if they’re not delivering the intended results.
Common reasons to alter the training plan include inadequate time allotted for training, reported issues, and a lower-than-expected utilization.
10. Reinforce the change
The final step of implementing change is reinforcing it to ensure employees do not revert to older work habits after the initial implementation. This ensures that the change management initiative delivers the expected long-term benefits. It also prevents rework and errors, contributes to project success, and creates a culture of continuous improvement.
Prosci research shows that 81% of participants who planned for reinforcement or sustainment activities met or exceeded project objectives.
Impact of Planning for Reinforcement and Sustainment
Change management teams use reinforcement activities like rewards, recognition, celebrations, visible performance measurement, and employee input. These tactics reward employees who comply with desired behaviors and motivate individuals to keep using new working methods.
Work With Prosci to Effectively Implement Change Management
Successfully implementing change in the workplace requires a comprehensive change management strategy to guide the process. By applying the Prosci Methodology, with its robust models, frameworks and resources, change practitioners can effectively address the intricacies of change. Our tools empower professionals to prepare and support leaders and key stakeholders, ensuring a smoother transition by minimizing resistance and enhancing adoption.
Through strategic planning and strong execution of a people-focused approach, your organization can achieve lasting results, realize desired outcomes, and grow stronger from change.
