Change Management Plan for Change Success

Effective change management increases the likelihood of project success by seven times. But how does a change practitioner take a change from theory to practice?

They use change management plans.

A change management plan outlines the steps taken during the transition, focusing on minimizing disruption and ensuring all stakeholders are informed and prepared to handle the change.

You can develop a master change management plan to guide the entire change process or more specific plans to address areas like communication, sponsorship and training.

In this article, we'll clarify what a change management plan is, its benefits and the different change plans you can use as frameworks to tailor the change management process to your organization's needs.

What is Change Management?

Change management is the use of a structured process and tools to guide people through change to achieve a desired outcome. It aims to help individuals at all levels of the organization adopt a change by preventing resistance and adequately equipping them to embrace new behaviors, processes or technologies.

Let's look at five common types of organizational change:

• Strategic change – Shifts in the organization's overall direction or goals. These changes are usually large-scale and driven by external market forces, competitive pressures or new business opportunities.
• Cultural change – Alters the organization's values, beliefs and norms to be more innovative, customer-centric or inclusive.
• Digital transformation – Focused on implementing and adopting new technologies, such as software systems, IT infrastructure or digital tools to improve efficiency and innovation.
• Business process reengineering – Modifying or improving processes and workflows to improve efficiency and adapt to new market conditions.
• Mergers and acquisitions – Changes made during mergers and acquisitions, which companies engage in to expand their market reach and capabilities.

Whether a company is undergoing an incremental change project or a large-scale transformation, change management is vital for success. It prepares, supports and guides individual employees and stakeholders through the transition. This is essential for a change to be adopted long term.

A change management methodology, like The Prosci Methodology, provides organizations with a structured approach for changes, helping drive adoption, prevent change fatigue and manage change saturation.

An effective change management program leads to better chances of project success. It also helps projects stay on schedule and within the budget.

Correlation of Change Management Effectiveness With Meeting Objectives

What Is a Change Management Plan?

A change management plan is a formal document containing the steps and strategies used to execute and manage a change initiative. It can include project goals and objectives, the scope of the change, an impact assessment and the timeline for implementation.

Practitioners can develop a Master Change Management Plan that covers the entire planning and implementation of the change management strategy. They can also create targeted change plans to address and support different aspects during execution.

For example, they can build a Training Plan that outlines how different employee groups will be trained and the timeline for learning new skills.

Change professionals can create strategies from scratch or use a change management plan template to speed up the process.

Why do you need a change management plan?

There are seven major benefits to building and executing a comprehensive change management plan:

• Enable a structured transition – A change plan based on a structured approach helps break down complex processes into manageable steps, ensuring the change is implemented smoothly and efficiently across all levels.
• Align resources and goals – Using a change plan enables practitioners to align resources such as time, budget and personnel with the organization's strategic goals. This alignment maximizes efficiency and leads to optimal resource utilization.
• Prevent resistance – Implementing a change plan centered around preparing individuals for change helps create a sense of readiness. By focusing on building awareness and desire early in the process, practitioners can reduce the likelihood of resistance.
• Reduce disruption – An effective change management plan helps minimize disruptions to daily operations and ensures that critical processes remain functional.
• Improve communication – A change management plan enables consistent messaging across the organization so employees understand the reasons for the change, their roles and how it will affect them, reducing confusion and anxiety.
• Manage risks – Changes often introduce potential risks, such as operational inefficiencies or financial losses. A change plan helps identify these risks early so practitioners can create strategies for proactive risk management.
• Improve employee engagement – The plan builds a sense of ownership and involvement by engaging with and involving employees early in the process. This leads to higher morale and a smoother adoption of changes.

Creating a Change Management Plan for Your Change Process

To create your Master Change Management Plan, follow the steps involved in implementing organizational change based on the Prosci 3-Phase Process:

Prosci 3-Phase Process

Phase 1 – Prepare Approach

The first phase focuses on laying a solid foundation for the change. The main objectives are to clearly define the goals, scope and approach to the change. There are three key stages involved:

• Define Success – This stage focuses on clarifying what the change initiative aims to achieve. It involves setting clear objectives and aligning them with organizational goals.
• Define Impact – Here, you identify 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 – This stage 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.

Deliverable: Change Management Strategy

The change team also works with change leaders to enable and support them as active and visible sponsors during the transition, which is vital for the project's success.

Phase 2 – Manage Change

Once they've defined a strategy for the change, practitioners execute and manage the transition using change management plans and tactics. The stages involved are:

• Plan and Act – This stage 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 – During this stage, you monitor the progress of the change initiative to ensure it is on track. It involves measuring adoption and usage rates and gathering feedback.
• Adapt Actions – Based on the performance tracking, this stage requires adjusting plans and strategies to address any issues or resistance and ensure successful change adoption.

Deliverable: Master Change Management Plan

Change management tools like Kaiya, our expert AI assistant, enable practitioners to scale and manage activities in this phase using data-driven insights and research.

Phase 3 – Sustain Outcomes

The final phase is all about ensuring the long-term success of the change and embedding the change into the organization's culture. The key stages include:

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

Deliverable: Change Management Closeout

Sustainment in change management is crucial for ensuring the change realizes its intended benefits and is adopted throughout the organization. Practitioners work with individuals responsible for sustainment to implement reinforcement activities. In 50% of organizations, this responsibility falls on the manager of the impacted group.

Roles Responsible for Reinforcement and Sustainment

Key Change Management Plan Examples 

Our change management model, the Prosci 3-Phase Process , is the organizational process that outlines every step of the transition using the Prosci Methodology. Practitioners also use the Prosci ADKAR Model to guide and support individual employees throughout the change journey.

As part of the organizational change management process, you can create different plans to address specific areas. Here are some change management plan examples:

Core Change Management Plans

The ADKAR Blueprint is a structured, scalable guide used to support individuals and groups in transitioning through the ADKAR Model effectively. It serves as a foundation for developing full change management plans or as standalone guide for small, low-risk changes.

The core change management plans are the specific, high-value plans recommended for most change initiatives. Designed to be scalable and flexible to your situation, they can be role-based or activity-based:

Role Plans

• Sponsor Plan
• People Manager Plan

Activity Plans

• Communications Plan
• Training Plan

While the ADKAR Blueprint addresses all the elements of ADKAR, each core change management plan includes tactics to address certain ADKAR elements. You may or may not need all four core plans. The number, type and depth of plans required depend on the project and the organization's unique needs.

Sponsor Plan

Effective sponsorship is consistently cited as the top contributor to project success in every Prosci Best Practices in Change Management benchmarking study. 

Contributors to Success Over Time

Unfortunately, even the best senior leaders sometimes fail to demonstrate effective sponsorship. They may misunderstand the importance of their role, struggle with competing priorities or simply not know what to do.

To ensure successful sponsorship, the change practitioner must provide support and structure. They must also enable sponsors to execute their employee-facing responsibilities.

The Sponsor Plan is a recommended core role plan to target the Awareness, Desire and Reinforcement elements of The ADKAR Model.

This change management plan, implemented by the primary sponsor and other members of the sponsor coalition, enables them to effectively carry out their roles—to be active and visible, build a coalition of support, and communicate directly with employees.

People Manager Plan

As "people managers," middle managers and supervisors directly impact front-line employees because these employees will typically emulate their manager's attitudes about the change, whether those attitudes are supportive or not.

This is reflected in research, with managers accounting for 70% of the variance in team employee engagement in 2024. Engaged employees are vital for change success as they are driven to support the organization's goals.
A recommended core role plan, the People Manager Plan, targets all elements of our ADKAR Model. This plan, carried out by people managers, enables them to effectively perform their CLARC roles:

• Communicator – Build Awareness by addressing "Why?" "Why now?" and "What's in it for me?"
• Liaison – Solicit and relay feedback between employees and change teams about implementation progress
• Advocate – Promote support for change with words and deeds
• Resistance Manager – Focus on preventing resistance by identifying potential concerns early and addressing them proactively.
• Coach – Help teams gain Knowledge and Ability through one-on-one and one-to-many opportunities

The People Manager Plan outlines the steps for involving managers in these change management activities.

The plan starts by laying out how the project team and change management resources will build commitment, and train and prepare managers and supervisors for their role in a change. Once on board, managers and supervisors work with front-line employees to understand their needs and help them adopt and use changes.

Communications Plan

People often mistakenly equate change management with communication. While many organizations have communications departments and project teams that create communication strategies, they often fail to recognize how communication fits into the broader change process.

Communication is a critical component of implementing change but is by no means the only requirement for success.

A recommended core activity plan, the Communications Plan, targets the Awareness and Reinforcement elements of our ADKAR Model.

The Communications Plan identifies audiences, develops key messages, and determines the frequency of communications, delivery mechanisms, and senders.

Note that effective communication does not mean an attractive newsletter, using a standard template or even a high frequency of messages.

Effective communication targets each of the different audiences impacted by the change and focuses on what they care about and what they need to know. A structured communication plan presents the right messages at the right time, in the right format or via the right channel, and from the right sender.

For example, Prosci research revealed that a majority of employees preferred to receive messages about the business reasons for change from the CEO but wanted messages about the personal impacts of change to be from their direct supervisors.

Preferred Senders of Messages

Training Plan

Without a holistic approach to change management, organizations often rely solely on training to manage changes, neglecting essential activities like sponsorship and coaching that are critical for success. This is one of the biggest errors a team can make when introducing a change and a prime example of poor change management.

The Training Plan is a recommended core activity plan and one of the most used change management plans. It targets the Knowledge and Ability elements of our ADKAR Model.

The plan is created by identifying the different audiences that need training, conducting a needs assessment and gap analysis, and documenting requirements for the training organization.

In addition to project-specific training, it is important to include training about change management in this plan. Sponsors and people managers need training to understand their important roles and responsibilities in managing change.

When change management is applied effectively, a partnership forms between the change management team (which documents knowledge needs) and the training group (which develops and delivers the needed training).

Extend Plans

"Extend" Plans are the potential additional plans you may decide to include in your Master Change Management Plan to address issues that are unique to your change.

Resistance Management Plan

Resistance is a natural reaction to change, with 37% of employees presenting resistance to change in a recent report. However, by ensuring employees are well informed and involved in the change process from the start, sponsors and people managers can create a sense of ownership and confidence. This approach fosters a culture where employees are ready for change and feel supported throughout the transition, making it easier for them to embrace new ways of working.

An extend activity plan that may be created during Phase 2 – Manage Change, the Resistance Management Plan, targets the Desire element of our ADKAR Model by preventing, addressing and responding to resistance.

The plan identifies potential sources and forms of resistance, steps to answer objections before they manifest, who will be involved in managing resistance, and how you will prepare them to effectively address the resistance.

A complete resistance management plan will also include steps for monitoring and responding to resistance, including identifying triggers and taking appropriate actions.

Additional Extend Plans

You may need additional change management plans to meet the specific requirements of your change. Such plans can be entirely unique for your change and organization, or they may resemble the typical Extend Plans below.

You may need additional change management plans to meet the specific requirements of your change. Such plans can be entirely unique for your change and organization, or they may resemble the typical Extend Plans below.

• Change Agent Network Plan – This plan directs the activities of an engaged group of change advocates who represent the interests of their respective impacted groups. The specific role and contribution of change agents is defined by the organization and may be unique to the initiative.
• Sponsor Coalition Plan – This plan is intended to ensure that all coalition members support the change and are aligned with the desired outcomes. The change practitioner develops the plan for the primary sponsor, who executes it with members of the sponsor coalition.
• Sustainment Plan – This plan helps ensure that individuals will continue to use adopted changes over time sustaining the change so that the organization realizes intended benefits. The Sustainment Plan also identifies activities necessary to ensure the transfer of ownership of the change from the change management team to the appropriate business owners.

Developing Your Change Management Plans With Prosci

Every change initiative needs a combination of plans, and the right combination depends on your needs. 

The Prosci Methodology encourages change practitioners to take a flexible approach to developing change management. Factors like the culture of the organization and the practitioner's change management competency level influence which plans to choose—whether the ADKAR Blueprint alone or another combination of Core and Extend Plans—to support your work and success with change.