Five Stages in Change Management

Change Management is no longer just a one-time project, but an ongoing, multi-faceted digital capability.

Digital is all about changes, and change is multi-faceted with increasing speed and velocity. So how to manage change effectively? “Change Management” is the overarching umbrella, that encompasses extensive planning, communication, evaluation, creativity, collaboration, measuring outcomes in a shared and trust environment, and being able to declare the endpoint and successful conclusion. But more specifically, what are the necessary steps in Change Management Life Cycle:

• Defining: It’s important to understand the big WHY about changes, no change is for its own sake, the first step is to define the value proposition and determine demand and estimated pipeline. Change has different scopes and effects, from small changes such as software updating, business process tuning; to radical changes such as culture innovation, or big-bang changes such as radical digital transformation. Often Change is a “un” nature activity, you need to focus, also, make an effort to sustain it. So the newly established behaviors or the new way to work will be in harmony with the well-defined value propositions so that change can maintain its momentum.

• Assessing: It takes a lot of effort and resources to make change happen, therefore, it’s important to first understand how much change capability (people, process, and technology) is really required for the effort you are kicking off. An honest assessment of the lessons learned from previous projects could be a good place to begin with. Pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance are the logical steps in managing change scenarios. Walking people through the process of resistance is key. The change should be based on planning strategy; there is long-term mythology for big changes & short term mythology.

• Building: It’s also important to build a strong change leadership/management team and enable them with effective tools, methodology against the value proposition defined above. Change Management needs to be people-centric, shouldn’t just put emphasis on change tools. Unless you get the people side right even the most awesome plans and technical expertise still fall over! The implementation of any significant change process usually succeeds or fails because of the leadership of that change process. Leadership and management are two distinct and complementary systems of action and they have to be integrated seamlessly.

• Collaborating: More often, the large scale of change takes cross-functional communication, as well as change management methodology/system integration. Cross-silo or cross-divisional collaboration is crucial to building dynamic digital change capabilities. It is imperative that people are willing to seek out help, break down silos, and harness cross-functional collaboration as they work to make change happens, generate new ideas or solve problems. Communicate gratitude for others' contributions. Assure the goals to achieve changes are well communicated. Define and implement collaboration tools to be used. Designate duties or accept duties assigned, to make change management not fluffy, but tangible.

• Getting Result: Although many change management programs target long-term business transformation, it is also important to get some quick wins to demonstrate values, boost the morale, amplify the best practices, and sustain the change effect. Staying positive is certainly critical as you move through change. Continue to brainstorm what people are happy about as a result of the changes going on. there is no growth without change. Change Management often goes hand-in-hand with Strategy Management and Performance Management, it’s also practical to set performance indicators to measure the right things, as well as to measure them right.

Change Management is no longer just a one-time project, but an ongoing, multi-faceted digital capability. There are varying factors in managing an effective change management program, thus, all stages of change must be handled with attention and proficiency to ensure success.

Posted in: Change Management