Evaluate change impact and organizational readiness

The industry defines a multi-phase process that professional change managers use to strategize, plan for and execute organizational change. It identifies the impacts across the organization, focuses on how changes will affect employees, and outlines a consistent set of strategies and plans needed to help the organization achieve its goals. The approach is informative as you think about documenting the key information you’ll need and creating your communication plan to support a change.

1. 
   Evaluate change impact and organizational readiness – Thoroughly examine what is changing, how it differs from where the organization is today, who will be affected by the change, the desired future state and the plan to achieve it. This assessment step includes:
   

a. Clearly define the change and vision for the future – What is changing and when, where will changes take place and why, who needs to change and what do we want the future to look like?
b. Assess all the factors related to the change – What risks, goals, culture, and other changes are happening, and what other internal and external factors could influence them?
c. Analyze all the stakeholders affected – Who is accountable, how are different groups and roles affected, who is being impacted the most, and who might be resistant to the change?
d. Consider how the organization operates – Once a clear vision of the future is developed, how is it different from the way the organization operates today and what risks are there in moving to the future state?

2. 
   Formulate the change management strategy – This includes approaches for resources, communications, sponsorship, stakeholder engagement, learning and development, measurement and sustainability for the change.
   
3. 
   Develop a detailed change management plan – Spell out action steps and timeline to accomplish the strategy.
   
4. 
   Execute the change management plan – Monitor the implementation, measure outcomes and adjust ongoing activities as needed to continue reinforcing adoption.
   
5. 
   Complete the change management effort – Evaluate outcomes against objectives, design and conduct a lessons-learned evaluation, and gain approval to close the project once successful.
   

Creating a Change Communication Plan
Like the process outlined in the Standard for Change Management, creating a change management communication plan starts with a deep understanding of the organization, stakeholders and change impacts. The goal is to support the business objective by helping stakeholders understand the change, how they will need to adapt their day-to-day responsibilities and what is expected of them.
By ensuring a consistent flow of information, engaging stakeholders and continually managing feedback, change communication helps people feel more comfortable as they move to the future state and adopt new ways of working.
The communications planning process involves the following steps similar to the change management process described above: