What is the process of change? What are the change requirements in a project environment?

These are commonly asked questions. Before we step through the four stage process, an important point to make is that the change management process is NOT aligned to time. For example you can choose to collapse 'Planning' and 'Assess and Design' phases. It is not ideal of course, but it is possible if you are an experienced practitioner. If you are delivering a sizeable change, you should make sure that each phase is outlined so you can set the change plan up for success as much as possible.

So here is an overview of the four major phases:

Phase 1: Planning. In this phase you are in 'investigation mode'. A high level overview of the change comes to life. The intention and outcome of this phase is to create clarity. This can be in the form of a stakeholder engagement plan, a change on a page and a high level change story. While exploring all of these aspects, a lot of analysis can be undertaken...

Change is becoming even more important to implement well and effectively in organisations. One of the challenges facing Change practitioners today however, is how to achieve cut through in a hybrid working world. Add to this the 'noise' that can exist from day to day.  

Managing Change in a virtual world or one where there is a hybrid of working types (in the office and at home) means spending more time in some areas that were potentially taken for granted before. For example coaching Change Sponsors on effective communication techniques, ensuring technology is available that supports communication in various ways, and achieving cut through via multi-channel interventions are just some of the ways organisational change managers will need to adapt.

In some organisations, investment has been made in various technology platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoTo Webinar. However that is just investment in the enabler.  It will take time and practice to develop...

Often HR programs are focused on organisation design and implementing that design with cursory review of the organisations values. Structures changes will mean nothing if the organisation's culture isn't discussed as a pre-cursor to those changes.

Leaders are simply expected to lead with briefing packs and teams are expected to fall into line throughout the process. Employee disgruntlement during this time is put down to an emotional reaction to the 'uncertainty' of a situation, and their opinions and feedback are often undervalued or ignored. As this happens the  productivity and staff engagement declines rapidly. It then takes another 6 -12 months to get back to the basic level of engagement and even longer to rebuild trust once the restructure is complete. Not many organisations can afford to take that hit.

However recently on a change program I led,  we developed a comprehensive change and culture strategy to support the entire end to end process. Senior leaders were...