All changes need some element of pre-planning or preparation before the Change Team can start the change ‘properly’. The old saying of “perfect planning prevents poor performance” is excellent advice when implementing change.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for organisations to jump into starting a change without performing any pre-work or preparation. This means these organisations do not understand the ‘personality’ or the ‘shape’ of the change.
There are a number of key questions that organisations should be asking themselves:
Internal preparation and thinking
- Is it clear what has triggered the change?
- Is it clear what the business case for the change is?
- Is it clear who will benefit from the change?
- Is there a clearly defined and agreed set of success criteria?
- Is there a clear vision of the end state (or what the world will look like once the change is implemented)?
- Is there an understanding of what the Business Requirements for the Change are?
- Has a suitable amount of money been allocated to the change?
- Does the organisation understand the complexity of the change being implemented? All changes will have a large number of problems and the stakeholders must be aware of this.
Think about the plan
- Is there an understanding of what ‘things’ need to be changed to implement the change?
- Is there an understanding of how the change will be transitioned into the live environment?
- Has an initial change plan (even if a draft) been completed?
Don’t forget about governance
- Does the change have an appropriate Sponsor?
- Is there suitable senior management oversight and forums in place?
- Is there a suitable Change Manager in place?
- Is there an appropriate communication strategy in place?
- Have suitable processes and controls been implemented?
- Have all issues, ambiguities and gaps been logged at the start of the change?
Work out who needs to be involved.
- Is it clear what people, teams and organisations need to be involved in implementing the change?
- Is there a suitable works stream structure in place to ensure the change is delivered?
- Have the required internal staff been included in the Change Team?
- Does the organisation have the required skill sets in place?
- Have all the required external suppliers engaged in the change.
- Have the required Internal or intragroup suppliers engaged in the change.
- Have all required customers been engaged in the change?
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