Explainer
Change management is the work that helps people adopt a change so the business actually gets the benefit. Here is what it involves, the main models, the process and how it differs from project management.
By Christopher Fagan, Managing Partner, PEF Consulting Partners
Change management is the structured work of helping people move from the way they work today to the way they need to work after a change, such as a new system, a restructure or a new operating model. Projects deliver the new thing; change management makes sure people use it. Without it, a system can go live on time and still fail, because the old spreadsheets never go away.
Most of the benefits in a business case depend on behaviour: people following the new process, trusting the new data and using the new tool. That is why adoption, not go live, is the real finish line, and why the gap between a delivered system and a used one is where so much money is lost.
| Model | Core idea | Best used for |
|---|---|---|
| Kotter’s eight steps | Create urgency, build a guiding coalition, set a vision, communicate it, remove barriers, win early, build on the change and anchor it in the culture | Large organisational change led from the top |
| Prosci ADKAR | Each person moves through awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement | Planning and diagnosing adoption person by person |
| Lewin’s unfreeze, change, refreeze | Loosen current habits, make the change, then stabilise it | A simple framing for teams |
| The change curve | People move through emotional stages such as shock, resistance, exploration and acceptance | Anticipating reactions and timing support |
| McKinsey 7S | Strategy, structure, systems, shared values, style, staff and skills must line up | Organisational design and operating model change |
Project management delivers the solution on time and to budget. Change management delivers adoption, so the solution produces the benefits it was bought for. They have to be planned together: the change lead belongs in the programme leadership, not in a separate workstream that hears about decisions after they are made.
In IT service management, change management, called change enablement in ITIL 4, means controlling changes to live IT systems through change requests and approval boards. It shares the name but deals with technical risk rather than people adopting a new way of working.
Related reading: HR transformation, change management and adoption, the change management plan template, the change readiness assessment, the communication plan template.
Helping people stop doing things the old way and start doing them the new way, so a change delivers the benefits it was meant to.
Define the change and its impacts, build sponsorship, assess readiness, plan engagement, communication and training, support people through the transition, then measure and reinforce adoption.
A model from Prosci that describes the five things each person needs for a change to stick: awareness of the need, desire to take part, knowledge of how, ability to do it and reinforcement so it lasts.
Maps who is affected and how, plans communication, training and support, works with line managers and sponsors, tracks readiness and adoption, and raises the risks that would stop people using the change.
If go live is a few months away and nobody can say how many people will use the new way of working on day one, it is time to put change management into the plan.