Change Impact Assessment Template
Who is affected, how much, and what will they need to make the change work?
The Change Adaptive Change Impact Assessment Template turns what you learn in discovery into a clear picture of where a change lands. Record each impact on a Role/Team, rate its Severity and Criticality, and the template calculates Priority and Priority Level and builds a Dashboard that shows which groups carry the most change, when impacts pile up, and what support people will need. It works for any organizational change, from restructures, mergers, and new ways of working to ERP, CRM, and AI implementations.
Macro-free: Standard spreadsheet formulas only, with no macros or scripts, for easier IT approval.
See the Change Impact Assessment Template in Action
Watch a short walkthrough: set up your Groups and Roles/Teams, record an impact, and see Priority and the Dashboard update as you go.
Demo shown in Excel. The Google Sheets version works the same way.
What’s Inside the Change Impact Assessment Template
Five tabs take you from setup to a finished assessment. You enter information on two of them, the Setup and Assessment tabs. The Dashboard tab shows the results, the Start Here tab explains the method, and the Example tab shows a completed assessment.
Start Here
The workflow, the ten Impact Types, the rating scales, and the calculation rules on one page.
Setup
Your Groups and the Roles/Teams in each, plus optional Locations, listed once and used as drop-downs. Timing and Action lists come with defaults you can rename.
Assessment
Where you record up to 500 impacts, with checks that flag missing ratings and values that are no longer on their lists.
Dashboard
A summary that updates as you work. It shows the Example data until you complete your first impact.
Example
A completed assessment for a cloud ERP implementation: 33 impacts across 17 Roles/Teams in 11 Groups, the same initiative used in our Stakeholder Analysis Template.
Excel and Google Sheets
Both versions use the same fields, calculations, and workflow, so you can work in whichever your organization uses.
How the Template Works
Three steps take you from discovery notes to a clear view of where the change lands.
Set Up
List your Groups, then each Role/Team with the Group it belongs to, and add Locations if useful. Rename the default Timing values to suit the change, such as Pre-Go-Live, Go-Live, and Post-Go-Live. If you’ve completed the Stakeholder Analysis Template, its Groups list can be pasted straight in.
Assess
Add one row per impact: choose the Role/Team and Impact Type, describe the Future State, and rate Severity and Criticality from 1 to 5. Add the Current State when the contrast helps people see what’s changing. Group, Priority, and Priority Level fill in automatically.
Plan and Review
Add Timing, Action, and Number Affected as planning firms up. All three are optional; the assessment is complete without them. Then review the Dashboard to see which groups carry the most change and which impacts to address first.
What the Template Calculates
The rules are fixed, so results stay consistent from one assessment to the next.
Group
Filled in from the Role/Team’s Group on the Setup tab, so every impact rolls up to the right group.
Priority
Severity × Criticality, from 1 to 25, to rank impacts against each other.
Priority Level
High (16–25), Medium (10–15), or Low (1–9). High always means both ratings are 4 or 5.
New to the method? How to Do a Change Impact Assessment walks through the full seven-step process and both rating scales.
A Dashboard That Shows Where the Change Lands
The Dashboard brings the assessment together and updates as you work, so you can step back from individual rows and see which groups, roles, and periods carry the most change.
Headline Tiles
Total impacts, Groups and Roles/Teams impacted, High and Medium Priority, and High Severity, at a glance.
Counts by Impact Type, Action, and Priority Level
What kind of change dominates, and a first sizing of the support work, with percentages and bars.
Severity × Criticality Grid
How many impacts sit at each combination of ratings, shaded by Priority Level.
Top 10 Priority Impacts
The impacts to address first, with their Role/Team, Future State, Timing, and Action.
Impacts by Group
Two heatmaps: each Group by Impact Type, to show what kind of change each group absorbs, and by Timing, to show when several impacts land at once.
Top 10 Most Impacted Roles/Teams
Ranked by number of impacts, with High Priority count, highest Severity, largest Number Affected, and Busiest Period.
Get the Change Impact Assessment Template
One template, two licenses. Both include exactly the same files.
For one practitioner running change impact assessments on their own initiatives.
BUY SINGLE USER – $59For use across one organization, so every team works from the same template.
BUY ORGANIZATION – $149Every License Includes
- Change Impact Assessment Template for Microsoft Excel
- Change Impact Assessment Template for Google Sheets
- Completed cloud ERP example with 33 impacts
- Practitioner Guide, full edition with the Impact Discovery Question Bank
- Interview-ready questions tagged with who to ask, follow-up probes and “listen for” cues, plus a sample 45-minute interview and workshop prompts
The Method Behind the Template
The template follows the Change Adaptive approach to change impact assessment, Step 4 of our change management process, guided by the LEADER Methodology™.
The Change Impact Assessment Practitioner Guide explains the judgment behind every entry: how to find impacts, including which discovery methods to use, how to describe and rate them consistently, how to read the patterns, and how to turn them into action. The guide is free to download. Template buyers receive the full edition, which adds the Impact Discovery Question Bank: questions to ask in the interview itself, each tagged with who to ask, with follow-up probes and cues for what an answer means for the rating and the Action.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does the template work in Excel and Google Sheets?
Yes. You get both versions, and they use the same fields, calculations, and workflow. The Excel version works in Excel 2016 or later and Microsoft 365, on Windows and Mac.
Do I need change impact assessment experience to use it?
No. The Start Here tab explains every Impact Type, rating scale, and calculation rule, the completed ERP example shows what good entries look like, and the Practitioner Guide covers the judgment behind each entry.
Can I change the Impact Types or the Timing and Action lists?
The ten Impact Types are fixed, so they always match the definitions on the Start Here tab and the Dashboard views. Other covers anything that doesn’t fit. The Timing and Action lists come with defaults you can rename on the Setup tab, such as Pre-Go-Live, Go-Live, and Post-Go-Live for a technology project, or Wave 1 and Wave 2 for a phased rollout.
Why doesn’t the Dashboard add up Number Affected?
Because the same people often appear on several rows. If 24 AP Specialists experience three impacts, a total would show 72 people. The template records Number Affected per impact, uses it to break ties, and shows the largest number affected for each Role/Team.
What is the difference between the Single User and Organization licenses?
Both licenses include exactly the same files. The Single User license is for one person. The Organization license is for use across one organization. The full terms are in our Terms and Conditions.
Does the template connect to the Stakeholder Analysis Template?
They are designed to work in sequence. The Groups from your stakeholder analysis can be pasted straight into the Setup tab, and both templates use the same cloud ERP example. There is no technical link between the files.
Not sure who’s affected yet? Start with the Stakeholder Analysis Template.
Get the Change Impact Assessment Template
See what changes for each Role/Team, how much it matters, and where support is needed first, in Excel or Google Sheets.
Need it across your organization? Get the Organization license – $149