Change Management
What Is Change Management?
Change management is the process of preparing and supporting an organization and its people to perform in new ways to enable intended results. Each part of this definition highlights a distinct requirement for successful change.
Change does not happen all at once. Organizations move through a series of activities and decisions as they prepare for, implement, and adapt to a new way of working.
Change can impact processes, systems, roles, structures, and expectations, but people ultimately have to understand and operate successfully within the new environment.
The objective is not simply awareness or acceptance. Change requires people to work differently, whether that involves a new system, process, responsibility, behavior, or way of making decisions.
Change management is not an end in itself. It helps translate an initiative into the adoption and performance needed to support the results the organization is trying to achieve.
Why It Matters
Why Change Management Is Needed
Organizations invest in new technology, processes, structures, policies, operating models, and other changes because they expect something to improve. The project can design and implement the solution, but implementation alone does not mean the organization will work differently because of it.
A new system can go live while employees continue using workarounds. A redesigned process can be approved while teams continue following old practices. A new structure can take effect while responsibilities remain unclear. Training can be completed without people becoming capable or confident in the new way of working.
Change management addresses that gap. It helps the organization understand what needs to change in practice, prepare the people affected, support them as the change becomes real, and determine whether the expected new ways of performing are taking hold.
The Work
What Change Management Includes
Change management brings together several types of work. The mix and depth depend on the initiative, the people and groups affected, and what must change in practice for the organization to achieve its intended results.
Assessment and Analysis
Understand the initiative, the stakeholder landscape, the impacts on affected Roles and Teams, readiness, and the other conditions that should shape the approach.
Leadership and Sponsorship
Prepare leaders to provide direction, make decisions, demonstrate commitment, remove barriers, and reinforce the importance of the change.
Stakeholder Engagement and Communication
Involve the people who matter to the change and give them what they need to understand what is happening, why it matters, and what it means for them.
Learning and Performance Support
Build the knowledge, skills, practice, tools, and support people need to perform successfully in the new environment.
Readiness and Resistance
Identify barriers, concerns, gaps, and signs of resistance so additional action goes where it is most needed.
Adoption and Measurement
Track whether people are using the new ways of working, whether performance is developing as intended, and where further support or adjustment is required.
Connected Process
How the Work Is Organized
These activities work best when they are connected across the life of the initiative. Change Adaptive organizes them into four phases, each answering a different question about the change.
Assess
What does this change require?
Build an understanding of the organization, its stakeholders, and the impacts of the change.
Plan
What support is needed, and from whom?
Convert assessment findings into a coordinated set of change management actions.
Implement
Are people prepared and supported?
Check readiness, carry out the plan, and support people as new ways of working are introduced.
Measure & Adapt
Is the change taking hold?
Measure adoption and performance, reinforce what is working, and adjust what is not.
Connected Disciplines
Change Management vs. Project Management
Project management and change management address different parts of the same initiative. Project management focuses on delivering the defined solution. Change management focuses on preparing and supporting the organization to operate successfully with that solution.
| Project Management | Change Management |
|---|---|
| Designs and delivers the project solution. | Prepares and supports the organization to operate successfully with the solution. |
| Manages scope, schedule, resources, dependencies, risks, and delivery. | Addresses organizational impacts, stakeholder needs, readiness, capability, resistance, adoption, and support. |
| Focuses on implementing what is changing. | Focuses on enabling people and the organization to perform in the changed environment. |
| Tracks whether project milestones and deliverables are completed. | Tracks whether people are prepared, adopting the change, and performing as intended. |
The two disciplines work best as a connected effort. Project delivery defines and implements the solution, while change management helps the organization prepare for, adopt, and perform successfully with it so the initiative can support its intended results.
In IT, change management can also refer to the formal process for requesting, approving, testing, and deploying changes to systems. Organizational change management focuses on preparing and supporting people whose work is changing. The two may operate alongside each other on technology initiatives, but they serve different purposes.
Shared Responsibility
Who Is Responsible?
Change practitioners may coordinate the work, but successful organizational change depends on actions across the organization. Different groups contribute in different ways.
Structure and coordinate assessment, planning, stakeholder engagement, readiness, resistance, adoption, measurement, and other change management work.
Set direction, make decisions, demonstrate commitment, maintain visibility, remove barriers, and reinforce the importance of the change.
Define and deliver the solution while providing the information needed to understand impacts, timing, dependencies, and implementation decisions.
Translate the change for their teams, address questions, reinforce expectations, support learning, identify issues, and help employees adapt in daily work.
Internal communications, learning and development, HR, IT support, operations, and other teams may help develop and deliver communications, training, job aids, support, and related change activities.
Participate in the change, build new capabilities, provide feedback, surface practical issues, and ultimately adopt the new ways of working required by the initiative.
Go Deeper
Explore the Process and Key Activities
Use these Change Adaptive resources to go deeper into the process and the activities that support successful organizational change.
Change Management Process
See how Assess, Plan, Implement, and Measure & Adapt connect the work from defining the change through sustained adoption.
Stakeholder Analysis
Understand who matters to the change and where stakeholder attention is needed.
How to Do a Stakeholder AnalysisChange Impact Assessment
Identify what changes for each affected Role and Team and where impacts are concentrated.
How to Create a Change Impact AssessmentChange Readiness
Understand whether the organization, and later each affected group, is prepared for the change.
Two Types of Change Readiness AssessmentsChange Management Plan
Turn assessment findings into coordinated action across leadership, engagement, communication, training, readiness, resistance, and adoption.
Creating a Change Management PlanPut It Into Practice
Use practical templates, toolkits, guides, and courses to assess change, plan the work, prepare people, and support adoption.
Explore Change Management Products