AGS

Transformational Change
Management
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Change Management Tasks (Checklist & Overview)
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Intro
Based on multiple requests we have received from change managers and
project leads; we have put together the list below of change management
tasks that change practitioners should complete depending on their project.
Do I Need to Complete All These Change Management Tasks?

Tasks Done?
(1) Assess the Project/Program
(2) Conduct Stakeholder Analysis
(3) Perform Change Impacts’ Assessments
(4) Complete a Target Audience Analysis
(5) Conduct a Preliminary Organization Readiness
(6) Complete a Change Risk Analysis
(7) Develop a Change Management Strategy
(8) Establish a Change Management Group
(9) Create or Relaunch a Change Champion Network
(10) Develop Detailed Change Plans
(11) Execute Change Plans
(12) Track and Measure Adoption
(13) Resolve Adoption Roadblocks
(14) Follow-Up / Support Calls
(15) Celebrate Successes
(16) Project Close

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Change Management Processes and Tasks (Brief
Overview)
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(1) Assess the Project/Program
When you initially join a project as a Change Manager or a Project Manager, your first
priority should be to conduct a thorough review of the project. The goal of conducting a
project assessment is for you to understand the scope, scale, objectives, timeline, and
the driving factors behind the project. This knowledge enables you to rapidly ramp up
and to start developing and implementing your change activities.
Read more: Best Practices for Conducting a Project Assessment

(2) Conduct Stakeholder Analysis

Understanding the stakeholders of a project is another important task that you need to
complete early on. This is a very important part of effective change management as it
increases the success of your stakeholder engagement and management. Stakeholder
analysis involves identifying managers and business leaders that belong to impacted
groups. These individuals are referred to as key stakeholders because they have a stake
in the success of the business change.
Read more: Stakeholder Analysis | Stakeholder Engagement & Management

(3) Perform Change Impacts’ Assessments

Conducting a change impact analysis is one of the key tasks that you need to complete as
a change practitioner. An impact assessment allows you to identify the groups,
departments, functions, and job roles that will be impacted by the change. Conducting a
change impact assessment will also allow you to identify the specific business processes
and legacy technology tools that will be impacted (or replaced) by the change.
Read more: How to Conduct an Effective Impact Assessment + Tools & Samples

(4) Complete a Target Audience Analysis

Audience analysis is the process of assessing a target audience for the purpose of
engaging with that audience and fulfilling key objectives, goals, and mandates.
This process involves understanding the details of the project’s targeted audience.
Whereby a change impact assessment analyzes the departments and job roles that will
be impacted, the target audience assessment takes that assessment one step further by
identifying the people (the “John Does” and “Jane Does”) that perform the job roles that
will be impacted. As part of your assessment, you want to identify the names, emails,
departments, contact information, geographic location (important for when it comes
time to training), and other individual details.
Read more: Conducting a Target Audience Analysis

(5) Conduct a Preliminary Organization Readiness

An organizational change readiness assessment is the set of tasks that you complete to
identify how prepared an organization is for a particular change. The level of change
readiness that is assessed will be based on the scale of the change itself, as well as the
severity of the impacts.
When a business goes through change, the impacted audience groups need to be
prepared and ready for the change.
Read more: Organizational Readiness Assessment and Why You Need to Do It

(6) Complete a Change Risk Analysis

At the early stages of a project, it is essential for you to do a quick assessment of the
risks that the organization will face during this change. Part of this risk assessment will
involve identifying any known trouble spots or potential areas for resistance.
Read more: Conducting a Quick Change Risk Assessment

(7) Develop a Change Management Strategy

A change management strategy needs to be developed that will provide stakeholders and
leadership with an overview of the various strategies that you will be using for your
change management deliverables, including your communications, engagement,
organizational readiness, leadership engagement, training, and post-go-live
deliverables.
Read more: Change Management Strategy Guide & Free Playbook

(8) Establish a Change Management Group

Although not mandatory, it is important for you to establish an Organizational Change
Management (OCM) Working Group. Invite members of the program team (Project
Managers, Program Managers, Architects, and other resources), as well as change
champions and selected stakeholders to participate in your group. This group will be
your mastermind group.
In general, the roles and responsibilities of the group will include:
• Participating in change management planning and execution. Reviewing and
providing feedback on:
- Awareness email communications
- Communication plans and messages
- Training program and curriculum
 - Go-live preparations
- Post go-live change reinforcement activities
• Provide input on your change management tools, templates, plans and
deliverables
• Help you in conducting change impact assessments
• Help in remediating resistance
• Help in connecting Change Lead/resources with key resources, leaders, and
managers

(9) Create or Relaunch a Change Champion Network

A change champion network is a collection of selected individuals from groups that will
be impacted by a change. A change champion network is an important part of any
change strategy; it moves ownership of the change to the business units impacted by the
change, which decreases end-user resistance and increases stakeholder buy-in.
Read more: Launching and Managing a Change Network

(10) Develop Detailed Change Plans

• Communications Plan
• Coaching Plan
• Stakeholder Engagement and Management
• Change Champion Networks
• Change Management Roadmaps
• Tracking and Measurement Plan
• Resistance Management Plan
• Training Plan

(11) Execute Change Plans

Deliver the change management plans that you develop in the sections above.

(12) Track and Measure Adoption

When it comes to tracking and measuring organizational change management,
including how employees, managers, or customers are adopting and transiting through
a change, there are two key areas that you need to focus on:
1. Change Management Adoption & Enablement KPIs
2. Change Metrics
Read more: Change Adoption Metrics & Measurement

(13) Resolve Adoption Roadblocks

After you go-live, you need to continue assessing and identifying resistance, and then
applying proactive and reactive mitigation plans to overcoming resistance to change.
Read more: Mitigating & Resolving Roadblocks to Change Adoption
See also: Reinforcing a Change

(14) Follow-Up / Support Calls

• Follow up with trainees and managers to identify additional training needs
• Follow up with managers to identify post-deployment issues
• Work with necessary parties to resolve issues and roadblocks
• Conduct support calls, office hours, and post go-live follow-up training

(15) Celebrate Successes

Celebrate quick wins and early successes:
• Constantly seek out evidence of progress in the project
• Watch for the achievement of major milestones and identify early successes even
if small
• Organize ways to recognize groups and individuals that have achieved success.
Make it public
• Use normal staff meetings or regularly scheduled department meetings as an
avenue for recognition of achievement
• Ensure that key stakeholders are aware of these achievements and involve
managers in the chain of command to award these recognitions.
(16) Project Close
When a project comes to a close, the change management team will need to transition
out of the project.
Part of this transition needs to involve a transfer of responsibilities from the change
management team to a designated group that will be determined by the program leads.
A designated group might be a group within HR, Program Management Office, or some
other group.
Read more: Change Management Team Transition

Authors: Ogbe Airiodion (Senior Change Management Lead) and Francesca

Crolley (AGS Lead Writer)

Read more at airiodion: https://www.airiodion.com/change-mgt-tasks-step-by-step/