We’re happy to share an example of one of our change plan templates.
We often begin with a template like this to help our clients plan for the successful delivery of a project or programme of work. We then tailor the template as we learn more about the change project and the environment change is being delivered in.
Our template steps you through the change planning process and provides lots of real-life examples to guide you on what type of detail can go in each section. We find that the detail for a change plan comes from loads of conversations, meetings, observations and experience of what will work best for your organisation. We hope you find our template a useful start for your change management planning. Alternatively, you can get in touch with our Connections team to discuss how we can best help you to plan and deliver your change along with a legacy of better results.
Introduction
Describe what the change project/programme is in 1-2 sentences here. The purpose of this document is to plan for the successful delivery of this change.
What’s Changing?
Sharing a clear vision of what’s changing helps ensure that everyone is on the same page about what the change will deliver. We’ve included the key changes in the below table:
Changing from
Changing to
Insert a description of current state here for a key aspect of this change.
e.g., Everyone has their own desk assigned to them and works in the same spot each day.
Insert a description of how things will be in the future once the change is delivered.
e.g., Desks will no longer be assigned and our people will be encouraged to sit in a different spot each day.
e.g., Personal property is kept on assigned desks and in desk drawers.
e.g., Personal property will be stored in lockers and will need to be packed up and put back in the locker at the end of the day.
Project Roles
The following table outlines the roles within the project and the accountabilities for each role.
Project role
Name(s)
Description of role on project
Sponsor
Insert name here
The primary role of the Project Sponsor is champion the project throughout its life and provide advice and guidance to help ensure the success of the project. When needed, our Project Sponsor will also clear major obstacles to enable the project to be successful.
(Adjust above description to fit your project).
Steering Committee
Insert names or group name here. E.g., Senior Leadership Team
The primary role of the Steering Committee is to provide senior management commitment to the project goals, supporting the project team in their efforts to deliver to the plan. Responsibilities include:
- Ensure the interests of the project have focus throughout the life of the project and do everything possible to ensure success within bounds of experience and authority
- Assist in the resolution of escalated issues for the betterment of the project
- Review the status and direction of the project and participate in communication activities and champion the project throughout the organisation
- Accept project risks and mitigation strategies
(Adjust above description to fit your project).
Project Working Group
Connections Ltd Team
Connections Ltd is accountable for the delivery of the project on time and within budget. This includes:
- Delivery of the items and activities detailed in the Change and Project Plans
- Documentation of new business processes
- Defining business and functional requirements to ensure future technology will build on what has been achieved in this content improvement project
- Providing regular reports on progress
- Identifying items requiring action from the Project Sponsor
- Reporting on high severity risks and mitigation strategies
Technology/ Solution Architect
Insert names here
Responsible for the Technology Platform. Ensures the technical integrity of the solution and develops the detailed implementation plan for the technology deliverables.
(Adjust above description to fit your project).
Insert more roles here
Insert names here
Insert agreed responsibilities here.
Stakeholder Analysis
The purpose of the below table is to help us analyse and plan for the best approach to stakeholder engagement for our project.
Tip: it can work really well to be transparent and fill this table in together with your stakeholders so you can get their input directly.
Stakeholder
Who is the stakeholder (may be a group
Key interests
What are the key things that they are interested in
Impact of stakeholder dissatisfaction
What are the consequences of not getting this stakeholder onside?
e.g., change adoption challenges
Current attitude towards change
e.g., sceptical
Impact of Change on Stakeholder
e.g., Medium impact due to some new responsibilities when project transitions to BAU
How we will monitor stakeholder reaction?
e.g. informal conversations, formal sign-offs
Approach
e.g. communications, inclusion in project, consultation
Who will do the monitoring?
e.g. Change Manager……
Key Success Measures
Below are the KPIs/ business benefits for our XX project. Effective change management will be key to enabling these to be achieved.
Key KPIs
How we will measure success
Insert KPI/ Success measure here. e.g., 25% increase in website page views
Describe how you can measure success here.
E.g. Number of page views, focusing on content pages rather than home/landing pages
e.g., Increase in web channel share
Describe how you can measure success here.
E.g. Number of page views, focusing on content pages rather than home/landing pages
e.g., Increase in web channel share
Proportion of page views vs. the rest of the interactions such as calls and emails
Key Messages
All activities on the change and communications plan will reinforce these key project messages:
- Insert key messages here e.g., the main benefit of this change is….
- Insert key messages here. e.g., Your honest and constructive feedback throughout this journey will play a key role in ensuring we get this change right for you and your peers. The best way to provide feedback is by attending one of our upcoming workshops or by completing our online survey.
Change Impact Assessment
We’ve outlined the key impacts of this change for people, process, technology and culture in the below table. This is an evolving document and over time we expect to add to this list over time.
Area of change impact
Key impacts
People
Bullet point people impacts here. e.g.
- Significant change of day to day work for XX team
- A number of people at Company X will pick up an additional responsibility of ‘XX’
- Involvement of a number of teams in XX workshops
- XX team will be upskilled to……… These people will receive training, ongoing mentoring and will eventually become accredited.
- Customers/ community will be able to do more than ever before online
- Customer services teams will receive more online requests and less phone requests
Systems/ Technology
Bullet point system/ technology impacts here. e.g.
- Introduction of a new system for…
- New passwords required for…
Process
Bullet point process impacts here. e.g.
- Introduction of new processes for archiving content
- Introduction of continuous improvement rhythm
- New content approvals process
Culture
Bullet point culture impacts here. e.g.
- Cultural shift from working in silos to working in virtual teams
- Cultural shift from asking an expert in the team for an answer to looking it up online
Change Heatmap
We’ve used a change heatmap tool so you can see at a glance which teams are most impacted by the change and where they are located. This heatmap will inform our launch support approach.
Tip: It is often useful to organise teams by either their location or skill-set as this can show you and your stakeholders where the most support will be required before and after launch. Our example below shows a heatmap organised by location. If you find this tool will be useful for your project you can edit this heatmap and change the colours of the boxes based on your own findings during your change assessment.
Sample heatmap
Change and Communications Activity Plan
In the below table we’ve outlined our change and communications activity that is planned to support the successful delivery of this change. Activities have been designed to support all aspects of the change. This includes:
- Activities and communications aimed at increasing awareness and desire for the change
- Training, upskilling and mentoring events and activities to ensure people have the new skills required by this change
- Activities and tasks aimed at ensuring the change is successfully adopted and business benefits are achieved
Activity
When?
Delivery Channel
Objective(s)
Insert activity here
e.g., Project launch event
Insert timing here
e.g., 23rd Nov 2019 or Week 1 if dates are still to be confirmed
Insert deliver channel here (e.g., email, event, poster, workshop, meeting, etc.).
e.g., Morning Tea event
Insert the purpose or goals of the activity here
e.g., Provide an interactive introduction to our project (what’s changing and why and how you can be involved). Share our goals and get buy-in and ideas for achieving the goal.
e.g., Invite comms for Writing Guidelines workshop
e.g., Week 1
e.g., Outlook Calendar invitation sent by General Manager
e.g., Invite key participants to provide input into Writing Guidelines and help them prepare for the workshop.
e.g., Technology discussion
e.g., Week 2
e.g., Meeting with I.T team
e.g., Meet with I.T to plan together for project dependencies, what’s possible, options and timelines related to the technology platform project.
e.g., Targets/ Success Measures
e.g., Week 2
e.g., Meeting
e.g., Present draft targets/ scorecard and gain input/ approval
e.g., Leader comms about Content Workshops
e.g., Week 3
e.g., Briefing via meeting or phone call
e.g., Communicate the purpose of upcoming content workshops and how leaders can support us as Change Champions
e.g., Show & Tell
e.g., Week 10
e.g., Event/ Presentation
e.g., Share what we’ve achieved so far and what we plan to do next. Includes a demo.
e.g., Training
e.g., Week 12
e.g., e-Learning
e.g., Training for customer services team on how to use the new system to complete xyz.
e.g., Follow up with late adopters
e.g., Week 20
e.g., One on one coaching
e.g., Coach and mentor those who show up in the reporting as still using the old system instead of the new one. Take time to understand their concerns and overcome them together.
e.g., Celebration
e.g., Week 24
e.g., Post Implementation Review meeting followed by a Launch Party
e.g., Wrap up the project, learn for the future and celebrate success together
Planning for Anticipated Change Challenges
We currently foresee some potential challenges to the changes that our XX project will deliver. The below table captures these potential risks and also includes the mitigations we will use to overcome/ prevent these challenges. We also expect to add to this list and remove items from this list as we progress further along our change journey.
Anticipated Change Challenge
Mitigation
Insert anticipated change challenge here
e.g., Slow project approvals.
Insert mitigation for the change challenge here.
e.g., Overcome by agreeing a project approvals framework and turnaround times before approvals for the project begins.
e.g., Resistance to volunteer to be a page owner for fear of extra work.
e.g., Communicate benefits of being a page owner and reset expectations of how much work it will actually be during workshops.
Identify potential page owners during workshops and meet with them one on one to discuss the opportunity further.
Gain support of people leaders to promote page ownership with their people as part of their career development.
e.g., We could lose momentum and staff focus as Christmas holidays get close.
e.g., Plan for Christmas break upfront. Aim to get everything approved well before Xmas. Complete workshops in November. Plan to train people post-Xmas break when everyone is fresh from a holiday and back at work.
Feedback loop
An effective method of mitigating risk is to review reports and data to measure progress and also to make sure the business have the opportunity to directly send comments to the project. Key ways we will ensure a feedback loop is kept active are:
Insert feedback loops here:
- e.g., Review XX reporting to measure weekly adoption rates
- e.g., Utilise a community panel to gain feedback directly from our community/customers on the improvements
- e.g., Monitor Call volumes to contact centre
- e.g., Regular check-ins with XX teams
- e.g., Providing staff with multiple ways to get in touch with our project team (email, phone details, an anonymous post-workshop survey).