Right now I’m working through a change management process at work that’s a little beyond my capabilities right now. I was given ownership of this process by my boss in order to stretch my development. Nailing this change management process is currently one of my main goals. I’ve been given a number of resources on change management and this is what I’ve distilled it down to. Hopefully this format will be helpful for anyone else out there working on a change management process, or for myself to refer back to next time I need to do this.

The one-pager: Building appetite

The first step is to pitch the proposed change to your boss, in a way that they can take that up the chain. Depending on the scope of the change it could go all the way to the CEO or board of directors. As information moves up the chain of command in an organization, time becomes more scarce and valuable, so distilling your thoughts into a simple one-pager will make communication faster and easier. Remember that you have all the context and the people above you may not even be aware of the situation, so you need to compress a lot of context into a shorter format.

No it doesn’t always need to be a Google Doc or Confluence page. As you build the skill of condensing all this context, it could even be a medium length DM to your boss.

Let’s dive in to all the sections you’ll need to cover.

The need for change

This is where we explain the context. What is the situation, what choices did we make in the past that put us on this path, what has changed since those choices were initially made, and why do we need to act now?

Remember to consider the need for change from 3 perspectives

• Internal to your team
  • Why does this change matter to your team? How will team members benefit?
  • Remember that all organizations are resource constrained in some way. We are able to explain the need from the perspective of the people most affected by the situation, but it is not sufficient to convince senior leadership that resources should be dedicated to solve this problem right now vs the many other problems that need to be solved.
• Internal to the company
  • How does this change improve the way your team interfaces with the rest of the company?
  • This is where you start to sell the need for change a little. Making your team happy is great, but if the change also has a positive impact outside of your team, that can improve how the business as a whole functions. These benefits have high leverage and are more likely to convince senior leadership to adopt the proposed change.
• External to the company
  • How does the change improve the way the team or the company is perceived by the general public?
  • Consider how your company positions itself, who is the ideal customer profile, what sort of questions do leads ask, what problems do they face? If you can show that your proposed change benefits how the company is seen in the market, there is even higher leverage and a higher chance the change could be adopted.

Stakeholders

Who are all the people involved in the proposed change or affected by it?

• Who will be against the change? (Resistors)
  • Maybe people on your team will react poorly to the change because they like the way things are now. How can we convince them of the benefits of the change?
  • Maybe the change will cause you to step on the toes of another team and they won’t like someone muscling in on their territory. How can you and the other team lead work together to clarify new areas of responsibility and accountability and head off future conflict?
• Who will be neutral to the change? (Bystanders)
  • Maybe someone on the team will get a different title but it doesn’t affect their day to day tasks or compensation
• Who will be in favor of the change? (Helpers)
  • Maybe the change comes with a pay bump for your team
  • Maybe the change has a positive impact on the budget
  • Maybe the change takes some menial work off of an enabling team’s plate
• Who will lead the charge on this change to drive it forward? (Champions)
  • Maybe someone ambitious and proactive will be immediately sold on the change and help build excitement on the team
  • Maybe there is additional budget that must be used in your department and someone is eager to spend the money. They might help you put together a pitch for the change, or start to build appetite with the stakeholders they can influence.

Vision

Some questions that you might want to ask when writing up this section include

• What does success look like and why do we care?
• If we succeed, what does that look like, and why is it good for all of us?

Describe the ideal future state, include some points from the need for change section. The benefits internal to your team are nice, but they’re not the most convincing part for the organization as a whole. The way the change will impact (benefit) other teams or the organization as a whole will be the most important part to actually build the appetite. The rest is just helpful context, but it’s not going to be the part that convinces anyone that things need to change, unless your team is rioting and threatening to quit.

That doesn’t meant that they don’t care. It means they have a lot of competing priorities. All organizations are resource constrained and if you need to make a change that involves multiple functions collaborating, you need to be able to convince them why this needs to happen now above their other priorities. As a manager, nailing this communication strategy will help you advocate for your team better than anything else you could possibly learn.

Strategy

What are we actually going to do? This is where you define the steps in the process. You can get pretty granular here with all the conversations that need to happen, and in what order, but that will get too long for your one-pager. At this stage, because we’re just focusing on building appetite, this part can just list some of the most important conversations, the people who need to sign off on things, and how you’ll measure the effects of the change over time.

Risks

Here, you can really crystalize both sides of the argument. By listing risks of acting and not acting, you can show that the benefit of acting is much higher, and that the risks of acting can be easily mitigated.

If we act

• Budget impacts due to increased costs, but we can recover those costs through improved efficiency
• Team members may be pulled away from their long term career goals, but you can plan around their goals like you did in the career conversations
• People may have reasons for not liking the change, but you can develop a communication plan to manage the stakeholders

Basically anything that could be a hindrance during or after the change, and how you can manage it.

If we don’t act

• Employee disatisfaction
• Lack of motivation
• Everything stays the same, and the team doesn’t grow

Here you highlight what’s already showing cracks, and how not acting will push something to a breaking point.

Other Considerations

This is where you can put any additional thoughts related to the change.

• What’s our general timeline for getting this done?
• What other work will this change create and how do we handle that?
• Miscellaneous tips and tricks you got from the core change team that are helping you put this document together