How can you identify areas for improvement in change management?

Defining objectives, assessing the readiness for change, identifying the key areas who would get impacted, evaluate available resources, analyze associated cost

Unless you deeply understand the key elements of the current state that are driving a need for change, you either won't make the change, or you will fail to succeed. The Current State Worksheet and the Change Drivers Worksheet from the Change Planning Toolkit™ are two of the 70+ visual, collaborative tools in the toolkit for successfully planning and executing a change or transformation initiative. They will help your cross-functional change planning team identify the key elements of the current state that your plan will need to consider. A great place to start!

Conduct pulse surveys during/after changes for feedback. Review adoption metrics - analyze lags. Interview stakeholders at all levels to get pain points and ideas. Analyze helpdesk tickets for spikes indicating problematic changes. Observe changed processes for bottlenecks. Assess training, provide refresher courses. Audit communication for disconnects. Compare plans to actuals to improve estimates. Retrospectively review projects for lessons learned and best practices. Inspecting outcomes, feedback and metrics provides insights to refine change enablement and minimize disruption. Focus on agile improvements.

A cégvezetők sokszor nem szívesen beszélnek a működési elakadásokról - pedig az üzleti fejlődés kulcsa épp a megoldásra váró szervezeti kihívásokban rejlik. Aki veszi a bátorságot, hogy feltérképezze cége valós helyzetét, örömmel tapasztalhatja, hogy rendelkezésre állnak új generációs felmérések. Már nem kell hónapokon át tartó, sokszáz kérdéses kérdőívekkel és felesleges interjúkkal tarkított felmérési folyamatra hagyatkozni. Ma már gyorsan, hatékonyan, örömteli módon hozzáférhetünk a "szervezeti valóság kincsesbányájához", köszönhetően a digitális és AI-val megtámogatott megoldásoknak.

Beyond standard assessments like surveys or interviews, engage in honest, introspective analysis. What's working? Where do we stumble? This isn't a mere tick-box exercise. It's a strategic exploration to unearth hidden strengths and pinpoint real growth areas. By understanding your unique change management landscape, you can tailor strategies that don't just patch problems but transform your approach, making your organization more agile, resilient, and ready for whatever lies ahead.

Gathering feedback from stakeholders is a pivotal step in enhancing change management. Engage with everyone affected - employees, customers, partners - to gain diverse perspectives. Use various channels like online platforms or workshops, ensuring your questions encourage open, constructive dialogue. Listening actively and empathetically is key. This method transforms stakeholder feedback into valuable insights, highlighting areas for improvement and fostering a culture of collaboration and respect. It's about shaping a change process that resonates effectively with all involved.

One way to make improvements is to build upon the strengths of your organization rather than only focusing on the gaps. To identify strengths through stakeholder feedback, I like to ask the question, "Think about a high point working at our organization, a time when you felt most alive. Tell that story." Through this prompt, people will begin to tell stories of their best experiences at your organization, which are cues for you to build on those and make those experiences even better for years to come!

To identify areas for improvement in change management, gathering feedback from stakeholders is invaluable. Engage with team members, end-users, and decision-makers to understand their perspectives. Solicit input on communication effectiveness, clarity of processes, and overall satisfaction with change initiatives. This inclusive approach not only highlights specific improvement opportunities but also fosters a culture of collaboration and shared responsibility in driving successful change.

Stakeholders are critical for determining the change (improvement) that needs to occur. They are the ones who best understand the current state as well as the vision for the optimal future state.

Comment mesurer sur le terrain l'effet des actions de conduite du changement et réorienter si besoin ces actions ? La collecte de commentaires des parties prenantes et des retours d'expérience est primordiale. En effet, cela permet de mesurer le degré d'adoption et les réactions face à la conduite du changement. Ce qui évite tout blocage et anticipe de futures actions à prévoir.

Gather feedback from stakeholders. Engage in conversations or interviews with a diverse range of individuals, encompassing the full triangle: employees, leadership, and clients. Different perspectives are crucial. Ask open-ended questions. Listen actively and practice empathy. Identify partners within the company who can advocate for the change, ensuring they are individuals with a good reputation. Not everything needs to change. Emphasize in your dialogues the things that will remain the same as before. This provides comfort. Remember, change is a process that begins with a single person.

Reviewing change objectives and outcomes is critical, but doing so on a frequent and consistent basis can be the key to learning more quickly and identifying areas where you might need to pivot the change strategy. It's also important to build in freedom to iterate on the objectives - you can let your learning inform your objectives. When leading change, it's important to remain agile in every area, even in our objectives, which are typically areas we feel a bit nervous or rigid around shifting.

The secret is to successful change is collaboratively building a change plan that you can refer to as the initiative proceeds, and more importantly, to update as necessary based on changes surrounding the change.

Identifying areas for improvement in change management involves a critical review of change objectives and outcomes. Compare the intended goals with the actual results, assessing the success and impact of the change initiatives. Scrutinise feedback from stakeholders and evaluate key performance indicators. This reflective analysis not only pinpoints areas needing refinement but also guides strategic adjustments for more effective change management in the future.

- Review others' practices and align them with your objectives if applicable, take into account the culture of other organizations while evaluating their practices, define your milestones in the light of your requirements and others' pertinent practices

It's important to keep an open mind and learn from best practices across industries and different kinds of organizations than your own. Broadening your perspective on what's been successful in other organizations can fuel your creativity and imagination and can lead to more innovative change management processes in your organization. By observing successes and failures in other organizations, you can also potentially identify parallel areas for improvement in your own by creating experimental designs for change based on what you've learned.

Identifying areas for improvement in change management involves a thoughtful examination of both best practices and lessons learned. Analyse successful changes to extract best practices and understand what contributed to their success. Similarly, scrutinise instances where challenges arose, extracting valuable lessons. This dual approach provides a comprehensive view, enabling the refinement of change management strategies and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

A la fin de tout projet, l'étape de recueil des leçons est indispensable pour mesurer les points positifs et les points négatifs et pouvoir améliorer sa démarche pour les projets à venir. Apprendre de ses erreurs doit également faire partie intégrante de tout chef de projet dans le cadre de la conduite du changement.

Areas for improvement don't happen magically. It takes disciplined attention to maintain forward momentum and sustain change over time. I've found gantt charts really helpful in providing a high level overview and timeline of all the tasks/projects that need to be completed in order to make change a reality. I also think a good project management tool is necessary and I am currently a fan of Airtable, which stabilizes systems and structures within our company without removing the agility and flexibility we need and want.

Die Art und Weise, wie Mitarbeiter auf Veränderungen reagieren, wird stark von den vorherrschenden kulturellen Werten und Normen beeinflusst. Eine positive Unternehmenskultur, die Veränderungen unterstützt und Innovation fördert, schafft eine Umgebung, in der Mitarbeiter offen für neue Ideen und Prozesse sind. Umgekehrt kann eine kulturbezogene Zurückhaltung den Wandel behindern. Die Berücksichtigung des kulturellen Einflusses im Überwachungsprozess ermöglicht eine gezieltere Kommunikation und eine bessere Integration von Verbesserungsmaßnahmen. Mitarbeiter können besser nachvollziehen, warum bestimmte Änderungen vorgenommen werden und wie sie in den kulturellen Kontext passen.

In my experience change management is most effective when it isn't an endeavor born of circumstance. It is important to see the need for change before the change is required. If you wait to embark on a change management journey when it is required you are will struggle by always feeling like you are a step behind. Being proactive in recognizing what is on the horizon will allow the change management endeavor to be potentially less disruptive and have less of a "negative perception" by those impacted. Change management should be a continuous core component of your business strategy and there needs to be rigor and structure in how the analysis/assessment of data is conducted that would trigger a change management engagement.

The first step in identifying improvements needed in change management is to engage those who are impacted most in a business change, typically end users. It is crucial to understand the elements of success for individuals and to align them with the elements of success for the broader organisation. It is also imperative to check in with the success factors that contribute to achieving the vision and mission for the transformation. Getting the fundamentals right first is the ultimate key to improvements, momentum and success.

In my experience, optimal Change Management effectiveness is observed in organizations with a well-defined Mission Statement, strong Executive support, and a strategic investment plan targeting the elimination of barriers to success. This includes addressing issues related to training, technology, resources, and regulatory requirements. In such organizations, there is a culture that fosters thoughtful and transparent communication loops. Moreover, there exists an environment that not only encourages but also rewards incremental changes, moving them progressively towards the boundaries of conventional thinking rather than necessitating radical departures from established norms.

In change management, we should have long term visibility. Implementing one change, reviewing its impact, one at a time is good, when we have minimum two or three more changes in the pipeline. This way we are more agile about adopting the changes and its feedback.

It's also important to seek feedback from your own team and be aware of power dynamics. I intentionally included diverse reviews of my change vision and proposed processes. My processes intentionally include supports for my employees along the way, such as mental health resources, making myself available for them to talk to, and implementing anonymous survey feedback for them to provide feedback they might not feel comfortable telling me initially. I also train my team in relevant skills so they are able to contribute earlier to the process, to ensure they can better provide feedback to project design and to increase their buy-in to its success.