5. Develop the change management plan

‌‌‌‌‌‌What is it?

The change management plan defines the sequence of tasks, activities and resources required to execute the Change Strategy (link).  It typically does this by applying established project management discipline to structure the work into different work-streams, often split into different stages and with dependencies, decision points and milestones clearly identified.

Why do it?

This process will:

When to do it?

The full change management plan will be finalised during the Develop phase (as part of the Full Business Case).  It can be started in the Design phase once the Strategic Outline Case and Change Strategy have been approved.

Inputs

Future State Definition
Change Governance Structure
Change Impact Assessment
Stakeholder Analysis

Outputs

Change Management Plan

How to do it?

5.1 Define work stream, task and timeline

The  Change Management Plan defines how the Change Strategy will be realised.  The  Change Impact Assessment is a good starting point as it define what is changing, the scope and scale of the impact and provides an initial view of the people and organisational activities that will be required to support the change.

The Change Impact Assessment provides an initial picture of the activities required to support the change but it does not constitute a comprehensive ‘change solution’.  Work through each of the interventions in the change impact assessment and consider whether they are sufficient to:

• Move stakeholders to the desired commitment level (described in the Stakeholder Analysis)
• Facilitate the behaviour change required for any new ways of working
• Address the organisational impacts of change – including protecting ‘business as usual’
• Deliver the required benefits

Any changes to the change impact assessment identified during the change management planning should be documented to inform the stakeholder communications work and change network activities.

 

This step specifically looks at the change tasks (sometimes referred to as the ‘people’ tasks).  The activities and resources (identified in step 3) need to be integrated into the overall project plan for the change initiative deliverables, for example, developing and implementing a new IT system or creating and populating new Local Delivery Hubs.

Start by grouping the activities defined in the  Change Impact Assessment with the areas of focus defined in the  Future State Definition and Change Strategy, ie the key areas for your specific change initiative.  These may include:

• Change leadership development
• Stakeholder engagement and communications
• Training and knowledge management
• Organisation development
• Culture and behaviour change
• Change measurement and tracking

These activities can then be mapped to the overall project timeline for the initiative to highlight dependencies and identify where activities can run in parallel and where there needs to be careful sequencing.  Dependencies on activities or resources outside of this change initiative also need to be factored in.

• Identify resources, look at holiday & other commitments
• Identify where the initiative needs full time resource (consider backfill) and where you need small amounts of people’s time at specific points
• Look at overall University timelines to check for conflict with BaU

5.2 Define assumptions and risks

Clearly document any assumptions, expectations or broader dependencies that underpin your change management plan.

Define how risks and issues will be tracked and managed. 

‌	See corporate risk pages and SDU risk management for more information and tools
	The Change Management Plan can now be completed.