Questions to ask when introducing change

  1. What IS the change?
    1. Self-evident but you should be able to clearly and concisely state the change in a short sentence.
  2. Who is responsible for leading the change?
    1. Not only who is responsible for leading the change but who will be doing the actual work as well.
  3. What does success look like?
    1. Probably the most critical thing to define. If you can’t objectively define what success looks like then people will become frustrated.
  4. Who is impacted by the change?
    1. Some changes impact primary, secondary, and tertiary groups of people. It’s important to understand EVERYONE that will be impacted by the change.
  5. How will we know when we’re successful?
    1. This is similar to #3 but more related to the overall organization and the overall change.
  6. Who needs to be trained; and on what?
    1. Consider creating a training plan to make sure everyone gets trained so that you have a record of it. Also consider refresher training just before going “live” in case the change has taken a while to accomplish.
  7. What’s the timeline for implementation?
    1. You should DEFINITELY consider creating a change management plan as well as a change communications plan.
    2. Is this going to be a phased roll-out or organization-wide all at once?

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