Five steps for an effective change management process

Putting a change management process in place will help ensure your business is fully prepared for the change before it takes place, keep it on track during implementation, and allow you to measure how successful it has been at the end.

There are many different change management models and frameworks, and the exact process you follow may vary depending on the size and nature of the change you need to manage. For example the change model you follow for an organizational change such as a company merger, might differ slightly from the change management process for a digital transformation change such as a system migration.

No matter which change management model you use, an effective change management process usually includes five key steps:

Step one: Get the organization on board with change

Step one in the change management process is the preparation phase, where you need to help both stakeholders and employees understand the need for change. This is likely to include:

• Outlining the problems or challenges the organization is currently facing
• Explaining the dangers of inaction and failing to address the status quo
• Communicating a clear, compelling vision of what the proposed changes will achieve

People are naturally resistant to change, but getting buy-in early will help increase employee engagement, and reduce push-back or disengagement throughout the change initiative. Change management workshops are one option for introducing the proposed change, addressing concerns at an early stage, and giving employees a sense of ownership and empowerment.

As Timo Peters, Center of Excellence lead at The Bayer Group explains, "What we need to do is to raise awareness for the need for change, and create the desire to drive and contribute to the change. Driving and contributing to change puts us in control of the change and lets us shape our own future."

Process Intelligence is invaluable in this initial phase of the change management process. In addition to identifying opportunities for improvement it can help each employee and stakeholder visualize how the change will take place, the impact it will have on their specific role as well as the wider organization, and the quantifiable results that can be achieved through successful change.

Find out how Whirlpool, the biggest home appliance company in the world, got key stakeholders on board with changing its order-to-cash process by running a Celonis hackathon.

Step two: Develop a change management strategy

Once the organization is prepared for change, it’s time to develop a thorough, realistic strategy for bringing it about. This will include a change management plan that is tailored to the specific change your organization is facing, and includes some flexibility to deal with any issues that could arise during the implementation stage. A change management tool can help with this process.

Your change management plan should:

• Clearly define the change in question
• Set out a realistic timeline for implementation
• Include an effective communication strategy
• Outline a comprehensive training plan
• Define a risk management strategy

There are two other critical elements to integrate into your change management plan, which are appointing a change management team and setting goals and objectives.

Appointing your change management team

Putting together an effective change management team with the right project management skill sets and experience gives the change initiative the best chance of being implemented successfully, on time and within budget. There are likely to be three categories of people in your team:

1. A change implementer, also known as a change manager or change leader will drive the change project forward.
2. A change enabler is an individual involved in establishing and maintaining conditions where the change can take place.
3. A change recipient is someone whose behavior will need to alter as the change is implemented. It helps to have a change champion or two from this group within the team.

Setting goals and objectives of the change

When you’re managing change, it’s important to establish clear goals and objectives for a successful change initiative. While goals are longer-term targets that are broadly aligned with business strategy, objectives are more tangible milestones that can be achieved by teams or individuals along the way. These objectives must be specific, quantifiable, achievable and actionable for the best chance of success.

Process Intelligence helps by providing a digital process twin of your business that allows you to explore what is achievable within given timeframes, and understand the impact of changes across different functions in the organization.

Step three: Implement the change

The implementation phase of the change management process involves putting the project plan into action. The focus of change implementation should be empowering and supporting every employee or stakeholder affected by the change to achieve their objectives. Training and support should be tailored to specific groups or even individuals, based on their unique perspectives, needs, challenges, and success measures.

As Jennifer Hanania-Cohen, Process Mining CoE Lead at Splunk explains, “You can't just hand someone technology and a new application and say, ‘Go. Run with it,’ and assume that everything's going to be fine.”

Regular communication around the progress of the project is vital at this stage of the change process, and can also be used to remind people of the purpose of the change. Short-term wins should be celebrated and setting up a reward structure – either monetary or social – that encourages individuals and groups to take ownership of new responsibilities, can be effective.

Change leaders should plan for unforeseen roadblocks, and have a plan to quickly identify and remove or mitigate them. This means having a strategy to deal with opposition to the change, which may include:

• Treating those that oppose the changes with respect, genuinely listening to their issues and following up on them
• Communicating candidly but sensitively with employees and other stakeholders
• Holding face-to-face meetings where possible and addressing any unacceptable behavior without being confrontational
• Having people on the change management team with the necessary interpersonal skills to resolve disagreements

Step four: Embed the change within company culture

Once a change has been implemented, it’s easy to breathe a sigh of relief and move on to the next project. But it’s very easy for employees to revert to the old way of doing things once the initial project is over, especially if they no longer have support or regular communication from project management. This is less likely to happen with a major technology change, like a systems migration. But it’s particularly likely to occur after an organizational change related to business processes or workflows.

Change needs to be fully embedded into the organization’s culture before it can be considered a success. Some strategies for institutionalizing change might include:

• Maintaining or expanding reward systems set up during the implementation phase
• Ensuring new recruits are on-boarded into the new ways of working
• Making sure managers are leading by example and not slipping back into old ways
• Maintaining communication around further progress, especially quick wins

Cardinal Health has an effective approach to organizational change management. It has created a Digital Partner role, where every process initiative is assigned to a dedicated partner, responsible for embedding Celonis within the relevant teams, attending staff meetings to ensure alignment, and taking charge of any new challenges as and when they emerge.

Find out more about how Cardinal Health’s Digital Partners are aligning Celonis with strategies taking shape at the highest levels of the organization.

Step five: Analyze the success of the change initiative

Once a change initiative is complete, it’s important to analyze whether it has successfully achieved its goals, on time and on budget. A post-project review is step five in the change management process, and is a useful opportunity to learn lessons that can be applied to the next change initiative, which is likely to be just around the corner.

Process Intelligence can be used to inform this analysis. It provides full visibility into how the organization is running post-change, and allows you to accurately measure the impact of the change across a variety of metrics.

Ashraf Youssef, Senior IT Manager at Autodesk, a leading creator of 3D design software, explains Celonis’ role in the organization’s systems migration, and the benefit of being able to manage post-change success:

“Celonis was brought in to help us with our ERP transformation for three primary reasons. One was to understand our existing processes. The second reason was during the migration so that we wouldn't break anything. And the third reason was to ensure compliance or conformance to the to-be-designed processes after we got to the end-state ERP. One of the really interesting analyses that has come out of Celonis is the benefit of this ERP transformation. We've spent a lot of time and a lot of effort migrating, [asking ourselves] ‘how has it affected key metrics like order cycle time, like clean order rate?’ It's been enlightening.”