Are you new to project management and wonder what change management is? Or, are you experienced and looking to add a new change management plan to your project management practice? Whatever your position, here is a wealth of information about what change management is and how to manage the process.
Change Management Theory
As every successful project manager knows, the only thing certain in any project is change. If you're in the field, you probably deal with changes every day. But, dealing with change and managing change are two different things. Which begs the question, "Just what is change management?" After all, if every project endures change, isn't project management, in effect, change management?
Not really.
In fact, while project management theory follows a fairly defined set of steps (from Initiation through Closing), there are actually several approaches to change management. This is actually a little "off-putting" to many project managers who have been trained to follow a defined set of steps. Fear not, you can measure your success by evaluating your own change management methodology based on an article that outlines eight different success factors. These success factors act as your mission statement as you create your change control process and apply change management theory to your projects.
If you don't have a defined change management plan for your organization, you can learn about the components of change management methodology here. This way, you can create your own change management plan.
Finally, an introductory article about locating and solving problems with change management details how to use a familiar management process to help deal with problems. This happens to be a key component in both project management and change management.
Change Management Strategies
Once you have your change management theory down, you can move on to employing change management strategies at your company. To start, you'll want to make a list of questions and answers that will have you build your own change management strategy. Learn what questions you can ask yourself as you build your change management plan in this article.
As your custom strategies begin to take shape, part of building an effective change management plan is successfully analyzing and account for risk. In fact, a good change management plan helps you deal with the risks that always unfold with any project change.
Of course, in any change management strategy, communication should be placed in a high priority position. And, not just any communication -- the key is implementing and adhering to effective communication. You'll want to outline your best-case scenario for when, who and how often communication should occur in order to be deemed "effective." You can learn more about communication in change management in this article. Remember, you're building a plan that represents the ideal for your company.
Creating and Implementing a Change Management Plan
How do you get started? It's simple, really, if you tap into your pre-existing project management skills. One of the first rules in project management is to learn from others that have already been down the road you're about to travel. The same principle can be applied to creating your first change management plan.
In fact, you can even download our Change Control Process guide to get started with something to work off of. This guide, first introduced in our 'How to Define a Change Control Process' article, can help anyone set up effective change controls. According to the article's author, "This document is great for any project manager who doesn't have written plans or guidelines on change control."
Then, once you have your change management plan and process in place, it's important to continue to adhere to the rules. Often, this can feel more challenging than the actual plan development. For some great ideas on helping all of your stakeholders and team members adhere to the defined rules, read a helpful 'how to' about handling change requests to projects and even provides a change management process template available as a Microsoft Word document.
Stick to the Plan
Change Management doesn't need to be "just another thing on your project management checklist." Instead, use the change management methodology to guide how you deal with change in your projects. Often, just having a set of rules by which you and all involved team members and stakeholders can follow makes it easier for you to deal with the change that will inevitably crop up in your projects. This way, you can focus more energy on planning and monitoring and less energy on fighting fires.