Change impact assessment has become a cornerstone of effective change management, providing practitioners with visual tools to understand and communicate how organisational transformations will affect different areas of the business. The change management heat map, with its familiar red, amber, and green colour coding, has emerged as one of the most widely used change management tools and techniques for visualising change impact across departments, teams, and business units.
For change managers beginning their impact assessment journey, heat maps offer an accessible entry point into systematic change analysis. They provide a visual framework that executives can quickly grasp and a structured change management approach for gathering stakeholder input about change effects across the organisation. Understanding how to manage change through these tools effectively remains an important foundational skill for change management professionals pursuing change management best practices.
We will explore a comprehensive approach to creating change management heat maps, from initial setup through stakeholder engagement and final presentation. However, we will also explore the significant limitations of traditional heat map approaches and examines why modern organisations require more sophisticated change assessment tools to successfully navigate complex change initiatives.
Understanding change management heat maps
What is a change management heat map
A change management heat map is a visual representation that displays the anticipated impact of change in organisations across different areas of the business using colour-coded matrices. Most commonly, these maps use traffic light colours – red for high impact, amber for medium impact, and green for low impact – to provide stakeholders with an immediate visual understanding of where change will be most significant within their change management framework.
Heat maps typically organise information along two key dimensions as part of a structured change management methodology. The vertical axis usually represents different organisational areas (departments, business units, locations, or roles), while the horizontal axis might show different types of change impact (process changes, technology changes, people changes, structural changes) or different phases of the change initiative (planning, implementation, adoption, sustainment). There are also other display methods including months of the year at the horizontal axis and business process changes along the vertical axis.
The appeal of heat maps lies in their simplicity and visual impact for implementing change management. Executives can quickly scan the map to understand which areas require the most attention and resources, while change managers can use the visual to guide conversation about support needs and intervention strategies as part of their change management activities.
When heat maps are most useful
Heat maps work particularly well in several specific contexts within the change management process:
• Initial change scoping: When you need to provide stakeholders with a high-level overview of change impact across the organisation during early change management planning
• Executive communication: When presenting to change leadership who require rapid visual understanding of impact distribution
• Resource planning: When making initial decisions about where to focus change management resources and effort
• Stakeholder engagement: When facilitating discussions with business unit leaders about their areas’ change requirements
Heat maps also serve as effective starting points for more detailed change analysis. They can help identify areas that warrant deeper investigation and provide a change management framework for structuring stakeholder conversations about specific impacts and needs.
Creating your change management heat map: a step-by-step guide
Step 1: Define your assessment scope and dimensions
Before creating your heat map, you need to establish clear parameters for your analysis as part of fundamentals of change management. This foundational step determines the effectiveness and usefulness of your final change assessment.
Identifying organisational areas for assessment: Start by determining which parts of the organisation your change initiative will affect. Common approaches to managing organizational change include:
• Business unit analysis (Product divisions, geographic regions, customer segments)
• Functional role groupings (Front-line staff, middle management, senior leadership)
• Location-based divisions (Head office, regional offices, field locations)
Selecting impact dimensions: Choose the types of change impact you want to assess using proven change management techniques. Typical dimensions include:
• Process changes (new workflows, revised procedures, updated standards)
• Technology changes (new systems, software upgrades, digital tools)
• People changes (role modifications, skill requirements, reporting relationships)
• Cultural changes (values, behaviours, communication patterns)
Establishing your rating scale: Define what constitutes different levels of change in your organisational context:
• High impact (Red): Significant changes requiring extensive support, training, or adjustment
• Medium impact (Amber): Moderate changes requiring some support and adjustment
• Low impact (Green): Minor changes requiring minimal support or adjustment
Document these definitions clearly as part of your change management plan, as they’ll guide all subsequent change management activities and ensure consistency across different evaluators.
Also note that change heatmaps can be focused for one specific project, or multiple projects within a portfolio, a department or across the whole organisation.
Step 2: Gather stakeholder input and data
Effective heat map creation requires systematic data collection from relevant stakeholders who understand the operational realities of different organisational areas, representing core change management principles of stakeholder engagement.
Identifying key informants: Select stakeholders who can provide accurate insights about change impacts for your change management process:
• Business unit leaders who understand operational requirements
• Subject matter experts familiar with current processes and systems
• Front-line managers who understand day-to-day work realities
• HR representatives who understand people and capability implications
• Technical specialists who understand system and process dependencies
Conducting impact assessment interviews: Structure your stakeholder conversations to gather consistent, comparable information and conduct subsequent analysis given the organisation environment:
• Present the change initiative overview and timeline
• Explain your impact assessment dimensions and rating scale
• Walk through each relevant organisational area
• For each area, discuss the nature and extent of changes across your chosen dimensions
• Document not just the ratings but the reasoning behind them
• Identify any dependencies or interconnections between areas
Using assessment surveys and workshops: Complement interviews with broader data collection methods as part of comprehensive change management techniques:
• Change management surveys for stakeholders who can’t participate in detailed interviews
• Group workshops to explore areas where multiple perspectives are valuable
• Focus groups to understand specific stakeholder concerns and requirements
• Document reviews to understand current state processes and procedures
Step 3: Build your heat map matrix
With your data collected, you can begin constructing your visual heat map representation using appropriate change management tools and techniques.
Setting up your matrix structure: Create a grid with your organisational areas on one axis and your impact dimensions on the other. Most practitioners use spreadsheet for this initial construction, though purpose-built change assessment tools offer additional functionality.
Populating impact ratings: For each intersection of organisational area and impact dimension within your change management framework:
• Review your stakeholder input and supporting data
• Apply your defined rating criteria consistently
• Assign the appropriate colour code (red, amber, green)
• Document the rationale for each rating in supporting notes
Adding supporting information: Enhance your heat map with additional context following change management best practices:
• Include brief descriptions of the specific changes driving each rating
• Note key dependencies or risks associated with high-impact areas
• Identify stakeholder groups requiring particular attention
• Document assumptions and data sources for transparency
Creating visual clarity: Ensure your heat map is visually effective for change management communication:
• Use consistent colour schemes and formatting
• Include clear legends explaining your rating system
• Add titles and labels that make the map self-explanatory
• Consider using different visual elements (patterns, symbols) to convey additional information
Step 4: Validate and refine your assessment
Before finalising your heat map, validate your analysis through stakeholder review and refinement as part of rigorous change management methodology.
Stakeholder validation sessions: Present your draft heat map to key stakeholders for feedback on your change assessment:
• Walk through your methodology and rating criteria
• Review specific ratings for areas where stakeholders have expertise
• Explore any unexpected patterns or outliers in your assessment
• Gather additional context or information that might affect your ratings
Cross-referencing and consistency checking: Review your heat map for internal consistency within your change management approach:
• Compare similar organisational areas to ensure rating consistency
• Check that interdependent areas have appropriate ratings
• Verify that your impact assessment aligns with known change requirements
• Ensure your ratings reflect the actual scope and timeline of planned changes
Incorporating feedback and adjustments: Refine your heat map based on stakeholder input following change management principles:
• Adjust ratings where new information suggests different impact levels
• Add missing organisational areas or impact dimensions
• Clarify definitions or criteria where confusion arose
• Document changes and the reasoning behind them
Step 5: Present and utilise your heat map
The final step involves presenting your heat map effectively and using it to guide change management planning for change success.
Executive presentation strategies: When presenting to change leadership:
• Start with an overview of your methodology and data sources
• Highlight the highest-impact areas requiring immediate attention
• Explain the implications for resource allocation and timeline
• Connect impact patterns to business priorities and strategic objectives
• Provide clear recommendations for next steps in your change management plan
Facilitating stakeholder discussions: Use your heat map as a conversation starter for managing change:
• Focus discussions on high-impact areas and required support
• Explore dependencies and interconnections between areas
• Identify opportunities for shared resources or coordinated approaches
• Develop action plans for addressing specific impact requirements
Translating insights into change strategy: Convert your heat map findings into practical change management plans:
• Prioritise high-impact areas for early engagement and support
• Design targeted interventions based on specific impact types
• Allocate change management resources according to impact intensity
• Develop communication messages tailored to different impact levels
• Create change monitoring approaches to track progress in critical areas
The growing limitations of traditional heat map approaches
While heat maps serve as useful introductory tools for change assessment, experienced change managers increasingly recognise their significant limitations in complex organisational environments. These limitations become particularly problematic when dealing with large-scale transformations, multi-dimensional changes, or sophisticated organisational structures that require advanced change management analytics.
Risks in using the heatmap
A lot of change managers have experienced situations where they walk into a leadership meeting expecting to have discussions about business areas most impacted by the change, and instead:
They are interrogated about how the colours are determined and are asked to justify how logical the ratings are
Stakeholders’ eyes glaze over the visuals since there is not much they could do with the information beyond a nice FYI
Stakeholders start asking questions about specific decisions required for business capacity risks, but decisions are hard to make with high level categorical ratings that does not allow any depth in drilling down to specific details
The psychological bias challenge
The most immediate problem with heat maps lies in their reliance on traffic light colours that carry inherent psychological associations. When stakeholders see red, they instinctively interpret this as “bad” or “problematic,” while green suggests “good” or “safe.” Yet in change impact assessment, these colours are supposed to represent intensity of change, not positive or negative outcomes.
This psychological bias creates several practical change management challenges that undermine the effectiveness of heat map communication. A department marked as “red” for high change impact might be perceived as where the attention should be. However, it may be that the department has great leadership strength and team capability and the changes for them are not more significant than for other departments that are less change-mature. Conversely, “green” areas might be overlooked entirely, even if they contain critical dependencies or risks that need change monitoring.
More problematically, this colour-coding system makes it remarkably easy for stakeholders to challenge your assessments. “Why is marketing red when they’re already using digital tools?” or “How can finance be amber when they’ve been through system changes before?” These questions expose the fundamental issue: heat maps don’t provide the underlying logic, criteria, or evidence base that supports the colour assignments, limiting their effectiveness as change management validity tools.
The decision-making limitation crisis
Perhaps the most damaging limitation of heat maps is their inability to support actual decision-making within enterprise change management. While they might look impressive in executive presentations, they provide no actionable intelligence about what needs to be done differently. A department coded as “high impact” tells you nothing about:
• What specific interventions are required
• When those interventions should be deployed
• What resources are needed for successful implementation
• How this area’s change journey interconnects with others
• What success looks like for this particular context
This lack of actionable insight means that heat maps often become wallpaper real estate – visually appealing but functionally useless for the practical work of managing change through complex initiatives.
The granularity gap that undermines effectiveness
Traditional heat maps operate at the department or business unit level, but modern change rarely respects these organisational boundaries. Consider a digital transformation affecting customer service operations. Within a single “customer service department,” you might have:
• Digital chat specialists (low process change, high technology change)
• Team leaders managing hybrid teams (high people change, moderate process change)
• Quality assurance analysts (moderate process change, high reporting change)
• Training coordinators (high content change, moderate delivery change)
A single colour coding for this department obscures these critical differences, making it impossible to design targeted interventions that address specific needs within your change management methodology.
The granularity problem extends beyond roles to encompass geographic, temporal, and contextual variations. Teams in Melbourne might experience different impacts than those in Brisbane due to local market conditions. Day shift workers might face different challenges than evening shift staff. Customer-facing roles require different support than back-office functions.
Why Excel-based approaches are obsolete in 2025
The credibility challenge of 1980s methodology
Using Excel spreadsheets for change impact assessment in 2025 is equivalent to bringing a slide rule to a data science conference. It signals to stakeholders – particularly senior executives and technology-savvy employees – that your change management approach is fundamentally outdated.
This isn’t about being fashionable with technology; it’s about organisational credibility in change management in business. When your finance team is using sophisticated analytics platforms to forecast revenue, your marketing team is leveraging AI-powered customer insights, and your operations team is using real-time dashboards to monitor performance, presenting change analysis in basic Excel spreadsheets undermines confidence in your entire change management approach.
The credibility problem extends to practical limitations as well. Excel-based approaches typically can’t handle complex stakeholder relationships and dependencies, provide real-time collaboration capabilities for distributed teams, generate automated insights from pattern recognition, integrate with other organisational data sources, support sophisticated filtering and drill-down analysis, or scale effectively across large organisations requiring enterprise change management capabilities.
The mathematical inconsistency problem
From a purely analytical perspective, heat maps violate fundamental principles of data representation. They attempt to multiply likelihood values by impact scores to determine “heat,” but this mathematical operation is meaningless when you’re combining different types of data.
Likelihood is typically represented as a bounded integer (1-5), but impact is represented as an ordinal value. Ordinal values tell you about sequence or ranking, but they don’t tell you about the mathematical distance between categories. An impact of “3” doesn’t communicate how much more severe it is than a “2” or how much less severe than a “5.” Yet the heat map calculation treats these as if they were proper numbers that can be multiplied together.
This mathematical inconsistency undermines any attempt to use heat map results for prioritisation or resource allocation decisions within your change management framework. You can’t meaningfully compare a “9” heat score from one area with a “6” from another when the underlying calculation is mathematically invalid.
The modern requirements for sophisticated change impact understanding
Multi-dimensional analysis capabilities
Contemporary change impact assessment must move beyond simple high-medium-low categorisations to support multi-dimensional analysis that enables measuring change management effectiveness. This means simultaneously examining impacts across temporal dimensions (when do impacts occur?), stakeholder dimensions (how do impacts vary by role, location, team?), impact type dimensions (process, technology, cultural, structural changes?), severity dimensions (magnitude of change required?), and readiness dimensions (change readiness levels of different groups?).
This multi-dimensional approach enables change managers to identify patterns and relationships that aren’t visible in simplified heat map representations. It supports strategic decision-making at multiple organisational levels through location-based analysis of regional variations, role-based analysis of specific competency requirements, team-based analysis of group dynamics, and activity type analysis of operational requirements for successful change management.
Real-time collaboration and predictive capabilities
Sophisticated change impact assessment requires platforms that support real-time collaboration, dynamic updating as change initiatives evolve, and predictive analytics to identify risks and opportunities that might not be obvious to human analysts. This represents a fundamental shift in change management tools and techniques.
This includes automated notifications, integration with project management tools, pattern recognition across similar historical initiatives, predictive modelling of adoption rates, and resource optimisation recommendations based on impact patterns. These capabilities enable change management tracking and monitoring change management effectiveness in real-time rather than through static reports.
Advanced metrics and dashboards
Modern change impact assessment platforms can provide sophisticated change management metrics dashboards that go beyond simple traffic light indicators. This includes change management performance metrics that track adoption rates, resistance levels, competency development, and behavioural change indicators across multiple dimensions.
These platforms should support change management success metrics such as time-to-proficiency, intervention effectiveness rates, stakeholder satisfaction levels, and business outcome achievement. The ability to measure change management success through granular data analysis represents a critical advancement over traditional heat map approaches.
To find out more about leveraging change management platforms check out The Change Compass.
Building organisational intelligence beyond artefacts
From assessment tools to strategic capability
The most significant limitation of traditional heat maps isn’t their visual representation – it’s their treatment of change impact assessment as an artefact rather than a capability. Heat maps encourage organisations to think of impact assessment as something you create, present, and file away, rather than as an ongoing intelligence system that informs decision-making throughout the change cycle.
Building sophisticated change assessment capability requires organisations to invest in systematic data collection processes, analytical expertise and tools, decision-making integration, and continuous improvement mechanisms. This represents a fundamental shift from traditional change management approaches to agile change management methodologies that adapt based on real-time intelligence, inline with how other business functions are digitising.
Developing competitive advantage through assessment sophistication
Organisations that develop sophisticated change impact assessment capabilities gain significant competitive advantages in their transformation initiatives. These advantages include faster implementation cycles, higher adoption rates, reduced resistance and conflict, better resource allocation, improved stakeholder confidence, and enhanced learning organisation capabilities.
The future of change management platforms that combine human insight with analytical power, providing change managers with intelligence for informed decisions about complex transformations. This includes artificial intelligence capabilities, predictive analytics, and collaborative capabilities that harness collective organisational knowledge for change management success. And luckily, a lot of these capabilities are already available.
Strategic implementation for modern organisations
For organisations ready to move beyond traditional heat maps, the transition should be strategic and systematic rather than sudden. This involves augmenting existing approaches while building more sophisticated analysis underneath, implementing collaborative platforms that support real-time change management tracking, and building predictive capabilities that model different change management scenarios.
The organisations that master this integrated approach to change impact assessment will find themselves better equipped to handle the accelerating pace of change while maintaining focus on the human experience that ultimately determines change management success or failure. Change impact assessment work isn’t just about assessment – it’s about building the intelligence and adaptability that enables sustainable transformation through effective managing change practices in modern digital organisations.
The choice facing change managers is straightforward: continue relying on tools that provide the illusion of insight while undermining transformation success, or invest in sophisticated assessment capabilities that provide genuine intelligence for complex change initiatives. The red, amber, and green squares have served their purpose, but the future belongs to organisations that can measure change management effectiveness through meaningful, real-time intelligence that drives superior change management outcomes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: When should I still use heat maps instead of more sophisticated assessment tools? A: Heat maps remain appropriate for simple changes, initial scoping exercises where you need quick visual communication to executives, organisations with limited change management maturity just beginning systematic impact assessment, and simple changes with clear, departmental boundaries. However, even in these situations, consider heat maps as a starting point rather than a complete assessment solution. For complex change environments, a heatmap may be an initial view, to be supplemented by other visuals.
Q: How do I measure the effectiveness of my new change impact assessment approach? A: Establish baseline change management success metrics before implementing new approaches, then track improvements in key areas including change initiative success rates, time-to-adoption for new processes, stakeholder satisfaction with change support, accuracy of impact predictions versus actual outcomes, adoption outcome, and early identification of risks and issues. Compare these metrics against historical heat map-based assessments.
Q: What are the main risks of moving beyond heat maps, and how do I mitigate them? A: Primary risks include increased complexity overwhelming stakeholders (mitigate through phased implementation and training), higher initial costs (justify through business case and ROI projections), resistance to new approaches, and over-analysis leading to paralysis (establish clear decision-making frameworks and timelines). Start with pilot implementations to demonstrate value before organisation-wide rollout.
Q: How do I maintain stakeholder engagement when moving to more comprehensive assessment processes? A: Maintain engagement by clearly communicating the benefits of better decision-making, providing simplified executive summaries alongside detailed analysis, using interactive dashboards and visualisations that make complex data accessible, involving stakeholders in defining assessment criteria and success measures, and demonstrating quick wins through improved change outcomes. Focus on how sophisticated assessment leads to more targeted, efficient interventions that reduce disruption for end users.
Most change practitioners fall into the trap of thinking that change impact work begins and ends with the change impact assessment – that single exercise conducted before the midway of a project to determine who’s affected and how. This narrow view fundamentally misunderstands the role of impact work in successful change management. Change impact assessment isn’t a one-off activity; it’s the backbone that runs through every phase of your change initiative, from initial scoping through to post-implementation adoption. Incorrect change impact assumptions means your change approach is incorrect and you may never reach adoption.
The reality is that understanding and managing change impact is an evolving change management process that should inform every decision you make throughout the lifecycle of change. It’s about building a comprehensive picture of how your initiative will affect people, processes, and the broader organisational ecosystem – and then using that understanding to craft interventions that actually work.
When we limit ourselves to a single impact assessment, we’re essentially taking a snapshot of a moving picture. Change impact assessment is dynamic, and our change management approach needs to be equally adaptive. This means starting impact work from the moment we begin understanding what the change entails, and continuing through to ensuring sustainable adoption long after go-live.
Understanding change impact as continuous discovery
Early discovery: mapping the unknown
The journey begins much earlier than most practitioners realise in any effective change management framework. As soon as you start gathering initial information about the proposed change, you’re already conducting preliminary change assessment work. This early phase is about understanding the fundamental nature of what’s changing and beginning to piece together who might be affected.
During these initial conversations with stakeholders, you’re not just collecting requirements – you’re starting to build a picture of potential impacts through systematic change analysis. When a sponsor describes needing to “improve our customer service response times,” you’re already thinking about which teams handle customer enquiries, what systems they use, and how their daily work might shift. This isn’t formal assessment yet; it’s intelligent reconnaissance that will inform everything that follows.
The key at this stage is to remain curious and avoid jumping to conclusions. This foundational change management activity helps you understand not just what’s changing, but why it’s changing and what success looks like. This understanding will shape how you approach every subsequent phase of impact work and serves as a critical component of managing change effectively.
Scoping the scale: from broad strokes to focused planning
As you gather more information through your change management process, you can begin to scope out the size and complexity of the change at a high level. This is where impact work transitions from discovery to strategic planning within your broader change management methodology. You’re now able to make informed decisions about the resources required for change management and how different stakeholder groups will need to be involved.
This phase is crucial because it directly influences your change management approach and resource allocation. A change initiative that affects five people in one department requires a fundamentally different methodology to one that touches every business unit across multiple locations. Understanding the levels of change helps you determine whether you need a small, focused change team or a comprehensive change network with champions across the organisation.
The impact scoping also informs critical decisions about timing and sequencing within your enterprise change management strategy. If your change affects multiple interconnected systems or processes, you need to understand these dependencies early enough to plan a logical rollout sequence that minimises disruption and maximises change success.
Developing your strategic impact lens
High-level impact assessment for approach design
With sufficient detail gathered, you can conduct a more structured high-level change assessment. This forms the foundation of your change management approach and helps you make strategic decisions about how to manage the transformation using proven change management techniques.
This assessment goes beyond simply identifying who’s affected. It examines the nature and depth of impacts across different dimensions: how people’s roles will change, what new skills they’ll need, how processes will be modified, what systems will be different, and how the organisational structure might shift. Each of these dimensions requires different types of change management activities and represents various levels of change management intervention.
The strategic value of this phase lies in its ability to inform your overall change management framework. If your assessment reveals that the change primarily affects processes rather than technology, your approach will emphasise process training and workflow redesign. If it shows significant cultural shifts are required through behavioural change management, you’ll need to plan for longer timelines and more intensive change management leadership engagement.
Detailed impact analysis: the precision phase
Eventually, you have sufficient detail to conduct a comprehensive change impact assessment. This is the phase most practitioners are familiar with, but it’s important to understand that this detailed analysis builds on all the previous impact work rather than starting from scratch as part of implementing change management effectively.
The detailed assessment examines specific impacts at the individual and team level. It identifies exactly how each role will change, what new competencies people will need, and what barriers they might face in adopting new ways of working. This granular understanding enables you to design targeted interventions that address specific needs rather than generic solutions, representing change management best practices in action.
This phase also involves creating detailed stakeholder maps that go beyond simple influence-interest matrices. You’re looking at change readiness levels, change capacity, potential sources of resistance, and opportunities for leveraging natural change champions within the organisation as part of your broader change management strategy.
Seeing the whole picture: landscape assessment
Understanding the broader change ecosystem
One of the most overlooked aspects of impact work is understanding the broader change landscape that your stakeholders are navigating. To truly take a human-centric view of managing change, you need to see the experience from the perspective of impacted individuals and teams within change in organisations.
This means mapping out all the other change initiatives and business-as-usual challenges that your stakeholders are dealing with simultaneously. Are they also implementing a new performance management system? Have they just been through a restructure? Are they facing increased compliance requirements? All of these factors influence their change readiness and capacity to absorb and adapt to your change.
The landscape assessment often reveals insights that fundamentally alter your change management approach. You might discover that your planned June rollout coincides with the busiest period for your target audience, or that they’re already experiencing change saturation with three other major initiatives. This intelligence enables you to make informed decisions about prioritisation, sequencing, and resource allocation.
Using the right change metrics to assess impacts within the change landscape or within your change initiative is critical to help you piece together a picture of what the impacts mean and if there are risks and opportunities due to impacts within your overall delivery.
Strategic decision-making from landscape insights
The landscape assessment doesn’t just inform timing decisions; it shapes your entire change management framework. If you discover that your stakeholders are experiencing change fatigue, you might decide to emphasise the benefits more strongly or invest more heavily in leadership support. If you find that they’re excited about innovation but wary of technology, you can frame your change accordingly using appropriate analogy or reference points.
This broader view also helps you identify risks and opportunities that aren’t visible when looking at your change initiative in isolation. Perhaps another initiative has already built change capability in your target audience that you can leverage, or maybe there’s a risk of conflicting messages that you need to coordinate through effective change monitoring.
The landscape assessment should inform decisions about whether to proceed as planned, adjust timing, or modify your approach. Sometimes it reveals that the organisation simply doesn’t have the capacity for your change right now, and the most strategic decision is to delay or rescope the initiative based on change readiness factors.
Testing and adapting: impact work in execution
Pilot testing your impact assumptions
When you move into execution, your change impact assessment work shifts from assessment to validation through systematic change management tracking. Your pilot implementation becomes a critical test of all the assumptions you’ve made about how the change will affect people and operations.
This is where the theoretical meets the practical in your change management process. You might have assessed that people will need two days of training to become proficient with a new system, but the pilot reveals they actually need four days plus ongoing coaching. Your impact assessment predicted resistance from middle managers, but it turns out they’re actually champions once they understand the benefits.
The pilot phase is your opportunity to gather real-world evidence about the accuracy of your impact predictions and the effectiveness of your interventions through measuring change management outcomes. This evidence should directly feed into refinements of your rollout strategy and overall change management methodology.
Adapting based on stakeholder feedback
Effective change impact assessment work during execution involves creating robust feedback loops that allow you to continuously refine your understanding and approach through change management monitoring. This means going beyond simple satisfaction surveys to gather meaningful insights about how people are experiencing the change.
Are your readiness activities actually preparing people for the level of change and nature of the impacts they’re experiencing? Are people confident about using new processes, or are they struggling with aspects you hadn’t anticipated in your change analysis? Is the support you’re providing sufficient, or do they need additional resources or different types of assistance?
This ongoing change assessment during execution often reveals gaps in your original analysis or changes in the organisational context that require adjustment. The key is to remain agile and responsive while maintaining the overall integrity of your change management approach.
Sustaining change through continued impact focus
Maximising adoption through ongoing assessment
Even after go-live, change impact assessment work continues to play a crucial role in ensuring successful adoption and measuring change management effectiveness. This phase focuses on validating whether your impact assumptions were correct and whether your interventions are achieving the desired behavioural changes.
This is where you assess whether people are actually doing what they need to do differently, not just whether they know how to do it. Are they using new systems as intended? Are they following revised processes? Are they demonstrating the mindset shifts that the change requires? This ongoing change management tracking helps ensure sustainable change success.
The adoption phase often reveals the difference between compliance and genuine adoption through measuring change outcomes. People might be going through the motions of change without truly embracing new ways of working. This insight helps you determine whether additional change management activities are needed to reinforce desired behaviours and fully embed the change.
Reinforcement and continuous improvement
The final phase of impact work involves ensuring that changes stick and continue to deliver value over time through systematic change management monitoring. This requires ongoing assessment of whether the organisation is sustaining new behaviours and achieving the intended change management objectives.
This phase might reveal that while initial adoption was successful, people are gradually reverting to old ways of working, or that new challenges have emerged that require additional support. Understanding these longer-term impacts enables you to design reinforcement mechanisms that ensure lasting change management success.
The sustainability phase also provides valuable insights for future change initiatives. What worked well in terms of impact management? What would you do differently next time? How can the organisation build on the change capability it has developed through this experience as part of enterprise change management maturity?
Making impact work practical
Building impact work into your change methodology
The shift from treating impact as an activity to embedding it as a continuous process requires some practical adjustments to how you structure change management activities. Rather than having a single “impact assessment” deliverable, consider how impact considerations can be woven throughout your change management framework.
This might mean adding impact review checkpoints to every phase of your project, ensuring that impact considerations inform key decision points, and creating mechanisms for continuously updating your understanding based on new information. This represents one of the key change management best practices for modern organisations.
Developing organisational impact capability
For organisations that undergo frequent change, developing systematic capability around impact work pays dividends as part of enterprise change management maturity. This involves training change managers in comprehensive impact methodologies, creating templates and tools that support continuous change assessment, and building organisational memory about what works.
The most mature organisations develop integrated approaches that combine impact work with broader change portfolio management, ensuring that individual change initiatives are planned and executed with full awareness of the broader organisational context and change in organisations dynamics.
The shift to treating change impact assessment as continuous, strategic work rather than a discrete assessment activity represents a fundamental maturation in change management practice. It recognises that change is complex, dynamic, and inherently human – and that our change management approaches need to reflect this reality.
By embedding impact work throughout the change management process, we create more responsive, effective change management frameworks that better serve both change management objectives and the people who make change happen. This holistic approach doesn’t just improve change success rates; it builds organisational capability for navigating an increasingly complex and change-intensive business environment.
The organisations that master this integrated approach to change impact assessment will find themselves better equipped to handle the accelerating pace of change while maintaining focus on the human experience that ultimately determines change management success or failure. Change impact assessment work isn’t just about assessment – it’s about building the intelligence, logic and adaptability that enables sustainable transformation through effective managing change practices.
Performance metrics are the compass that guides change practitioners through complex transformation initiatives. Yet despite their critical importance, many organisations unknowingly employ flawed metrics that provide misleading insights and potentially sabotage their change efforts. A closer look reveals some of the danger of conventional change management performance metrics and offers a strategic approach to measurement that truly drives success.
In fact, a quick Google search revealed a list of recommended change management performance metrics. However, some of these are potentially dangerous to incorporate without a closer understanding of the type of change being implemented, the change environment, stakeholder needs and overall change approach required. Let’s go through some of these ‘hidden dangers’ in this article.
The Measurement Imperative in Change Management
Change management has long been criticised as being too “soft” to measure effectively. This perception persists despite overwhelming evidence that data-driven approaches significantly enhance change outcomes. Research consistently demonstrates that organisations measuring change management performance are more likely to meet or exceed project objectives.
The resistance to measurement often stems from change practitioners’ preference for people-focused approaches over numerical analysis. In today’s data-rich environment, where artificial intelligence and predictive analytics are reshaping business operations, change management must embrace measurement to remain relevant and demonstrate value.
Modern organisations rely on data across all functions – from finance and operations to risk management and procurement. Without data, these departments cannot function effectively or determine whether they are achieving their targets. The same principle applies to change management: effective measurement enables practitioners to track progress, identify issues early, and make informed adjustments to their strategies.
The Problem with Traditional Adoption and Usage Metrics
Adoption and usage represent the ultimate goal of any change initiative, yet this seemingly straightforward metric harbours significant complexities. Most organisations measure adoption superficially—tracking whether people are using new systems or processes without examining the quality or effectiveness of that usage.
True adoption requires achieving full benefit realisation, which depends on several interconnected outcomes:
• Accurate impact assessment that understands how change affects specific stakeholder groups • Effective engagement strategies tailored to different audiences • Continuous tracking and reinforcement mechanisms • Clear definition of required behaviours for success
Generic change approaches might achieve some adoption at best, but to get full adoption there is a series of outcomes you need to have achieved. The behaviours need to be clear, specific and actionable, yet many organisations fail to establish these precise behavioural indicators.
Furthermore, adoption measurements often ignore the temporal dimension. Early adoption rates may appear promising, but without sustained reinforcement and measurement, initial enthusiasm frequently wanes. Effective adoption metrics must track behaviour change over extended periods and identify the specific interventions needed to maintain momentum.
Employee Readiness and Engagement: Beyond Surface-Level Satisfaction
Employee readiness and engagement form the cornerstone of successful change initiatives, yet these areas suffer from widespread measurement inadequacies. Most change practitioners focus extensively on these metrics, but their approaches often lack the sophistication required for meaningful insights.
The Critical Role of Impact Assessment
Accurate impact assessment serves as the foundation for effective readiness and engagement measurement. Any inaccuracy in understanding how change affects specific stakeholder groups inevitably leads to insufficient preparation and engagement strategies. This fundamental flaw cascades through the entire change process, undermining subsequent measurement efforts.
Impact assessment requires deep analysis of how change affects different roles, departments, and individual circumstances. Generic assessments fail to capture these nuances, leading to one-size-fits-all engagement strategies that satisfy no one effectively.
Participation Versus Meaningful Involvement
Employee participation metrics suffer from significant limitations related to change type and context. The key lies in measuring relevant participation rather than absolute participation rates:
For compliance-driven changes: • Focus on communication effectiveness and readiness preparation • Track understanding levels and procedure adherence • Monitor feedback on implementation challenges
For transformational changes: • Emphasise co-creation opportunities and stakeholder input • Measure feedback integration and stakeholder influence on change design • Track collaborative problem-solving activities
Maximum participation might seem desirable, but the nature of the change determines appropriate participation levels. Significant restructuring initiatives or regulatory compliance changes naturally limit meaningful participation opportunities compared to voluntary improvement projects.
The Satisfaction Survey Trap
Employee satisfaction surveys present particular challenges for change measurement. The purpose of satisfaction surveys requires careful definition:
• Are you seeking feedback on training content quality? • Is the focus on communication channels effectiveness? • Are you measuring leadership session impact? • Do you want to assess overall transformation experience?
Without specific focus, satisfaction surveys generate ambiguous data that provides limited actionable insight. More problematically, satisfaction may not align with change necessity. Employees might express dissatisfaction with change approaches that are nonetheless essential for regulatory compliance or competitive survival. In these situations, satisfaction becomes irrelevant, and measurement should focus on understanding effectiveness and identifying improvement opportunities within necessary constraints.
Training and Communication: Moving Beyond Binary Effectiveness
Training and communication effectiveness represent the most commonly measured aspects of change management, yet this narrow focus creates dangerous blind spots. Whilst these elements are undoubtedly important delivery vehicles, they represent only partial components of comprehensive change strategies.
The Capability Development Ecosystem
Training effectiveness measurement often conflates learning with capability development. Effective capability building requires diverse interventions beyond traditional training:
• Coaching and personalised support sessions • Structured feedback mechanisms • Sandbox practice environments for skill development • Team discussions and peer learning opportunities • Mentoring relationships and knowledge transfer
Modern capability development leverages technology-enhanced approaches that traditional training metrics fail to capture:
• Gamified content delivery and interactive learning modules • Micro-learning sequences and just-in-time training • Multimedia integration with videos, simulations, and virtual reality • Avatar-based instruction and AI-powered tutoring systems • Adaptive learning pathways that personalise content delivery
Measuring effectiveness in these environments requires sophisticated metrics that track engagement, retention, application, and long-term behaviour change across multiple learning modalities.
Communication Beyond Hit Rates
Communication effectiveness measurement typically focuses on reach metrics—how many people viewed content or attended sessions. These “hit rate” measurements provide limited insight into actual communication effectiveness, which depends on:
• Comprehension levels and message clarity • Information retention and recall accuracy • Perceived relevance to individual roles • Action generation and behaviour change
Advanced communication measurement utilises sophisticated analytics available through modern platforms:
Microsoft Viva Engage and Teams Analytics: • User engagement patterns and interaction frequency • Device usage behaviours across different communication channels • Community reach statistics and network analysis • Conversation quality indicators and response rates
A/B Testing Methodologies: • Test different messages or formats with smaller audience segments • Identify the most effective approaches before broader deployment • Transform communication from educated guesswork into data-driven optimisation • Measure conversion rates and action completion across message variants
Financial Performance: Beyond Cost-Focused ROI
Financial metrics in change management suffer from fundamental conceptual limitations that undermine their utility for strategic decision-making. The predominant focus on return on investment (ROI) and cost management treats change as an expense rather than a value creation opportunity.
Traditional ROI calculations examine financial benefits of change management spending against change outcomes. Whilst this approach provides some insight, it fundamentally limits change management to a cost-minimisation function rather than recognising its potential for:
• Enhanced organisational agility and adaptability • Improved employee engagement and retention rates • Reduced future change resistance and implementation time • Accelerated innovation adoption and competitive positioning • Strengthened stakeholder relationships and trust building
More sophisticated financial measurement approaches assess change management’s contribution to organisational capability building, risk mitigation, and strategic option creation. These broader value considerations provide more accurate assessment of change management’s true organisational impact.
The Resistance Metrics Minefield
Resistance metrics represent perhaps the most problematic area in change management measurement. The conventional approach of monitoring resistance levels and aiming for minimal resistance creates dangerous dynamics that undermine change effectiveness.
Resistance monitoring often leads to labelling stakeholders as “resistant” and focusing efforts on reducing negative feedback. This approach fundamentally misunderstands resistance as a natural and potentially valuable component of change processes.
Transforming Resistance into Feedback
Rather than minimising resistance, effective change management should encourage comprehensive feedback from all stakeholder groups. The goal shifts from resistance reduction to feedback optimisation:
Feedback Quality Indicators: • Specificity of concerns raised and solutions suggested • Constructive nature of criticism and improvement ideas • Stakeholder willingness to engage in problem-solving discussions • Implementation feasibility of suggested modifications
Implementation Tracking: • Percentage of feedback items addressed in change plans • Time from feedback receipt to response or action • Stakeholder perception of influence on change processes • Communication quality regarding feedback disposition
Effective resistance can highlight legitimate concerns, identify implementation risks, and strengthen final solutions through stakeholder input. The question becomes: What specific aspects of change generate concern, and how can legitimate resistance improve change outcomes?
Compliance and Adherence: The Missing Reinforcement Link
Compliance and adherence metrics represent critical but often overlooked components of change measurement. These metrics assess how effectively employees follow new policies and procedures—the ultimate test of change success.
The challenge lies in measurement timing and responsibility allocation:
Common Gaps: • Change teams fail to design compliance measurement into their change processes • Assessment is left for post-implementation periods when project teams have moved on • Timing gaps create measurement blind spots precisely when reinforcement is most critical • Lack of clear ownership for ongoing compliance monitoring
Effective Measurement Approaches: • Digital systems providing automated compliance tracking • Leadership follow-up protocols and structured audit processes • Operational integration rather than separate evaluation activities • Real-time dashboards showing compliance trends and exceptions
The key is embedding measurement into operational processes rather than treating it as a separate evaluation activity. This integration ensures continuous monitoring and rapid identification of compliance issues before they become systemic problems.
Establishing Effective Change Management Metrics
Developing effective change management metrics requires systematic approach that addresses the limitations of traditional measurement while leveraging modern technological capabilities.
The Three-Level Performance Framework
Leading organisations utilise comprehensive measurement frameworks that address multiple performance levels simultaneously:
Change Management Performance: • Completion of change management plans and milestone delivery • Activation of core roles like sponsors and change champions • Progress against planned activities and timeline adherence • Quality of change management deliverables and stakeholder feedback
Individual Performance (using frameworks like ADKAR): • Awareness levels and understanding of change rationale • Desire for change and motivation to participate • Knowledge acquisition through training and communication • Ability to implement required behaviours and skills • Reinforcement mechanisms and behaviour sustainability
Organisational Performance: • Achievement of intended business outcomes and strategic objectives • Financial performance improvements and cost reductions • Operational efficiency gains and process improvements • Customer satisfaction improvements and market position
This approach recognises the interdependent nature of change success across organisational, individual, and change management performance dimensions.
Leveraging Modern Technology for Enhanced Measurement
Contemporary change management measurement can exploit advanced technologies that were unavailable to previous generations of practitioners:
AI-Powered Analytics: • Sentiment analysis processing large volumes of text feedback • Pattern detection identifying predictive indicators of change success • Automated insights generation from multiple data sources • Real-time risk assessment and early warning systems
Predictive Capabilities: • Forecasting change outcomes based on early indicators • Proactive intervention before problems become critical • Historical pattern analysis for correlation identification • Capacity planning and resource optimisation
Real-Time Monitoring: • Continuous dashboards and automated reporting systems • Immediate identification of emerging issues • Rapid response to developing challenges • Data-driven optimisation throughout change processes
Building Measurement Into Change Strategy
Effective change measurement requires integration into change strategy from the earliest planning stages rather than being added as an afterthought. This integration ensures measurement serves strategic purposes rather than merely satisfying reporting requirements.
Defining Success Before Beginning
Successful change measurement begins with clear definition of desired outcomes and success criteria:
Primary Sponsor Requirements: • Articulate specific, measurable objectives aligned with organisational benefits • Connect change outcomes to strategic goals and performance indicators • Define acceptable risk levels and tolerance thresholds • Establish timeline expectations and milestone definitions
Stakeholder Engagement: • Include leaders, subject matter experts, and project managers in success definition • Ensure shared understanding across all stakeholder groups • Align measurement focus on outcomes that matter to everyone • Avoid narrow technical achievements without business relevance
Selecting Appropriate Metrics for Context
Different types of change require different measurement approaches:
Regulatory Compliance Changes: • Focus on adherence rates and audit readiness • Track training completion and competency verification • Monitor risk mitigation and control effectiveness • Measure timeline compliance and regulatory approval
Cultural Transformation Initiatives: • Emphasise behaviour change and value demonstration • Track engagement levels and participation quality • Monitor leadership modelling and reinforcement • Measure employee sentiment and satisfaction trends
Technology Implementation Projects: • Focus on system usage rates and functionality adoption • Track user proficiency and support requirement reduction • Monitor performance improvements and efficiency gains • Measure integration success and data quality
Measurement complexity should align with change complexity and organisational capability. Simple changes in mature organisations might require only basic metrics, whilst complex transformations in change-inexperienced organisations demand comprehensive measurement frameworks.
Future Directions in Change Management Measurement
The future of change management measurement lies in sophisticated integration of human insight with technological capability. Several key trends are reshaping measurement approaches:
Predictive Change Management: • Historical data enables forecasting of change outcomes • Proactive optimisation of change approaches before issues arise • Real-time adjustment based on predictive indicators • Continuous learning from measurement data across initiatives
Integrated Organisational Systems: • Connection to broader business performance metrics • Direct demonstration of change impact on customer satisfaction • Integration with financial and operational reporting systems • Holistic view of organisational health and capability
Continuous Change Capability: • Measurement of organisational change capacity and resilience • Tracking of adaptation speed and learning effectiveness • Building change capability as core organisational competency • Supporting ongoing transformation rather than discrete projects
The evolution toward continuous change requires measurement systems that support ongoing transformation rather than discrete project evaluation. These systems must track organisational change capability, adaptation speed, and resilience development as essential business capabilities.
Measuring What Matters
Change management performance metrics represent both opportunity and risk for organisations pursuing transformation. Traditional measurement approaches harbour significant limitations that can mislead practitioners and undermine change success. However, sophisticated measurement systems that leverage modern technology and address these limitations can dramatically enhance change effectiveness.
The path forward requires abandoning simplistic metrics that provide false comfort in favour of comprehensive measurement frameworks that capture the complexity of organisational change. Key principles for effective measurement include:
Strategic Focus: • Serve genuine business purposes rather than administrative requirements • Enable better decisions and drive continuous improvement • Demonstrate measurable value of professional change management • Connect change outcomes to organisational success metrics
Technological Integration: • Leverage AI and machine learning for enhanced analytical precision • Utilise real-time monitoring and predictive capabilities • Integrate with broader organisational data systems • Automate routine measurement while preserving human insight
Comprehensive Approach: • Address multiple performance levels simultaneously • Balance quantitative metrics with qualitative insights • Include temporal dimensions and sustainability factors • Measure capability building alongside immediate outcomes
Most importantly, effective change measurement must serve strategic purposes rather than administrative requirements. Metrics should enable better decisions, drive continuous improvement, and demonstrate the value that professional change management brings to organisational success.
The organisations that master sophisticated change measurement will possess significant competitive advantages in an era of accelerating change. They will anticipate challenges before they emerge, optimise interventions in real-time, and build organisational capabilities that enable sustained transformation success. The question is not whether to measure change management performance, but whether to measure it effectively enough to create lasting competitive advantage.
The need for organizations to remain flexible and responsive to market demands has never been more critical, and scaled agile (SAFe) provide the framework to achieve this. Integrating change management work with SAFe is essential for seamless product delivery but yet is not clearly articulated in literature. However, for agile product delivery to be successful, it must be supported by robust change management work steps. Those that not ensures that all stakeholders are aligned and engaged throughout the process and also that the consecutive changes delivered are adopted. Let’s explore how change managers can effectively integrate their approaches with scaled agile methodologies to enhance product delivery.
Understanding the Intersection of Change Management and Agile
Change management and agile methodologies both aim to facilitate successful project outcomes, but they approach this goal from different angles. Change management focuses on the people side of change, ensuring that stakeholders are prepared, equipped, and supported throughout the transition through to benefit realisation. Agile methodologies, on the other hand, emphasize iterative development, continuous feedback, and rapid adaptation to change.
Whilst SAFe acknowledges the importance of managing the people side of change and leading the change, it does not spell out how exactly this work should be integrated with the methodology in a detailed manner. References to change tends to be at a high level and focuses on communication and readiness activities.
What are key call outs of the SAFe methodology:
1) Lean-Agile Principles: SAFe is grounded in Lean-Agile principles such as building incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles, basing milestones on objective evaluation, and making value flow without interruptions. These principles help ensure continuous improvement and adaptability
2) Organizational Agility: To remain competitive, enterprises must be agile. SAFe enhances organizational agility by fostering Lean-thinking people and Agile teams, promoting strategic agility, and implementing Lean business operations
3) Lean Portfolio Management: Aligns strategy and execution by applying Lean and systems thinking. It includes strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and Lean governance to ensure that the portfolio is aligned and funded to meet business goals
4) Continuous Learning Culture: Encourages a set of values and practices that promote ongoing learning and improvement. This culture is crucial for adapting to changes and fostering innovation within the organization
5) Agile Teams: Agile teams in SAFe operate using methods like SAFe Scrum or SAFe Team Kanban. These teams are responsible for understanding customer needs, planning their work, and delivering value continuously through iterative processes
6) Built-in Quality: Emphasizes the importance of quality at all stages of development. Practices include shift-left testing, peer reviews, and automation to ensure high standards and reduce defects early in the process
7) Value Stream Management (VSM): Focuses on optimizing the flow of value across the entire portfolio. VSM helps organizations improve their value delivery processes by managing and monitoring value streams effectively (Scaled Agile Framework).
8) Lean-Agile Leadership: Leaders play a critical role in fostering a Lean-Agile mindset. They must model the values and principles of SAFe, provide guidance, and create an environment that supports Agile teams and continuous improvement
9) Decentralized Decision-Making: Promotes faster value delivery by empowering teams to make decisions locally. This reduces delays, enhances product development flow, and fosters innovation
10) Customer-Centric Approach: Agile teams are encouraged to maintain close collaboration with customers to understand their needs better and ensure that solutions deliver real value. Techniques like direct customer interaction and feedback loops are essential
Below is a diagram from Scaled Agile Frameworks on key elements of a scaled agile product delivery framework.
Agile-Style Deliverable Artefacts
To support agile product delivery, change managers need to create agile-style deliverable artefacts early in the product delivery cycle. These artefacts serve as essential tools for aligning the team, stakeholders, and the overall change initiative with agile principles. They are significantly ‘lighter’ in volume and more succinct in focusing on key analysis points that determine approaches and actions required to plan and implement the change.
Change artefact 1: Change Canvas
An Agile Change Canvas is a strategic tool designed to plan, manage, and communicate change initiatives effectively within an organization. It begins with basic identification details such as the Project Name, Business Owner, and Author. This section ensures clear accountability and ownership from the outset.
The Change Vision & Objectives outlines the overarching project objectives and intended outcomes of the project. This architecture vision acts as a guiding star, ensuring all actions align with the desired future state of the organization. Following this, Core Challenges are identified to highlight potential obstacles that could impede progress. Recognizing these challenges early allows for proactive mitigation strategies.
Stakeholder Impacts analyses how different stakeholders will be affected by the change. This includes assessing both the positive and negative impacts on employees, customers, and shareholders, ensuring that their concerns are addressed and their needs met.
The Key Milestones section, presented in a table format, outlines significant checkpoints in the project timeline, often represented in Gantt charts. Each milestone is associated with a particular function, ensuring that progress is measurable and trackable. Similarly, the Resources section details the necessary financial, human, and technological resources required to implement the change, ensuring that the project scope statement is adequately supported.
Why Change section provides the rationale behind the need for change, which could include market demands, competitive pressures, or internal inefficiencies. This section justifies the project’s existence and urgency. Complementarily, What Will Change (WWC) describes the specific changes to be implemented, including processes, technologies, behaviours, and structures, offering a clear picture of the project’s scope.
Key Metrics are identified to measure the success of the change initiative. These metrics are both quantitative and qualitative, providing a comprehensive view of the project’s impact. Change Interventions listed in a table format, detail specific actions or initiatives designed to facilitate the change, ensuring a structured approach to implementation.
To foster a culture of innovation and adaptation, Change Experiments are proposed. These pilot programs test aspects of the change in a controlled environment before full-scale implementation. Finally, Change Risks identifies potential risks associated with the change and outlines strategies for mitigating these risks, ensuring that the project can navigate potential pitfalls effectively.
By incorporating these elements, the Agile Change Canvas provides a comprehensive framework for managing change initiatives, ensuring that all critical aspects are considered, planned for, and communicated effectively to stakeholders.
Using a Kanban board for change management activities provides a visual and dynamic method for tracking, prioritizing, and managing the flow of work while implementing changes. A Kanban board typically consists of columns that represent different stages of work, such as “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done.” For change management, additional columns might include “Proposed Changes,” “Under Review,” “Implementation Planning,” and “Monitoring.”
Whilst most change practitioners are used to kanban boards In working with various change management activities, there is opportunity to use kanban to plan and prioritise a series of agile-style changes and the associated change activities with each change. These ‘change cards’ within the kanban board presents a clear way to visualise a series of changes across the ‘delivery train’ where the project team continuously delivers pieces of change.
Prioritizing Change Management Activities
Visualizing Workflow:
Proposed Changes: This column lists all suggested changes, each represented by a card detailing the change’s purpose, impacted areas, and expected benefits.
Under Review: Changes move here once they are being evaluated for feasibility, risks, and alignment with project goals.
Implementation Planning: Approved changes are further detailed, including resource allocation, timelines, and specific tasks needed for implementation.
In Progress: Changes that are actively being worked on are tracked here, showing current status and any blockers encountered.
Monitoring: Recently implemented changes are monitored to ensure they are delivering the expected outcomes and to identify any issues early.
Done: Fully implemented and stabilized changes are moved here, marking their successful completion.
Setting Priorities:
Value and Impact: In conjunction with the project team prioritize changes based on their potential value and impact. High-value changes that significantly improve project outcomes or stakeholder satisfaction should be addressed first. From a change perspective, the input here is about the readiness of the stakeholder to receive the change, and what timing and work is required to get there.
Urgency and Dependencies: Changes that unblock other work or are time-sensitive should be prioritized. Dependencies between changes must be mapped to ensure logical sequencing. For example, work required to lift capability/leadership or readiness may be critical dependencies, without which the change cannot be delivered successfully.
Feasibility and Risk: Assess the feasibility and risks associated with each change. High-risk assessment of changes might require more careful planning and monitoring but should not necessarily be deprioritized if their impact is critical. The change input here is the people impact for the impacted stakeholders with other changes not just within this project/program, but with the overall portfolio or even outside the portfolio (including business-driven changes).
Proposed Changes: This column lists all suggested changes, each represented by a card detailing the change’s purpose, impacted areas, and expected benefits.
Under Review: Changes move here once they are being evaluated for feasibility, risks, and alignment with project goals.
Implementation Planning: Approved changes are further detailed, including resource allocation, timelines, and specific tasks needed for implementation.
In Progress: Changes that are actively being worked on are tracked here, showing current status and any blockers encountered.
Monitoring: Recently implemented changes are monitored to ensure they are delivering the expected outcomes and to identify any issues early.
Done: Fully implemented and stabilized changes are moved here, marking their successful completion.
Value and Impact: In conjunction with the project team prioritize changes based on their potential value and impact. High-value changes that significantly improve project outcomes or stakeholder satisfaction should be addressed first. From a change perspective, the input here is about the readiness of the stakeholder to receive the change, and what timing and work is required to get there.
Urgency and Dependencies: Changes that unblock other work or are time-sensitive should be prioritized. Dependencies between changes must be mapped to ensure logical sequencing. For example, work required to lift capability/leadership or readiness may be critical dependencies, without which the change cannot be delivered successfully.
Feasibility and Risk: Assess the feasibility and risks associated with each change. High-risk changes might require more careful planning and monitoring but should not necessarily be deprioritized if their impact is critical. The change input here is the people impact for the impacted stakeholders with other changes not just within this project/program, but with the overall portfolio or even outside the portfolio (including business-driven changes).
Ordering Change Planning and Implementation
Collaborative Planning:
Engage stakeholders and team members in planning sessions to discuss and agree on the priority of changes. This collaborative approach ensures that all perspectives are considered and that there is buy-in from those affected by the changes. This includes change champions.
Regular Review and Adaptation:
The Kanban board should be regularly reviewed and updated, within the change team and within the project team. During these reviews, re-prioritize changes based on new information, shifting project needs, and feedback from implemented changes. This iterative approach aligns with Agile principles of flexibility and continuous improvement.
Limit Work in Progress (WIP):
To avoid overloading the change team and ensure focus, limit the number of changes in progress at any given time. This constraint encourages the team to complete current tasks before taking on new ones, promoting a steady and manageable workflow.
Use Metrics and Feedback:
Utilize metrics such as cycle time (how long a change takes to move from start to finish, from awareness to engagement to eventual adoption) and work with the project team on the throughput (how many changes are completed in a specific timeframe) to assess the efficiency of the change management process. For example, based on the size and complexity of each discrete piece of change delivered, how long did this take and what was the deviance from actual time period planned? Feedback from these metrics should inform decisions about prioritization and process adjustments.
Engage stakeholders and team members in planning sessions to discuss and agree on the priority of changes. This collaborative approach ensures that all perspectives are considered and that there is buy-in from those affected by the changes. This includes change champions.
The Kanban board should be regularly reviewed and updated, within the change team and within the project team. During these reviews, re-prioritize changes based on new information, shifting project needs, and feedback from implemented changes. This iterative approach aligns with Agile principles of flexibility and continuous improvement.
To avoid overloading the change team and ensure focus, limit the number of changes in progress at any given time. This constraint encourages the team to complete current tasks before taking on new ones, promoting a steady and manageable workflow.
Utilize metrics such as cycle time (how long a change takes to move from start to finish, from awareness to engagement to eventual adoption) and work with the project team on the throughput (how many changes are completed in a specific timeframe) to assess the efficiency of the change management process. For example, based on the size and complexity of each discrete piece of change delivered, how long did this take and what was the deviance from actual time period planned? Feedback from these metrics should inform decisions about prioritization and process adjustments.
Benefits of Using Kanban for Change Management
Implementing a Kanban board for change management in Agile projects offers several benefits:
Transparency: Everyone involved can see the status of change activities, leading to better communication and coordination.
Flexibility: The board can be easily adjusted to reflect changing priorities and project dynamics.
Focus: Limiting WIP helps the team maintain focus and reduces the risk of burnout and task switching.
Continuous Improvement: Regular reviews and adaptations promote a culture of continuous improvement, ensuring that change management processes evolve and improve over time.
Change artefact example 3: Change Impact Assessment
A Change Impact Assessment (CIA) is an essential component in managing organizational change, particularly in agile projects where the focus is on iterative and incremental improvements. The assessment helps to understand the scope and magnitude of the change, identify affected stakeholders, and plan interventions to manage impacts effectively. An agile-friendly CIA is more summarised, and gets to the heart of what the impact is, who is impacted, how, to what extent, and when.
Below are the core elements of a change impact assessment, with a comparison to traditional methods:
1. Identifying the Impacts
Agile Approach: In scaled agile projects, the impact identification is ongoing and iterative. Each sprint or iteration is reviewed to assess the impacts of delivered changes. This dynamic approach ensures that emerging impacts are quickly recognized and addressed.
Traditional Approach: Impact identification is typically conducted at the beginning of the project, with periodic reviews. This method can be less responsive to new impacts discovered during the project lifecycle.
2. Stakeholder Identification and Analysis
Agile Approach: Continuous stakeholder engagement is crucial. Stakeholders are regularly consulted, and their feedback is integrated into the process. Agile methods ensure that stakeholders’ changing needs and concerns are promptly addressed.
Traditional Approach: Stakeholder analysis is often conducted early in the project, with limited ongoing engagement. This can result in less adaptability to stakeholders’ evolving requirements.
3. Extent and Nature of Impacts
Agile Approach: The extent of impacts is assessed incrementally, considering the cumulative effect of changes over multiple iterations. This allows for a nuanced understanding of how impacts evolve over time.
Traditional Approach: Typically focuses on a comprehensive initial assessment, with less emphasis on the evolution of impacts throughout the project.
4. Timing of Impacts
Agile Approach: Timing is aligned with the iterative delivery schedule. The impacts are mapped to specific iterations or sprints, allowing for precise planning and mitigation.
Traditional Approach: Timing is generally assessed at the project level, which can make it harder to pinpoint when specific impacts will occur during the project lifecycle.
Typical Sections of an Agile Change Impact Assessment
Impact Overview:
Explanation: Summarizes the nature and scope of the change, providing a high-level view of the anticipated impacts.
Agile Twist: Updated regularly with each iteration to reflect new findings and emerging impacts.
Stakeholder Impact Analysis:
Explanation: Identifies who will be affected by the change and how. It details the extent of the impact on different stakeholder groups.
Agile Twist: Involves continuous stakeholder feedback and updates to capture evolving impacts.
Impact Extent and Nature:
Explanation: Describes the extent (e.g., minor, moderate, significant) and nature (e.g., process, technology, cultural) of the impacts.
Agile Twist: Assessed incrementally, considering both immediate and long-term impacts across iterations.
Impact Timing:
Explanation: Specifies when the impacts are expected to occur, mapped to the project timeline.
Agile Twist: Aligned with sprint or iteration schedules, allowing for detailed timing predictions.
Mitigation Strategies:
Explanation: Outlines plans to manage and mitigate identified impacts.
Agile Twist: Adaptive strategies that are refined continuously based on iteration reviews and stakeholder feedback.
Monitoring and Review:
Explanation: Describes how the impacts will be monitored and reviewed throughout the project.
Agile Twist: Continuous monitoring with iteration-end reviews to ensure timely identification and management of impacts.
Explanation: Summarizes the nature and scope of the change, providing a high-level view of the anticipated impacts.
Agile Twist: Updated regularly with each iteration to reflect new findings and emerging impacts.
Explanation: Identifies who will be affected by the change and how. It details the extent of the impact on different stakeholder groups.
Agile Twist: Involves continuous stakeholder feedback and updates to capture evolving impacts.
Explanation: Describes the extent (e.g., minor, moderate, significant) and nature (e.g., process, technology, cultural) of the impacts.
Agile Twist: Assessed incrementally, considering both immediate and long-term impacts across iterations.
Explanation: Specifies when the impacts are expected to occur, mapped to the project timeline.
Agile Twist: Aligned with sprint or iteration schedules, allowing for detailed timing predictions.
Explanation: Outlines plans to manage and mitigate identified impacts.
Agile Twist: Adaptive strategies that are refined continuously based on iteration reviews and stakeholder feedback.
Explanation: Describes how the impacts will be monitored and reviewed throughout the project.
Agile Twist: Continuous monitoring with iteration-end reviews to ensure timely identification and management of impacts.
Stakeholder Engagement in a Scaled Agile Environment
Planning and designing stakeholder engagement activities in a scaled agile environment requires a dynamic, iterative approach that contrasts significantly with traditional, non-agile methods. In SAFe, the focus is on continuous collaboration, transparency, and adaptability, ensuring that stakeholders are actively involved throughout the project lifecycle.
Iterative and Continuous Engagement
Scaled Agile Approach: Stakeholder engagement is an ongoing process. Agile frameworks emphasize regular touchpoints, such as sprint reviews, planning meetings, and daily stand-ups, where stakeholders can provide feedback and stay informed about progress. These frequent interactions ensure that stakeholder input is continuously integrated, enabling swift adjustments and alignment with evolving needs. This iterative approach fosters a collaborative environment where stakeholders feel valued and engaged throughout the project. Engagement rhythms and processes should also be established not just at a project, but program, portfolio and enterprise levels as required.
Non-Agile Approach: Traditional methodologies often involve stakeholder engagement at fixed points in the project timeline, such as during initial requirements gathering, major milestone reviews, and final project delivery. This approach can lead to periods of limited communication and delayed feedback, which may result in misaligned expectations and missed opportunities for timely course corrections.
Flexibility and Adaptation
Scaled Agile Approach: Agile projects embrace change, allowing stakeholder engagement activities to be flexible and adaptive. As project requirements evolve, the engagement strategy can be adjusted to address new priorities or challenges. This flexibility ensures that stakeholder needs are consistently met, and any concerns are promptly addressed. Agile frameworks encourage a culture of openness and continuous improvement, where stakeholder feedback directly influences the direction of the project. Change managers need to ensure that stakeholder understand this fully, and have the skills to work within this context, not just with the project team but in leading their teams through change, when ‘the change’ may be constantly shifting.
Non-Agile Approach: In contrast, traditional approaches tend to follow a rigid engagement plan that is set at the project’s outset. While this provides a clear structure, it can be less responsive to changing stakeholder needs or external conditions. Adjusting the engagement strategy mid-project can be challenging and may require significant effort, leading to delays and potential dissatisfaction among stakeholders.
Collaborative Tools and Techniques
Scaled Agile Approach: Agile environments leverage a variety of collaborative tools and techniques to enhance stakeholder engagement. Digital platforms such as Jira, Confluence, and Miro facilitate real-time collaboration, transparency, and documentation. Agile ceremonies, such as retrospectives and demos, provide structured opportunities for stakeholders to participate and contribute. These tools and techniques help maintain a high level of engagement and ensure that stakeholders have a clear view of project progress and challenges.
Non-Agile Approach: Traditional methods might rely more heavily on formal documentation and periodic reports for stakeholder communication. While these methods ensure thorough documentation, they can sometimes create barriers to real-time collaboration and immediate feedback. Meetings and reviews are often scheduled infrequently, which can lead to less dynamic interaction compared to agile practices.
Planning Stakeholder Engagement Activities
Regular Touchpoints: Schedule frequent meetings and reviews to ensure continuous stakeholder involvement. Examples include sprint reviews, iteration planning meetings, and daily stand-ups. Business-led rhythm that enable the dissemination and engagement of updates to teams is also critical.
Flexible Engagement Plans: Develop engagement strategies that can be easily adapted based on stakeholder feedback and changing project requirements.
Use of Collaborative Tools: Implement digital tools that facilitate real-time collaboration and transparency. Tools like Jira and Confluence can help keep stakeholders informed and involved. Non-digital engagement tools may also be leveraged to fully engage with stakeholders, beyond one-way push communication. Assessment needs to be made of the openness and ability to engage regarding the change through the chosen channels.
Active Feedback Loops: Establish mechanisms for collecting and integrating stakeholder feedback continuously. This can be done through retrospectives, surveys, and informal check-ins.
Clear Communication Channels: Maintain open and clear communication channels to ensure that stakeholders can easily provide input and receive updates on project progress.
As mentioned previously, the change approach, including engagement approaches, need to take into account the broader organisational context of program, portfolio and enterprise levels. This may mean mapping out the various channels and how they can be used for different changes, stakeholders and organisational levels.
Supporting Agile Delivery Cadence
To align change management activities with agile delivery cadence, it’s essential to integrate them into the core agile events, such as PI (Program Increment) planning and demos. Here’s how:
PI Planning
PI planning, or program increment planning, is a critical event in the agile framework, where teams come together in the PI planning process to plan and commit to a set of objectives for the next increment. During PI planning sessions or PI planning events (including team breakouts), ensure that change management considerations are part of the discussion. This involves:
– Including Change Management Objectives within PI objectives and program vision: Ensure that change management objectives and organizational readiness are included in the PI planning agenda as a critical part of project management. This helps align the change activities with the overall delivery goals.
– Identifying Change Risks and Dependencies: Identify any dependencies related to the change initiative that may impact the delivery schedule and the overall agile release train. This ensures that potential risks are addressed early and do not disrupt the delivery process. Common considerations include the various people change impacts across the program and how they intersect or overlap
– Engaging Stakeholders: Involve key stakeholders in the PI planning sessions. This ensures that not just product managers but business stakeholders understand the change objectives and are committed to supporting the change initiative during the implementation process. PI planning is also a great opportunity to assess and see in action the level of engagement, support and potential leadership skills of key stakeholders to reach the common goals and business benefits.
Demos
Demos are an opportunity to showcase the progress of the agile teams and gather feedback from stakeholders as a part of the iteration plans and sprint planning. Use demos to communicate the benefits and progress of change initiatives within the entire agile release train. Engaging stakeholders in these demos can help them see the value and stay committed to the implementation plan. Here’s how:
– Highlighting Change Benefits: During demos, highlight the benefits of the change initiative and how it supports the overall product delivery goals. This helps stakeholders understand the value of the change and its impact on the project.
– Gathering Feedback: Use demos as an opportunity to gather feedback and user stories from stakeholders. This helps identify any concerns or areas for improvement and ensures that the change initiative remains aligned with stakeholder needs.
– Showcasing Progress: Showcase the progress of the change initiative during demos. This provides stakeholders with a clear understanding of how the change is evolving and the positive impact it is having on the project.
By embedding change management activities into these agile ceremonies, change managers can ensure that change initiatives are aligned with the delivery schedule and maintain stakeholder buy-in.
Implementing Change Activities as Small Experiments
One of the key principles of agile is to work in small increments and learn quickly. Change management activities can adopt this approach by implementing small experiments, such as:
Messaging
Test different communication messages to see which resonates best with stakeholders. Gather feedback and refine the messaging based on reactions. This iterative approach ensures that the communication strategy is effective and supports the change initiative. Consider the following:
– A/B Testing: Use A/B testing to evaluate different messages. This involves sending two variations of a message to different stakeholder groups and comparing the responses to determine which one is more effective.
– Feedback Collection: Collect feedback from stakeholders on the messaging. This can be done through surveys, focus groups, or informal conversations.
– Message Refinement: Refine the messaging based on the feedback received. This ensures that the communication remains relevant and impactful.
Stakeholder Involvement
Experiment with various levels of stakeholder involvement to determine the most effective way to engage them. Use these insights to inform future engagement and risk management strategies and your overall implementation strategy. Here’s how:
– Pilot Programs: Implement pilot programs with small groups of stakeholders to test different involvement strategies. This provides valuable insights into what works best and helps refine the engagement approach.
– Engagement Metrics: Track engagement metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of different involvement strategies. This includes participation rates, feedback quality, and overall stakeholder satisfaction.
– Iterative Adjustments: Make iterative adjustments to the involvement strategies based on the insights gained. This ensures that stakeholder engagement remains effective and aligned with the change initiative.
By treating change activities as experiments, change managers can adapt quickly to what works best, ensuring a smoother integration with the agile delivery process.
Best Practices for Integrating Change Management with Agile
Successfully integrating change management with agile methodologies requires a strategic approach. Here are some best practices to consider:
Foster Collaboration
Encourage collaboration between change managers and agile teams, as well as key business stakeholders within the business context. This helps ensure that different disciplines and functions are aligned and working towards the same goals. Consider the following strategies:
– Joint Planning Sessions: Conduct joint planning sessions to align change management activities with agile delivery approaches and schedules. This ensures that both disciplines are working towards the same objectives.
– Regular Communication: Establish regular communication channels between change managers and agile teams. This helps keep everyone informed and ensures that any issues or concerns are addressed promptly. Specifically focus on various agile roles such as UX (user experience), business analysis, testing, and portfolio management. There are key intersections of change work and each of these disciplines, beyond general project planning and coordination.
The below is an example of a portfolio level adoption dashboard from The Change Compass.
Change Data-Driven Insights is absolutely a Must-have for SAFe
In SAFe, change management driven by data insights is critical to ensure that changes are not only effective but also efficient and sustainable. Data-driven change management leverages quantitative and qualitative data to guide decisions, optimize processes, and align strategic goals across the organization. By incorporating metrics and analytics, organizations can gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact and progress of change initiatives, allowing for timely adjustments and informed decision-making.
At the portfolio level within a SAFe setting, data-driven insights are essential for prioritizing initiatives and allocating resources effectively. More than this, change data including stakeholder capability, readiness and impact levels can be critical to determine when releases should happen, the priority of releases, and the sequencing of releases.
Ill-prepared or insufficiently skilled stakeholders may require longer time to adapt to the change. Also, looking beyond the project itself, by understanding the overall change landscape for the impacted stakeholders, change releases may need to be chunked and packaged accordingly to maximise adoption success.
Key attention should also be paid to the impact on business performance of impacted stakeholders, not just from a change volume perspective, but also from a strategy perspective in terms of how best to reduce risk of performance disruptions. Is it through exemplary middle leadership? Or frontline engagement? Or the power of change champions embedded across the business?
At the enterprise level, data-driven change management enables organizations to scale agile practices consistently and coherently across the entire team across multiple portfolios. This involves the use of enterprise-level dashboards and analytics tools that provide a holistic view of the organization’s agile transformation. Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as employee impact data, adoption rates, readiness metrics and productivity metrics help leaders assess the effectiveness of change initiatives and identify areas that require additional support or intervention. For instance, tracking the adoption rate of agile practices across different departments can highlight areas where additional training or coaching is needed to ensure consistent implementation.
Integrating change management with scaled agile methodologies is essential for seamless product delivery in today’s dynamic business environment. By creating agile-style deliverable artefacts early, continuously adapting engagement activities, supporting agile delivery cadence, and implementing change activities as small experiments, measure change progress and outcomes, change managers can effectively support agile product delivery. This integration not only enhances the success of change initiatives but also ensures that product delivery is seamless and aligned with organizational goals and the strategic plan.
By fostering collaboration, embracing agile principles, and using data-driven insights, change managers can create a cohesive strategy that maximizes the benefits of both change management and agile methodologies. This holistic approach ensures that change initiatives are successful, stakeholders are engaged, and product delivery is efficient and effective.
Chat to us to find out more about how to leverage the power of a change measurement platform to sustain your single source of truth to support your scaled agile organisation.
What is change management impact analysis and why is it important?
Change management impact analysis assesses how changes affect an organization, its processes, and employees. It identifies potential risks and facilitates smoother transitions by preparing stakeholders for adjustments. This analysis is crucial as it minimizes disruptions, enhances employee buy-in, and ensures successful implementation of change initiatives for long-term success.
Map change impacts along user journey and
create experience-based change impact assessment.
60 min
4+ People
What you’ll need
REMOTE
Video conferencing with screen sharing
Digital collaboration tool (Zoom, Hangout)
IN-PERSON
Whiteboard
Markers
Post-it notes
Timer
Instructions for running this Playbook
1. Background
In organizational change, change impact assessments or change impact analysis are usually conducted from a ‘top down’ perspective where the process/system or solution that is changed is translated into what it means for the impacted group of users. In terms of best practices, this may not sufficiently take into account detailed impacts that users undergo and related experiences throughout the change journey.
A human-centred approach to assessing the impact of change takes a bottom-up and humanistic approach to successful change. This integrated well with agile projects where there is focus on user journey and user profiles. The design of this session is aimed to leverage from a wide-range of project and business representatives to holistically understand stakeholder impacts.
This is a workshop with key stakeholders to map key user impacts which informs the content of detailed impact assessment.
2. Prep
This session is beneficial when there is sufficient understanding of what the change is in the scope of the change, i.e. the defined solution from the project, areas of impact and initial assessment findings. You can also organise a session for each iteration given there is sufficient change to warrant the session.
The following elements are critical before organising the session:
User journey – To ensure this can be referenced and utilised to illustrate the journey the user will go through in using the solution
User role profiles – To ensure that critical user profiles are clearly understood so that these can be utilised to outline their usage journeys
Change approach or Change Canvas – To help illustrate critical aspects of how users will be engaged be supported to use the designed solution
High level change impact assessment
Business representatives from impacted areas that can be leveraged to paint a picture of what stakeholder experiences could be
Empathy Map Canvas template. Visit this link to download the template by Dave Gray.
Scheduling:
Schedule the meeting when there is sufficient understanding of the solution and business processes to aid your data collection and a sufficient understanding of the change. Clarify this with your project manager or business analyst as required.
Who:
Include key project team members such as the following job roles: the project manager, business owner, lead developer, business analyst, and user-design specialist. Also include business representatives from the different groups of impacted business areas who are familiar with potential consequences of change impacts, potential disruptions and likely mitigation strategies.
Organisation:
Prior to the session undertake the following preparation in you session resource allocation:
Thoroughly understand the user journey process and anticipate potential change impacts ahead of the session (even if you don’t have the thorough change impact assessment)
Map out impacted stakeholder groups by role across each impacted business area. Decide key roles that you want to focus on in the session as a part of the proposed change, versus trying to cover all roles
Work with business representatives to highlight change impacts ahead of the session if there is a lot to cover or if the change is particularly complex. Capture these visually to show during the session
Organise key artefacts such as empathy map, user journey, etc.
TIP: DESIGN
Focus as much on what a typical experience would be like from an end-user perspective versus on the technicalities of the solution itself.
Position the various scenarios and challenges that the user faces and walk through how these are resolved by the solution.
TIP: WHAT TO AVOID
Focus on the change impacts of the user in terms of experiences. Don’t just focus on the user experience and profile without sufficiently capturing what the impacts mean to the user’s experience.
3. Run the session
Intro – 5-10 min
Walk through the purpose of the session and why this is required. Emphasise how important it is to incorporate a user-centric view of change impacts in order to design effective change experiences.
Overview user journey and key impacted roles – 10 min
Review key user journeys for selected key impacted stakeholder groups
Highlight key change impacts
Use empathy map to discuss the impacts for key user roles – 40 min
Walkthrough the empathy map concept and explain key components
Create an empathy map for each key impacted role
For each empathy map, refer back to the user journey and key identified impacts from the high level impact assessment as a start
Key focus and capture is on the IMPACTS of the change after understanding the user experience. E.g. The customer service rep needs to answer customer enquiries efficiently and they often feel frustrated by how slow the system response is. The impact of the new system is that it will alleviate this pain for them.
4. Capturing outcomes
At the end of the session, capture any key actions, timeline, valuable insights, stakeholder engagement ideas and a follow up session as required.
What to do with the output?
After you’ve written up the empathy map for each impacted role. Utilise these to build the detailed change impact assessment as a core part of effective change management in a systematic way. As a result, the change impact assessment will incorporate user experiences that are valuable when you start to create the change plan and the change strategy in driving towards the future state from the current state, ensuring smooth transition.
Revert back to business representatives and others in the session to verify the details captured and ensure nothing critical is missed.
