Plan preparation includes activities to prepare yourself and the team for managing the change and the creation of the change management strategy. This allows the team to understand the magnitude of the change and potential resistance from the organization.

Defining the Scope of the Change

Defining the scope of the project for change management purposes means answering the following questions:

• What are the changes that will occur as a result of this project?
• Who will be affected?
• What will be the magnitude of the change?
• How might the affected groups react when notified of this change? What will be their concerns?
• How can their concerns be addressed?

Putting the answers in a spreadsheet will help the planning process.

Conduct an Organizational Assessment

You can assess the organizational readiness for change by finding the answers to the following questions:

• How resistant is the organization to the change associated with this project?
• What is the capacity for change within the organization? Is the organization already being required to make changes elsewhere? How much more change can the organization absorb?
• What is the history of similar projects/change within the organization? Did past projects/changes leave a residual effect that could either work in your favor or make the management more challenging?
• What is middle management’s predisposition to change? Is the management team behind the change effort? Are there any that are opposed?
• Anticipated Resistance – are particular departments, regions, etc. impacted differently than others? Were certain groups advocating a different solution? Are certain groups heavily invested with how things are done today?

In the next post I will address the components of “Managing Change” and the ADKAR change methodology.