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Improving business processes drives efficiency and organizational results. But implementing change isn’t always easy.
The implementation process must be intentional and well-structured, giving key stakeholders the information and tools they need to adopt new workflows or tech successfully.
Explore how change management processes work and how to run them well at your organization. Learn to level up with AI-driven documentation and analysis tools that streamline these initiatives.
What is change management?
The change management process is a structured approach to organizational change that guides a company from its current state to an improved or desired future one. Successful change management initiatives rely on careful planning and implementation that foster positive shifts without significant disruptions to day-to-day work.
There are two sides to change management plans: technical and human. Here’s more on each.
- Project change control: Project change control is the umbrella term for the formal and logistical steps that ensure successful shifts. As the name implies, this process “controls” the process through documentation, assessments, and approvals that prevent deviations. Excellent project change control mitigates errors and setbacks while minimizing risks, thanks to its planned, measured approach.
- Organizational change management: Organizational change management (OCM) refers to the “people” aspect of improvement initiatives. Through it, companies support team members in adopting changes, encouraging buy-in and structuring seamless transitions with new processes, workflows, tools, automations, or strategies.
What are three core concepts of the change management process?
All effective organizational change efforts rely on the following three core concepts, which provide a functional methodology for implementing shifts.
- Preparing for change: In this stage, organizations ready team members for the process ahead, explaining the need for change as well as the practical particulars of the shifts to come. Leaders support employees, answering their questions, dispelling concerns, and helping them see the value in new ways of working.
- Managing change: The change implementation phase requires close management. Leaders must guide and assess progress, checking in regularly with the team members performing the work. Transparent communication is key; managers should actively listen to employees’ feedback, prioritizing their concerns and resolving issues before they spur widespread repercussions.
- Reinforcing change: While teams may adopt new workflows or technology well at first, they can regress into old habits over time. So, it’s important that leaders consistently iterate the value of these new initiatives and provide the knowledge and training that change management team members need to continue implementing them comfortably. These new ways of working will eventually become the status quo, so long as they’re upheld for long enough without backsliding.
The 5 key steps of effective change management processes
1. Define the change
Determine the need for change by assessing your current ways of working. Perform process intelligence procedures like process mining, task mining, and workflow mining. Use Scribe Optimize to track and document the way work actually happens at your organization and to identify bottlenecks, redundant manual tasks, and resource waste. These process pitfalls are areas of opportunity—the basis for positive change.
2. Assess impact and stakeholders
The most significant changes are those that have far-reaching positive impacts without compromising daily work. These implementations are measurable, iterative (and often, gradual), and they involve hands-on contributions from various stakeholders. As you consider potential proposed change management strategies, identify the leaders and team members involved. You will have to assign these key players implementation tasks and monitoring responsibilities to ensure successful execution.
3. Build strategic plans
This step entails creating macro- and micro-level strategies to achieve the desired change, delegating tasks to the identified key stakeholders.
Business leaders should also set key performance indicators (KPIs) and milestones to track. This way, teams can closely monitor the success of the initiative, pinpointing and rectifying deviations as quickly as possible.
4. Implement the change
Gather key stakeholders and demonstrate the route forward. All should be clear on their role in the process. Encourage discussion and questioning, as this openness will help prevent potential resistance and confusion. It’s also wise to train leaders on providing continued support to their direct reports, preventing backsliding or unanswered concerns.
5. Monitor and reinforce
Continually review the progress of new initiatives, gathering qualitative and quantitative data. Process improvement software, like Scribe Capture, helps teams document new process flows, and Scribe Optimize iteratively pinpoints bottlenecks or redundancies, recommending changes in real time. In addition to gathering these data-driven insights, leaders should frequently check in with team members about their first-hand experience, opening the door for honest feedback.
Common use cases for change management processes
Any business area can leverage change management processes to optimize work or support the implementation of new tools. Here are a few real-life uses that demonstrate the effectiveness of this methodology.
- Daily business operations: Organizations can identify inefficient workflows and implement resource-saving improvements that streamline tasks and eradicate redundant work.
- Organizational structure changes: When a company gets new leadership, this can shift the organizational structure, modifying employees’ roles, responsibilities, and reporting procedures. Businesses can use change management processes to guide successful leadership transitions, in which all understand their place in the current configuration.
- Project management: Project teams can use change management methods to identify inconsistent processes or scope creep and get work back on track.
- New tech: Integrating new tools is a frequent IT change management process. It demands a structured implementation that helps teams learn to maximize the technology to support their work.
How Scribe Capture supports the change management process
Scribe Capture is the ultimate enterprise companion for transforming business processes. Here’s how it helps you work smarter.
- Creating consistent, accurate documentation: Scribe Capture automatically generates documentation around the implementation of new technology, processes, and workflows, creating convenient, comprehensive single sources of truth.
- Accelerating training and adoption: By quickly and accurately documenting new processes, you speed up training and improve the quality of sessions. Team members can follow along with up-to-date guides and continually refer to them post-training to correctly roll out process changes.
- Improves communication and alignment: Scribe Capture’s easy-to-read, step-by-step process guides keep everyone on the same page—ensuring that all team members have the most recent information.
Make change stick with data-driven insight
Instead of settling for short-term wins, aim for long-term, transformational change that grows your organization and boosts its efficiency. To drive these successful change management models, you need a structured, data-backed plan.
Bolster your change management approach with AI-powered documentation and improvement insights from Scribe Capture and Scribe Optimize. Move toward overarching goals at the team and organizational level with meticulous guides and robust sources of truth.
FAQs
What causes most change initiatives to fail?
Poor planning, a lack of strategy, and inadequate training can cause these types of changes to fail. Leaders must prepare themselves and their teams for the shifts ahead, presenting a clear route forward and answering employees’ questions or addressing resistance. Scribe Capture’s automated procedure documentation creates helpful guides that managers can leverage to better transmit changes.
How can workflow and process data support better change management?
Teams don’t always know where their processes or workflows experience bottlenecks or redundancies. But data provides teams with clear, up-to-the-minute insights on the effectiveness of these flows. This information backs informed decision-making on improvements.
How does Scribe Capture help teams manage change more effectively
Scribe Capture automatically transforms change management process flow into clear step-by-step guides that leaders can use to train teams on new processes, tools, and tasks—speeding up and improving the efficacy of these implementations.
