Did you know that key studies show that only 30% of change programs succeed.
Source: John Kotter research
However, the Change Impact Assessment is a valuable tool that can significantly improve the outcomes of change programs.
The Change Impact Assessment evaluates (from a people, knowledge, process, and technology perspective) how changes affect target audiences as they transition from the current to the target state. The Change Impact Assessment also captures the change activities that may be delivered to manage the transition, which will be agreed in consultation with impacted stakeholders.
The benefits of conducting a Change Impact Assessment include:
- Understanding the scope of change: A Change Impact Assessment helps you identify the extent and depth of changes that will occur due to the IT project.
- Mitigating Risks: A Change Impact Assessment helps you predict potential risks and challenges that may arise during the implementation of IT projects. By doing so, you can develop effective mitigation strategies to avoid project failure or delays.
- Saving Costs and Time: By identifying potential risks and challenges beforehand, you can proactively avoid them.
- Communication and Engagement: A Change Impact Assessment provides a useful tool for communicating the impact of the change to stakeholders, ensuring they are on board with the change and understand its impacts.
- Performance Measurement: A Change Impact Assessment enables you to measure the IT change program’s effectiveness, helping you establish whether it meets the expected outcomes.
If you are tasked with initiating change management for your project, consider using the simple Change Impact Assessment format below. Zoom in on your PC for best results.
For the Change Impact Assessment to be functional, it should be co-developed with your impacted stakeholders to reach a collective agreement on the nature of the impact and the relevant change activities to manage the transition.
At two major federal government agencies in Australia, I ran workshops to co-develop the Change Impact Assessment with impacted stakeholders as input into the change management plan. By developing the change impact assessment, I was able to inspire confidence across all project stakeholders that we have a clear scope to ensure people’s adoption goals are realised.
The Change Impact Assessment is critical to change management when commencing change planning. The key benefit of the Change Impact Assessment is understanding the scope of change. For the Change Impact Assessment to be useful, it should be co-developed with your impacted stakeholders so that a collective agreement can be reached.
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About the Author
Kirtan Jamnadas is a management consultant with over seven years of experience successfully delivering complex IT projects at four large federal government agencies in Australia.
Kirtan is passionate about initiating and driving projects forward while ensuring that all stakeholders are engaged and on board with the project’s goals.
With his employer’s support, Kirtan established the company’s project management practice – this included developing all the frameworks, tools and templates to ensure projects are set up for success.
Kirt’s mission is to provide current and aspiring project managers with simple and practical tools to help streamline operations, optimise performance and achieve project success.
