Organizational Change Management Assessment

By Andy Jordan

Topics: Change Management, Organizational Project Management

Format: Plan / Log / Evaluation Form

This template is designed to help a project manager identify the organizational change management elements of their project. Organizational change management is a distinct discipline, and larger projects may well have a dedicated organizational change professional assigned. This template can act either as a self-contained planning worksheet to feed the overall project plan, or as a collaboration tool for the project manager and organizational change manager to use collectively.

Guidelines

Summary Section

Project Name – the name of the project for which the organizational change plan is being developed (consider making the name a link to the project’s file sharing location, intranet site or similar).
Project Manager – the name of the project manager for the overall project.
Organizational Change Resource – the name of the person appointed to support the organizational change aspects of the project (not all projects will have this role dedicated to a specialist, so this may be the PM).
Business Area Impacted – a list of every business area or department with an organizational change impact. Take care to identify all of these; for example, a new product may impact the product team but also sales, marketing, professional services, customer support, finance, etc.
Size of Impact – a drop-down list to summarize the scale of the impact for each business area. Feel free to adapt this list, but avoid too many categories—we are only trying to provide an overview here.
Description – a brief summary of the type of impact that each business area will experience as a result of the project.

Detailed Plans Section

Note: Every business area identified in the Business Area Impacted list from the section above should have a dedicated plan. Copy and paste this section for as many departments as it is needed.

The names of the columns in this part of the plan avoid using project management-related language to make the plan more accessible to users and employees in each impacted business area. These people may not be familiar with project delivery, and specialized language can be a significant barrier to effective communication.

Business Area – the business area that this part of the plan is for. Keep the name consistent with the section above.
Business Owner – the individual in the business area who is accountable for effective change management. This should be a name rather than a job title, and the individual will be a stakeholder in the overall project.
What? – a list of the individual tasks that need to be carried out as part of the organizational change management plan for the business area.
Why? – a brief explanation of what each task is designed to accomplish. This should be written to make it easy for all staff in the business area to understand what the work is designed to achieve and how it will help them deal with the changes that are happening.
When? – the deadline for completion of the work item.
Who? – the individual accountable for completion of the task. This should be a name rather than a job title, and should be a member of the project team. When multiple people are involved, this should be the lead individual.