There are many conclusions in the field of change management nowadays
which can be applied in general ways to practically all organizations.
One very important conclusion is that change management can be deemed
effective if it can produce changes in the behavior of target
audiences. For example, if the change management program is supposed
to change the attitude of employees towards their work so that they
like coming to work, success can be proven if productivity later goes
up. But if employee absenteeism goes up instead, then apparently
something went wrong in the change management program – either the
design was wrong in the first place, or the way it was implemented
was faulty as well.
Another conclusion we can make about change management is that true
results can only be reaped over a reasonable amount of time. For
instance, if the program planners expect results to show up within
just a month from implementation, that may be too soon to reasonably
expect results. But if the planners wait for a year first, and then
look for results, that may be more reasonable.
A last and very fundamental conclusion that can apply to any
organization is that no one likes to be coerced to adopt changes.
Thus, hard-sell methods for initiating a change management program in
an organization may not work very well because the organization
members (particularly employees) may believe they are being pressured
to adopt changes that they truly do not believe in and would like to
resist instead.
Change Management is a term used to describe the whole process of
monitoring changes which are being initiated while a product or
service is being developed by an organization. The goal of change
management is to prevent errors from occurring during the
development process, as well as to limit the possible impact of these
changes on the organizational processes which already exist.
Changes during product or service development can be subdivided into
either authorized changes or unauthorized changes. The first category
pertains to those changes which decision makers within the
organization have initiated themselves, which means they are prepared
for the impact of such changes later on. The second category refers
to changes which the members of the organization are not prepared to
encounter, and whose possible impact on organizational processes may
not have been anticipated well enough.
When change management is undertaken properly, the impact of any
unforeseen changes can be absorbed and mitigated so that the
organization does not suffer massive losses (financial or otherwise).
Change management also allows authorized changes to work without
interfering with pre-existing organizational processes and vice
versa.
Change control procedures is the term used to describe the change
management steps that are set in place before, during, and after the
changes have been initiated. Changes, in themselves, can be rather
small (such as those involved in a group project) or of massive
magnitude (such as when the organization as a whole shifts core
competencies, or focuses on a new line of work.)
For change management to be successful, particularly during
establishment of defined change control procedures, it is necessary
for the decision makers to be able to communicate their plans to all
members of the organization, and even external audiences, so that
everyone can be prepared for what is to come.