Change Readiness

There are two main categories regarding change readiness:

1. Overall Organization Readiness and,
2. Constituent Readiness.

Let’s focus on Constituent Readiness.

In order to adopt a change, the constituent must be able to perform their key job function in the new environment.

The key to successful change leadership is to KNOW that each constituent can do their job in the changed environment BEFORE we implement the change.

Change Readiness, when you use Constituent Hub starts at the very beginning of the change initiative, or even before the start of your change initiative. Here’s what I mean.

At the company level we first identify Work Groups which are subsets of your organizational structure. An example of a Work Group might be the three people who do billing in the East region.

We can then define the critical job function(s) of each Work Group and cascade that information to each constituent in the group.

As you determine which constituents from the company level are affected by your change initiative this data comes with them.

Of course, if you don’t identify Work Groups and critical job functions at the company level you can do that at the specific change initiative level.

This is helpful information to have throughout the change initiative to assist you with Change Impact Analysis, Communication, Testing, and Training.

Training and Readiness

We are trying to determine if our constituents are READY to perform at a high level following the implementation of our change. Note that we are not simply saying they attended training or are trained. That’s something different. We want to know if they can do their jobs. This is a much higher standard.

The benefit of checking for actual readiness allows you to identify areas where additional or remedial training is needed and can be provided before a negative impact happens in front of our customers in a production environment.

This may be an adjustment in planning. Typically, any employee training ends as close to the day we go live as possible. The change readiness mindset requires some overlap to allow for additional training and support as necessary.

Testing Readiness

We must actually test the readiness of our constituents before implementing the change. It’s necessary to create some infrastructure that allows this readiness testing in the most realistic environment possible.

Readiness Targets

Here you have ultimate flexibility depending on the change. Strict readiness testing may only be performed for a select slice of your constituents – those affected most, for example.

You can determine the ratio of success for any population that provides an appropriate comfort level. For key financial measures for example, you may determine that 100% success in readiness testing is necessary. However, for a different function, say setting up a new account in a software package, only needs to be successfully completed by 80% of those constituents and we’d still be comfortable going forward.

Go/No Go

Before implementation a typical Go/No Go meeting takes place and going around the table we evaluate things like technology, security, financials and have hard numbers to determine we’re good to go. However, when we ask about the all-important workforce who must adopt the change the evaluation is much fuzzier.

With Constituent Hub an evaluation of your customized Change Readiness testing details can be used by all decision makers in the Go/No Go process. This tangible evaluation provides a greater comfort level and allows for a more targeted support plan following implementation.

Know you’re ready!