How we change what others think, feel, believe and do

The Change Delivery Plan

Disciplines > Change Management > Planning for change > The Change Delivery Plan

A sequence of alignment | Assure confident delivery | See also

The Change Delivery Plan lays out the path whereby the change will be implemented. This is often a difficult and hazardous journey and needs to include a strong Commitment Plan to ensure the right people are fully engaged and properly motivated.

A sequence of alignment

An aligned organization has no waste, as everything fits cleanly with everything else. A misaligned organization has people working at cross-purposes, with conflict as a common feature. In an aligned organization, people agree and work smoothly together to an effective purpose.

Doing change in the right order is important to making it successful. Creating alignment thus starts with drivers, then moves to processes, then technology, organization and people.

Driver alignment

There are often a number of drivers that provide the founding motivation of an organization. If these do not align, then the rest of the organizational elements which follow these are very likely also to be out of alignment.

Drivers include:

• Purpose (why are we here?)
• Vision (motivating view of the future)
• Mission statement (overall goals for stakeholders)
• Objectives (specific goals)
• Strategy (key decisions and overall approaches)

Process alignment

Given the drivers and goals of the organization, the next stage in organizational design is to create processes that are set up to achieve the intent with minimum waste. Aligned processes have inputs and outputs that align, with outputs of one process that deliver just what is needed in the next process. And the final outputs achieve the purpose, objectives and so on.

Technology alignment

Technology sometimes is introduced before processes are aligned, often as a need in change to reduce operating costs. The danger of this is that you then just get automated, misaligned processes. Once processes are aligned, then technology may be added to make them more efficient. Thus technology should be aligned with processes, not the other way about.

Organizational alignment

A common approach to change is to first reorganize and then try to align everything else. Although this may create certain motivations, they are likely to be frustrated by misaligned processes. Organizational structures should thus be aligned with processes to facilitate their delivery.

People alignment

Finally, people need to be aligned with the organization and with the processes. This includes aligning skills where they are needed and ensuring motivational systems keep the attention of the people aligned through the processes to the drivers and goals.

Assure confident delivery

In the delivery plan you should also how you will manage the implementation to assure confident delivery. These activities include:

• Organizing for change
• Alignment of responsibilities for change.
• A visible and regularly-updated schedule of activities.
• Measurement of change and regular reporting.
• Open and regular communication at all levels.
• Timely escalation of issues.

See also

The Commitment Plan