The Basic 8 Framework

Planning and strategy are important responsibilities for change management. It addresses many factors important to the organisation: the purpose of the change, how it will benefit the organisation, the steps to develop and implement it, how people will participate and adapt, the use of resources, schedules and any other relevant matter that the organisation has to coordinate.

Planning is done at different levels in the organisation. At the executive level the overall strategy and direction is important. There may be project teams to implement the change. Managers and teams will engage in local planning for adopting the change.

Change creates uncertainty as it moves from a known state to a predicted but not certain outcome. This generates risk for the organisation.

The conventional risks have to be addressed, such as legal, industrial relations, financial, health and safety, and quality. Other risks are added by the nature of change: relationships, brand reputation, project processes, communication, efficiency and careers. All of these risks are influenced by the change, dealing with additional factors not part of stable business operations.

Change ultimately relies on the ability of individual contributors throughout the organisation to be able to exercise their function. This means they need the skills, equipment and confidence to get involved and do what is required.

The term "individual contributor" is used to cover people in the organisation not in a formal management/supervisor or executive role. These may be employees, volunteers, contractors or any other role that might be in a commercial, government, not-for-profit or volunteer organisation.

Managers are people in an organisation responsible for supervising and directing a particular work area or unit. They are responsible for a team of people, whether these are individual contributors or supervisors themselves. They are important for change because they oversee its implementation and consolidation in a parituclar part of the organisation.

It is important that managers are able to handle the extra people and project demands that change generates. They have to have their skills reinforced so the organisation can entrust them with decision-making delegations to resolve issues to facilitate the implementation of the change.

Executives are the CEO's team who are responsible for coordinating and leading performance across the whole organisation. Typically they have a portfolio of responsibilities and sometimes they mistakenly act like managers. Their role is to cooperate to make sure the CEO's goals are realised, rather than success as it is interpreted from one part of the organisation.

Executives must put the change at the top of their agenda and build coalitions of leaders and change agents to advance the change. The must go beyond their normal practice, stretching their efforts to make the change real. They must link their performance outcomes to the change outcomes and promote and communicate the purpose and details of the change whenever they can.

Communication is the vital link between the practical steps of change and the people involved. All communication must err on the side of sufficiency rather than inadequacy. Its role is to inject certainty to uncertain times.

Communication happens at many different levels, from formal CEO communiques to intense conversations between supervisors andd their teams. The quality of communication can make or break the uptake of the change across an organisation.

Actions for change addresses those actions linked to roles that come into existance for the purpose of the change and are not typically a part of the ongoing management or operational roles of the organisations. Most often this represents the actions of a project team.

Clearly every role in the organisation can be required to do additional actions during a change. These are covered in the other layers as well as this one. However this layer focuses specifically on these project or short lived role responsibilities.

Virtually no change takes place without normal business operations continuing. Teams have to continue to produce and serve customers, even while their produces, services, systems and procedures are changing.

This layer focuses on the considerations required to keep the business of the organisation functioning throughout the change.