Change management refers to how change and development is managed within a business. There are many types of change, and reasons for it, that a company might pursue. Technology has become one of the biggest drivers of change, as well as a significant aid to the change process. It can be both the cause for, and a way to smooth, a change project.
We have created a change management white paper, Overcoming resistance to change: implementing new technology. It has been written with skills and employability providers in mind, as they seek to adopt new technologies to future-proof their organisations. The paper covers:
Introduction to change management
Change will always cause some form of resistance. But some organisational changes may be more challenging for employees to accept. If the change being pursued is likely to cause a strong resistance, the best place to begin is probably Lewin’s Force Field Analysis, which supports the creation of a clear picture of the scale of resistance to, and the leverage management teams have to demonstrate benefits of, the change being pursued. However, before getting started it is first helpful to understand how and why humans react to, and process, change in the way they do (and how to influence that behaviour).
Behavioural science
An insight in to some of the key heuristics to take into account when planning organisational change, including representativeness, availability, simulation, negative bias, and anchoring. The paper also takes you through Kubler-Ross’s Change Curve.
Approaches to change management
There are numerous models for how to approach change management. Many share common ingredients; it is the perspective or level on which they operate that tends to differ. It is therefore worthwhile for organisations undertaking a significant change project to take the time to consider which approach is most suitable for them. The paper introduces you to some of the most frequently used and well respected.
Case studies for change: implementing a new technology
Aptem customers share their own change management experiences – from across the training provider, university and college sectors.
Implementing change
Change management has been around since the 1980s and many of the models we use are largely the same as they were then. The tools at our disposal, however, have come a long way. Once the framework, overarching aims and principles for a project have been defined, the next stage is project planning. In this section, the paper explores how technology can support the smooth running of the change process.
Universal factors for successful change management
When assessing which is most suitable for any given project, it’s important to take into consideration the purpose of the change, the scale (i.e. the size of the company and how much of the business it will affect), and the budget available to support the change process. The specific frameworks explored in our paper provide a structure to guide the measurements for success, and determine whether change is best approached from an organisational, or at an individual, level. But for all their differences, there are key similarities across these change models that should be taken into account when designing any change process.
How you start will be a key indicator of success
As a driver for change, technology can be a nebulous thing for non-experts to grasp (non-experts here meaning people that are not close to the use case for the technology being introduced). Which means it can be tough to get to the point of beginning a change project. Henry Cohen, Change Professional, advised that, “the only way to make technology change successful is to embed it in a business change.”
