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The Change Playbook is a guide to implementing organizational changes and specific tactical actions make those changes reality. A Move, in the Change Playbook, is a very discrete and specific action (maybe made up of several steps) to be executed to achieve a very narrow intention. The defining feature of a Move is that it can be very clearly described and done to move ahead.
What follows is The Change Playbook’s complete list of specific tactical plans and tactical actions to support change management activities known as Moves. These tactics are step-by-step action guides to achieve narrow and specific objectives. Strung together in a Play or á là carte, these action plans will get even the most novice change manager or leader off to a fast start.
As the final review prior to development, this activity is to confirm or adjust messaging both for stand-alone communication and support for other change management elements so they remain in harmony with the project change, the behaviour changes required, and overall project goals as they may have evolved.
The activity is the creation, development, production, and distribution of a testimonial communication.
This activity is to satisfy basic coach capability training needs so they can fulfill the role successfully within this limited situation.
This activity is to help understand critical success factors for behaviour adjustment of identified individuals/teams. These insights illuminate the strengths and weaknesses, traps and pitfalls of "how" the change is imposed and managed.
This activity—echoed just prior to launch—makes a general assessment of whether the project, the organization, the people, and the change management team are prepared and ready to get into the coming change.
This activity is the structured transition of responsibility and accountability for outcome metrics to the previously determined operational authority.
This activity is to arrange, conduct, and capture results of a post mortem on the project's change management efforts.
This action is to produce a formal change management-specific lessons learned report and record for the project.
This activity is the structured transition of responsibility and accountability for outcome metrics to the previously determined operational authority.
This activity is a review and re-assessment in light of any project or organizational changes and evolutions. Because the project itself should be monitoring risks, this assessment should focus on the change management (adoption) targets and expectations.
This activity is about identifying and registering specific individuals and/or roles that will benefit from, are able to use, or need to know the state of adoption (change management efficacy) and solution performance metrics.
This activity is to review, test, and approve job aids planned and created for the project (e.g., cheat sheets, macros, manual and references, etc.).
This activity is a bridge between confirming coaches and formally training them as planned. It provides identified coaches and line managers with (a) more detail about the expectations of them and (b) specifics of how they will be prepared and what they will be trained to do.
This activity is the implementation of the pre-launch training program as planned to impart the specific knowledge and ability on impacted employees need for post-change behaviour.
This activity is to finalize development so job aids are ready to release. It is valid if job aids are part of the change management program and earlier review of the work product indicated deficiencies (or they were simply incomplete).
This activity is to confirm that the project, the organization, the people, and the change management team are all ready for the fast-approaching change. This reassessment is done both as a point-in-time status as well as a comparison to the baseline to indicate and track progress.
This activity is about exposing original or additional training tools and using outreach to encourage impacted people to reference these materials as much as necessary to ingrain the change(s).
This activity is to reignite key supporters and influencers to begin performing their support roles for the change effort.
This activity is relevant to all materials that communicate in some way regardless of medium though the Move is geared toward communication material, meaning planned messages to specific recipients by email, etc.
This activity is to schedule proactive coaching sessions if they have been planned.
This activity is the deployment of sessions for a coach to personally train employees through the extended transition from old to new.
This activity is to conduct a session with coaches, after they have had experience coaching impacted people, to discuss that experience and evaluate (in)effectiveness, with the goal to correct it now and improve for the future.
This activity is to revisit and revise the coaching program as necessary, including method and message, support materials, and coach the coach training.
This activity is the identification and securing of an impacted person to "testify" on behalf of the project in favour of the change.
This activity is to deliver the first performance metrics report(s) to targeted stakeholders.
This activity repeats delivery of performance metrics reports to targeted stakeholders.
This activity is creation development, production, and distribution of a promotional success story.
This activity is to prepare all elements of the coaching program required for peer coaches to perform. It includes method and message, support materials, and a coach the coach training session.
This activity is about creating and readying the content needed to train impacted people. In planning, we should have included all means of transmitting knowledge and skill, notably actual lessons as well as job aids, the Move is focused on the lessons.
This activity is about the creation and production of any job aids specified in the training plan.
This activity is to finalize data sources, data manipulation, and report generation/distribution. This includes identifying the types/groups to get reports, how reports will be provided/presented, how they will be held/maintained, and what expectations to give recipients for addressing information in the reports.
This activity is to execute production of identified and developed communication materials and deliverables. This work may happen either up front or as needed, prior to a communication being released.
This activity is to review and ensure the training program—material and planned activities—is on a path to success and value. A training program should be in progress on its schedule, so evaluation should first consider whether its status is as expected.
This activity is to revisit the resistance and risks that were developed in Moves during the Prepare step.
This activity is to specifically identify and recruit relevant coaches for impacted individuals.
This activity is to review the coaching program and material in its entirety prior to final development and testing. The goal for the project and change managers, and any other interested stakeholders is to ensure the coaching approach and material is on-target for every identified role, can be completed, and will be ready to test in a "dress rehearsal" at the specified time.
This activity is a review and "go" point for finalizing the capabilities to execute on performance metrics. It applies to the change management (adoption) metrics and may also apply to the underlying solution metrics as well.
Whether the requirement is ground-up development or application of an existing format, this activity is to finalize the look, feel, and expected content of performance report(s) and corresponding analytics—if any—to be distributed.
This activity is to now determine and provide the starting point and goals for performance measurement.
This activity is to secure test groups.
This activity is to provide coaches with a(nother) welcome and thanks, to remind them of the importance of the role and why they were selected, and to provide a detailed briefing on their assignment.
This activity is to trial the various training programs and formats on targeted individuals/roles, including material for coaches.
This activity is to test the efficacy of the coaching method(s) and materials in practice. We presume the coaching methods are not novel (i.e., are proven), so this test is really of how well the specific content is registering with employees.
This activity is to schedule the delivery of the training program to impacted personnel.
This activity is to understand and contextualize project changes to support defining of behaviour/attitude shifts needed to achieve the project goal. The objective is crystal clear expected, specific changes (i.e., behaviour shifts, attitude adjustments) down to an actionable level.
This activity is to identify and account for every specific individual (usually in the form of "roles") that will have to make a change to what (s)he does. Because every role is likely to be affected differently, the objective is to expose specific changes required of specific roles and map them to the overall goals and measures applied to the project.
This activity is to determine and document the measurements by which both the project's implementation and the change implementation will be gauged. Metrics include both the resulting improvements and performance of change implementation.
This activity is to detail more completely and expand on the individual behaviour changes started earlier. The focus is to fully understand and anticipate precisely how individual behaviours will have to be adjusted or reprogrammed to conform to the larger change needs, and to anticipate/document high-probability approaches to adoption by the various target individuals.
This activity is to adjust understandings both about the solution and the roles impacted assuming they may have evolved from the original or any earlier assessment. The goal is to stay on target about specific changes to be made and the specific roles to make those changes.
This activity identifies possible reasons and modes of resistance. The output is a robust list of possible resistance and corresponding prepared responses.
This activity is to expose specific knowledge and ability training required for identified roles. The objective is to determine the optimal approach to training employees for best effect.
This activity is to explore and identify ways to support and reinforce knowledge and ability training using information generated about behaviour changes for impacted roles.
This activity is to adjust understanding to remain on target about behaviour shifts and attitude adjustments needed, and the specific roles to make those changes. Reconsideration of behaviour change for every role is important as it has to remain precise to properly inform adjustments to training, coaching, and communications.
This activity is to ensure understandable and effective communication of all elements of the change process. The work of this step is to sketch out the broad strokes of what we need or want to get through to those who will be making (behaviour) changes.
This activity is to identify specific individuals among previously identified groups and acquire their contact information.
This activity is to confirm and ensure that direct contact information for all identified individuals is available. Also that the communication paths to the targeted individuals have been identified and will be usable when needed. This activity is relevant for impacted individuals and for coaches/coach recruiting.
This activity develops a specific, multi-target coaching plan that accounts for unique (behaviour) changes and support needs of individuals in distinct roles. The goal is a method and schedule for development of a program to train coaches and establish coaching periods and approaches.
This activity uses output from previous session(s) to set and formally begin development of specific, multi-target training program(s) that account for the unique (behaviour) change needs of distinct roles. The goal is a method and schedule for development of a training program.
This activity is to initiate the work to deliver on the underlying project and change management performance metrics. This means getting data, manipulating the data into information, and reporting that information to those who can use it.
This activity is to develop the plan and schedule for communications both (1) in its own right and (2) in support of the other elements of the change management plan (e.g., training, coaching, sponsorship).
Like all other review Moves, this action is to revisit and affirm previous performance measures by which the change will be gauged, both for the underlying deployment's effect and the change management itself. The review can evaluate progress on practical work as well, if there has been any.
This activity is another review session to update understanding of potential resistance and appropriate measures to address it based on information and insights gathered since initial resistance planning.
This activity is to periodically evaluate training program creation progress with an eye to any adjustment necessitated by new or altered content.
This activity is to periodically evaluate coaching program creation progress with an eye to any adjustment necessitated by new or altered content.