The effective management of change is vital in order to generate benefits from outputs. Changes to business as usual will be included in the scope of most projects, programmes and portfolios. There will always be resistance to change and implementing a clearly documented and consistent approach contributes to dealing with this resistance.

Policy

• Introduction

• The generic change management procedure will need to be adapted to the context of the work. Various models for change can be used and these use different techniques. This section should define the context, describe the procedure and define preferred techniques.

• Roles and responsibilities

• Change management will include people within the P3 organisation and people within the business-as-usual organisation. This section should define the responsibilities of all those involved.

• Information management

• Effective communication is key to overcoming resistance to change. This section should explain how information management will be used to prepare and disseminate all types of communication.

• Assurance

• The criteria for successful change management that will be used in any assurance reviews will be described here.

• Budget

• This section should define budgets for the management of change that are held within the overall project, programme or portfolio budget.
  

  There should also be budgets held within business-as-usual that are not included here. These should be identified so that members of the P3 management team can ascertain that all necessary budgets are in place. It also needs to be clear what expenditure is covered by the project, programme or portfolio, and what is covered by business-as-usual so that nothing is underfunded.

• Interfaces

• The way change needs to be managed can impact on P3 schedules, risk registers, communications plans and many other areas. How these cross-references will be managed should be explained here.

Procedure

• Assess

• The preferred mechanisms for assessing the nature of the organisation and its readiness to change are described here. Techniques for implementing change will also be covered.

• At the project level the plan can focus on relatively narrow change. At the programme or portfolio level the plan must take into account the effects of cumulative change and different types of change being implemented by multiple projects on a single area of business-as-usual.

  Prepare
  This section of the change management plan must be carefully integrated with stakeholder management and communications. It will describe how the management team must generate support for change, break down barriers and improve the organisation’s readiness to change.

• Implement

• This section describes how change should be managed. It will include references to stakeholder management and communications during the period of change. It may also describe or link to corporate policy for areas such as redundancy, relocation, recruitment etc.

• Sustain

• For benefits to be continually realised, change must be embedded. This section will describe on-going actions designed to support the changed organisation until such time as the changes cease to be seen as change and are accepted as being the normal way of operating.