Getting clear on the impact of change
An overlooked element when transforming business
No successful organization in the world has ever seen success by staying stagnant. All of them have relied on change to stay relevant in their respective niches and will continue to do so, because as the old adage goes — the only constant in life is change. However, organizational change has both positive and negative impacts, both of which need to be assessed before the changes are put into place.
That’s where change impact assessment or CIA comes in. CIA is a process through which organizations can develop change plans by analyzing the potential impacts of planned changes on stakeholders. While CIA isn’t mandatory for organizational changes to take place, it’s certainly recommended for its risk-mitigating and reward-enhancing aspects.
Read on to know why organizations should use CIA and the elements that should be a part of every CIA process.
Why use CIA?
A CIA’s findings are incredibly important when it comes to the development of strategies concerning project management and change management. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most significant reasons why organizations should use CIA:
Keeping organizational growth at the heart of every change
- Identifying and understanding risks: There’s no such thing as a risk-free organizational change. Simply put, with change come risks, but it’s only when you know what the risks are that you can deal with them. CIA helps organizations to identify the risks that may arise once a change or a set of changes is implemented. Once you identify the potential risks, you can understand them and take the necessary steps to mitigate them.
- Developing strategies for successful implementation of changes: CIA isn’t only about identifying risks. It’s also a handy tool for change management, which is all about developing strategies for implementing planned changes by mitigating potential pitfalls. For example, if an organization wants to expand, there is the infrastructure to build and employees to hire and train. CIA can help organizations pinpoint not just what needs to be done but how it needs to be done as well.
- Keeping organizational growth at the heart of every change: While stagnancy is sure to result in the slow death of an organization, changing things for the sake of change is also not recommended. Ultimately, any change that an organization implements should result in growth. If it doesn’t, then it’s not a change worth making. You may have a number of changes that you want to implement, but performing CIA will ensure that only the changes necessary for organizational growth are made.
When to conduct a CIA
Since the purpose of the CIA is to get clarity on the impact of change on all stakeholders and to develop the right change strategies, the best moment to work on the CIA is right after you have identified the different changes initiatives. That is, once you have defined a desired future (‘to be’)state for your business and are able to see the difference from the current state (‘as is’). You will want to know the impacts and implications on various aspects of the business, like processes, customers, people before deciding on implementation.
Areas to assess impact on:
Once we have identified the change initiative, we will want to know the impact on and implications for various other parts of the business. Because for the change to be succesfull for the long-run, alignment between all parts of the organisation is important.
There are various models or template which can be used here. One populair and extensive model that embodies this alignment and interdepence is the McKinsey 7S model by Peters and Waterman but there are also others to use.
Generally stated, impact should be assessed on organisational structure, process and supporting systems, people and capabilities, organizational culture or shared values and believes, leadership, performance standards and roles and responsibilities.
Elements of CIA
A CIA process has numerous elements, and we’ll go through the most important elements in this section:
- Integrating new tasks with existing tasks: Changes require different parts of an organization to perform new tasks, but that doesn’t mean that existing tasks can go for a toss. One of the most important elements of CIA is to determine the sequence in which the new tasks have to be performed for the planned changes to happen. At the same time, there’s also a lot of emphasis on how to integrate the new tasks with existing tasks without putting excessive pressure on employees.
- Calculating the resources needed for changes to take place: The idea of change is free, but to realize it, an organization needs resources. CIA should include the resource aspect as it helps in calculating the costs involved to make organizational changes go through without hiccups. It also ensures that there is no underspending or overspending.
- Constant communication with stakeholders: No one in an organization likes it when changes are forced on them without any prior notification. That’s why honest and transparent communication is at the core of the CIA process. Simply put, all stakeholders should be aware of what’s going on. There should also be a common platform where the stakeholders can communicate with one another to discuss issues and raise queries. This would ensure that the organization and all those involved in running it are on the same page.
- Mitigation actions: by performing and reviewing a CIA a more detailed set of actions will be formulated to mitigate risks and succesfully change parts of the business. And by involving stakeholders in CIA, a transfer of ownership of these actions from the change team to various stakeholders in an organization, is more easily made.
Final remarks
Whatever you’ve read so far about CIA here may lead to you thinking that the process is a small one and not time-consuming. However, for medium and big-sized organizations, CIA can take a lot of time. Simply put, the bigger the organization, the greater the ripple effect will be of any sort of organizational change. Documentation is a key component of CIA, and documenting things take more time for bigger organizations.
But it is time well spend as it will support you in developing better change strategies, improving stakeholder involvement and finding tailored solutions for perhaps complex situations.
Therefor I’d like to say that since change is an important part of every organization, it’s critical that you don’t overlook the impact of it. As I am curious to learn about your experience, drop me a comment or a question.
Happy changing!
