Change has always been hard. But now, change has become a constant. Market disruptions, shifting consumer preferences, and technological advancements are pushing companies to evolve and adapt faster than ever before. This means the ability to lead your employees through change is paramount to success.
To thrive in change, organizations must first understand the opportunities or gaps within their current change management processes and structures. This current state review and assessment provides the necessary data for organizations to identify strengths and zoom in on opportunity areas to build a desired future state. It’s like a microscope, increasing the resolution on any one element provides greater clarity. To help organizations evaluate and build their change management capability, many are looking to define their current change maturity through a change maturity assessment. With an objective view of where your organization sits on the change maturity spectrum, you can now start to plan how to fill the gaps between your current state and your future state maturity goals.
Change Maturity Model and Assessment
A change maturity model is a framework that describes the levels of change maturity; identifying how well an organization performs and integrates change management best practices into organizational projects.
A change maturity assessment is used to evaluate and measure an organization’s current state change capabilities and provides a recommendation roadmap to guide decisions regarding what actions and activities organizations can take to improve your change capability.
Understanding the current level of change maturity allows the organization to appreciate areas of strength and develop plans for maturing opportunity areas. Why do this at all? Studies show organizations with high change maturity can more quickly and efficiently to adopt new systems, processes, and cultural transformations. They are also more readily able to adapt to shifting industry trends and the emergence of innovative technologies.
Key Areas to Measure
In our 16+ years of change management consultancy experience, we have defined three key focus areas to consider measuring when creating a successful change management program: Organizational Alignment, Governance and Standards, and Effective Application.
Organizational Alignment
PURPOSE: Helps the organization understand how well change management is aligned and integrated in various functions and processes.
APPLICATION: In this focus area, we consider the organization’s understanding of change management, integration with project management, the level of change partnership among the leadership team, and how the impacts of these combined alignment areas influence leadership decision making.
Governance and Standards
PURPOSE: Within this focus area, the goal is to understand how well the change management governance model is developed and the standards of practice are implemented within the organization.
APPLICATION: Here we account for how the change portfolio is established within the organization and how this intake is used to allocate proper change resourcing. It also focuses on the level of adoption of a change approach and the standardization of communications and training within the approach.
Effective Application
PURPOSE: It is imperative to also consider how well the organization is applying the change management governance and standards of practice, as well as how the organization uses change metrics to drive support and adoption.
APPLICATION: In this focus area, we measure the competency level of the change team, the effectiveness of the leadership alignment, how change saturation is being monitored, and if change metrics are being used to make the best change decisions.
Realistic and Achievable Roadmap
Once you have completed your change maturity assessment, it will be possible to develop a roadmap for building out your change capability even further. During the roadmap phase, you will want to ask yourself two questions to get started:
1. What level of change maturity is needed to reach your current change capability goals?
2. How much time do you believe it will take to reach your goal maturity level?
While achieving an advanced level of change maturity should be your ultimate goal, it is important to take a realistic view on what will be achievable in the short, medium, and long term and build your roadmap appropriately. Organizations with a change maturity level of Absent will not be able to jump and become an Advanced organization overnight. Moving from Absent to Emerging requires planning and documentation. Transitioning from Emerging to Proficient is usually about creating consistency. Moving from Proficient to Advanced will take longer as this usually represents a substantial culture shift for most organizations.
Developing your change capability is a change project in itself and should be approached as such. This means having the patience to carefully manage your change maturity roadmap and track your progress milestone by milestone. Monitoring your progress includes setting up and conducting additional change maturity assessments and adjusting your goals as needed.
When you are ready to start your change maturity journey, reach out to our Avaap Change Team to learn more about the Avaap Change Maturity Assessment and Recommendation Roadmap.
Carrie King is a Practice Vice President at Avaap with more than 20 years of experience in change management strategy, design, and execution. Carrie has worked with a variety of industry leading companies on everything from software implementations to cultural transformations. Her passion for helping others understand and build their change maturity has led to the development of several assessment tools and training workshops that support clients in their quest to be self-sufficient in their change endeavors.