Change Strategy Document

Towards the end of this initial stage, the conclusions of the appraisal are summarised in a Change Strategy Document.

This is often a key decision point in any change programme since it is at this point that the organisation becomes committed (possibly irrevocably) to the change. After this point it becomes more and more difficult to halt the change programme.

Because of that, it is important that the Change Strategy Document is a fair, broad and honest report evaluating the situation and proposing changes, rather than simply selling the ideas.

The document should cover:

The Change Outcomes - what the Changes should aim to deliver.
What the outcome of the changes should be and what they should deliver to the key stakeholders of the organisation. It should outline the final end result to be achieved and the key change issues to be addressed.
Summary of Benefits & Costs
A summary of the key benefits arising from the changes and the key costs. Not just in terms of money but also other factors such as disruption, lost productivity, performance, flexibility etc.
Proposed Changes
A description of what changes are proposed and how they should be introduced.
A top-level plan
Showing the proposed sequence and timing of the changes.
The Change Organisation. A description of the proposed organisation for introducing the changes.
- Will there be an overall project or transition manager and if so who should it be?
- Will there be a Change or Project Team and if so who should be on it?
- What support organisations (help desks etc) should their be?
- Should steering groups, user groups, or stakeholder groups be established?
- What role should line management play?
- (see Manage the Transition under Implementing Change)
Risks and Implementation Issues.
The sort of things that may go wrong together with proposal for avoiding them.
Appendix - Key Analyses
Summary of the conclusions of the analyses used to arrive at the key change issues.

This document is in fact very similar to the Project Scoping Report described in our Project Management Guide. A process for developing such a report is described in the section there on Scoping a Project.