Change management

Name the people who have to work differently, and the date.

Change consultants are hired beside a system go-live or a restructure, often too late. Write the engagement as who is told what, by whom, before that date, and what 'ready' means for the people doing the work.

Who has to work differently, and on what date

The date is the point. A go-live, a merger Monday, the week the old system is switched off. If the client does not have a date, say that finding one is the first product of the work, because a change plan without a date is a newsletter. Put the date they do have into the timeline field and work backwards from it in the proposal.

Name the groups. Dispatchers, ward clerks, the finance assistants who will hate the new codes. 'All staff' is not a group you can prepare. Each group needs a different sentence about what changes in their Tuesday.

Ready means a person, not a percentage

Avoid readiness scores. Say that a named role can complete the new task without the project team sitting beside them, and that you will watch them do it. Managers hear '80% ready' and feel comforted. The first morning after go-live does not care about the percentage.

You are not the project manager, the trainer of every module, and the executive sponsor. Say which of those seats already exist. Change work that quietly becomes the only adult in the program will be blamed for the software, the data, and the sponsor's absence.