Change is an inevitable part of running a successful organization. As your work grows and shifts, it’s important to manage that change wisely. A change management system gathers ideas, plans, and priorities for change, and structures it all into a standardized process.
It’s a system with benefits for businesses and organizations of all sizes and types, allowing for improvement without confusion or risk. We believe a strong change management system is vital for every group, with benefits for all.
1. Efficient and Informed Change
With a change management process and system in place, your business isn’t left scrambling to enact these changes and deal with their impacts right before you implement the shifts. Instead, the entire process begins when you approve the change, well in advance, so you can implement shifts in what you do in a controlled, efficient manner.
Doing this early means your organization is better able to govern change, planning and prioritizing the work with enough time and advanced forecasting that you should be able to avoid unnecessary delays and reworking.
2. Risk Management
Prioritizing and categorizing changes also means your business can efficiently examine what changes are the riskiest, dedicating the appropriate amount of time for a robust approval where it’s needed without wasting too much time on low-risk changes.
On a larger scale, your entire organization and its success face risk when change is managed poorly. A change management system mitigates that by giving your business a framework to follow.
3. Cost Savings
When change is managed badly, it can be costly, with wasted time, wasted resources, and frustrated users who cannot get what they are expecting from your organization. Any time you have to delay or rework a project thanks to poor change management, it is money spent that could have been avoided. You also lose productivity and morale, and may come to be known as an organization that doesn’t do change well.
With a change management system in place, your organization’s changes are controlled, managed, and efficient, ultimately leading to cost savings.
4. Stable Service for Users
If there’s anyone who fears change more than an organization’s internal staff, it just might be its end users. Your end users are those most effected by poorly implemented change. If your organization isn’t handling change well, your users will experience frustration and an unstable experience, whether it’s because of outages, delays, or promises that fail to materialize.
Managing change means providing stable service for your users, which takes the sting of change away and can even make it exciting, as you’re able to promote why change will be good for your users and back that up with results.
5. Improved Communications
While a change management system works to mitigate risk and delay as much as possible, sometimes there are inevitable issues your organization cannot avoid. With a system in place, however, it’s easier to foresee complications and communicate the potential for issues to staff, users, and stakeholders.
6. Metrics Captured
A change management system allows your organization to record and track every change you make, and every step toward that change. That, in turn, allows for evaluating those changes and steps, and reviewing them to see what worked well and what could be improved.
It’s generally a good idea to conduct a review on the metrics of change when a project is less than successful, or when implementing a high risk or emergency change. But, if you don’t have a standardized change management system recording valuable metrics and information, you will be left guessing or back-tracking to understand what happened. Make it simple with a change management system.
7. Organizational Improvement
If change is inevitable, then it shouldn’t actually be scary. People tend to fear change because it seems uncontrollable and nebulous. You can improve your entire organizational attitude toward change by demystifying it and streamlining it, using a change management system. Through all of the benefits outlined above, change is no longer mysterious or overwhelming. Your staff will see the value of change, and be able to prepare for and implement change easily.
This again improves your organization, as you can remain competitive and successful as you move into the future confidently. Your staff will see the ability to change as an important priority for the company and for themselves individually, and know that it’s doable.
GroupLink Corporation’s change management module and process is an integral part of a powerful ITSM/ITIL system. As always, GroupLink is your organization’s partner in increasing your revenue, managing customer relationships, and delivering excellent customer service.
We’re pleased to discuss our products and how they can improve your organization, including your change management processes. Get in touch with us with our convenient online form, call us at (801) 742-8386, or email us at info@grouplink.net to speak with our sales team.