Change Roadmap
Change Roadmap
After the leadership team confirms the vision and end state of the change, they then determine the route. The development of the change roadmap fleshes out the change timeline while providing the intricate details to the project. Ideally, this roadmap is built with the leadership team that can adequately represent the stakeholders.
Involving the leadership team requires commitment, a shared vision, and a skillful facilitator to keep the team engaged. There are numerous technology platforms that the facilitator can apply during the roadmap session. For simplicity, the post-it-note method will be described. The exercise starts with mapping the beginning and endpoint of the change project. Next, the team will identify each milestone or major accomplishment needed to achieve the change. Using a single note for each event the timeline starts to take shape.
Milestones
After the milestones become identified, the team can breakdown all the specific actions to complete each milestone. The conclusion of this activity is not only a change roadmap but the entire action plan for the project. The completed map can then be used as a stimulus to then think through the more complex aspects of the change.
Using the change roadmap as a visual, the change team can more easily spot issues. Flashpoints, where the change can get derailed, are highlighted in red. Flashpoints are key junctures in the project where the workforce can turn on you, they represent the overall worst things that could happen during the change event. Additionally, risks are highlighted in orange. Risks are classified as events where something could go wrong or taken the wrong way by the workforce.
Risk analysis mapping helps the change team understand the implications of the change and conceptualize the worst that can happen. This also provides the foresight to be able to mitigate the risks by adding actions to eliminate them. Lastly, this activity provides a future analysis of what to give special attention to over the period of the change.
Why Map
The art form of creating a change roadmap can appear as tedious or unnecessary. However, those comments come from the lazy or overconfident that cannot find the value in co-creation. The roadmap provides the teams with clarity on what will happen. Detailing a linear visual that helps with conceptualizing the complex interactions the change creates. Additionally, it helps explain to other stakeholders what will be happening outside of their domains and leads to the building of the change coalition. Lastly, the activity helps engage the leadership team in the importance of simulating the experience.
The change will have a direct impact on the organization. It will also have secondary and tertiary impacts that are unknown or not on the top of mind and easily overlooked. Lastly, the mapping exercise helps understand 2nd and 3rd order impacts and address them early or prevents them altogether.
Successful change management is based on the excellent execution of risk mitigation. By knowing impacts before they occur gives an advantage to the change initiator. By preparing for poor outcomes, eliminating risks, and mitigating potential derailments they increase their odds of the change succeeding.
Players Roles & Responsibilities
Change Champion
- Assembles the leadership team
- Emphasizes the importance of ...Rest of the Article