Company medical records, accounting data, and employee information are digital, so why not make change management data digital too? We break down how companies can digitize key components of the change management process to more effectively and efficiently lead change.

Most change management consultants have their tried-and-true tools—usually in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, Word document, or PPT presentation—to capture key activities such as Stakeholder Assessment or Change Impact Assessment. This process is often time-consuming and prone to human error!—yet is a necessary step for OCMers to understand and prepare stakeholders for the change ahead. However, what if some of the most tedious components of capturing and manipulating stakeholder and impact data could be automated?

Why not digitize change management?

Companies are digitizing medical records, accounting data, and financial information, so why not change management data digital as well?

While a common way for change management consultants to capture such OCM data is in a formula-filled Excel spreadsheet, you can’t put a data-filled spreadsheet in front of leaders or other stakeholders (without seeing eyes glaze over). As a result, OCMers have to manually create a “pretty” PowerPoint presentation from this spreadsheet data to effectively share the information with others.

“Do we want this in a circle graph, or do we want this in a bar graph?"

"How do we want to categorize the data?”

This wouldn’t be so onerous if it was a one-time assignment; however, it is VERY likely that project changes will occur which require ongoing manual updates to the data in Excel and PowerPoint. With ChangeSync, Stakeholder and Change Impact Assessments, reporting, and visual-representations of the data are created INSTANTANEOUSLY! OCMers can then customize the output of the data based on the audience or objective.

ChangeSync’s tool also removes some of the human error component or re-work that can occur when multiple people are working from a single document. For an OCMer that’s managing a major project or several projects, decreasing manual work and minimizing room for human error are major wins.

All science or still art?

There’s an art and a science to organizational change management and digitization does not take away from that. The art of Change Management is the creative, human component that involves the people side of change. The science is uncovering the hard data behind the people, process, or technology change and adoption.

There is still a critical human component; you still need to bring people together for dialogue and engagement. That’s just the nature of human behavior, but by leveraging technology, we can manage change more efficiently. ChangeSync gives OCMers tools to capture key change management data, allow for seamless updates, and provide customizable reporting—both on an individual project basis, and across all projects for enterprise-wide reporting.

Reports, charts, and visuals speak volumes and can equip change management practitioners to engage leaders and stakeholders in more meaningful and impactful ways—efficiently!

As organizations undergo broad digital transformations, they should consider applying technology to their change management process—making the organizational change management process not only more efficient, but also reportable—and making data-driven change possible!

A heartfelt and special thanks to Erin Abdelnour, Founder and Managing Partner of ChangeStaffing, for chatting with us and collaborating on this blog!

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