BNET Business Dictionary
Business Definition for: Change Management
- the coordination of a structured period of transition from situation A to situation B in order to achieve lasting change within an organization. Change management can be of varying scope, from continuous improvement, which involves small ongoing changes to existing processes, to radical and substantial change involving organizational strategy. Change management can be reactive or proactive. It can be instigated in reaction to something in an organization's external environment, for example, in the realms of economics, politics, legislation, or competition, or in reaction to something within the processes, structures, people, and events of the organization's internal environment. It may also be instigated as a proactive measure, for example, in anticipation of unfavorable economic conditions in the future. Change management usually follows five steps: recognition of a trigger indicating that change is needed; clarification of the end point, or "where we want to be"; planning how to achieve the change; accomplishment of the transition; and maintenance to ensure the change is lasting. Effective change management involves alterations on a personal level, for example, a shift in attitudes or work routines, and thus personnel management skills such as motivation are vital to successful change. Other important influences on the success of change management include leadership style, communication, and a unified positive attitude to the change among the workforce. Business process reengineering is one type of change management, involving the redesign of processes within an organization to raise performance. Change agents are those people within an organization who are leaders and champions of the change process. With the accelerating pace of change in the business environment in the 1990s and 2000s, change has become accepted as a fact of business life and is the subject of books on management.
Wiktionary Definition for: Change Management
- # computing the controlled implementation of required changes to some system; includes version control and planned fallback
Additional Resources
- The Irrational Side of Change Management
- Most change programs fail, but the odds of success can be greatly improved by taking into account these counterintuitive insights about how employees interpret their environment and choose to act. In 1996, John Kotter published Leading Change. Considered by many to be the seminal work...
- Articles 2009-05-15
- Change Management and Projects
- Change management in the context of this paper is the process of setting, managing and meeting the expectations of stakeholders to ensure project success. It is not about scope control and management of changes to scope, schedule, or quality, although these attributes impact the change management process. These latter types...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- An Overview of Change Management
- Change projects fail more often from lack of effective change management than any other single. Teams that ignore change management cite this as one of the "most important lessons learned" during their project. Teams that use change management techniques have: · Reduced turnover and the loss of valued...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- We Don't Need No Change Management
- Modern non-practical theories on change management, certification-driven quality processes and a maze of change management related guidelines, templates, forms and checklists have made Project Managers often fall into the trap of change denial and customers perceive it as Change Aversion. This was not the intent of "Change Management". Good project...
- White papers 2004-05-01
- Change Management: Best Practices
- This document provides a template for change management that promotes high-availability networks. Specifically, the template provides the critical steps for creating a change management process, a high-level process flow for planned change management, an emergency change process flow, and a general method to evaluate the success of the process. The...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- Awake At The Wheel : Moving Beyond Change Management To Conscious Change Leadership
- From the executive summary: ‘Leading transformation using change management approaches present big challenges. Before the birth of change management, organizational leaders defined their role as determining the destination of change and then delegating the task to someone else. Initially, the process seemed to be a smooth ride. However, when executives...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- Change Management: Implement a Process to Improve Service Delivery
- According to industry analyst firm IDC, 80% of system outages are due to change, making change management a hot-button issue. And the rise of Sarbanes-Oxley, security issues, and customers clamoring for better system reliability is elevating change management into the spotlight for large enterprises and small to midsized enterprises alike....
- White papers 2006-07-21
- Planning Change Management Communication
- Anyone with experience in change management knows that efforts can succeed or fail based on communications. Experience consistently teaches that it's almost impossible to over-communicate when leading change. Not many sources, however, give practical advice on how to build a strategic communications plan for change management. The core message for...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- Change Management - The Systems And Tools For Managing Change
- In today's dynamic business environment, an organization has to perennially manage change. The organization undergoes transition in order to manage change. One of the signs of a healthy organization is the continuous management of change and involvement of the employees in the decision-making process. The change management process consists of...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- About Change Management
- Change management provides a mechanism for obtaining the authority to adopt new scope, time, cost, or quality objectives. The overall objective of change management is achieving a new, agreed-on mandate for the future direction of your project. A lot of things can give you cause to alter your project plan...
- White papers
- Creating And Implementing A Change Management Plan
- Change management is a process that allows companies to effectively implement a change within their organization. But, before you begin trying to implement the intended change, you need to create a change management plan. There are many advantages and disadvantages of change management. You need to decide for yourself if...
- White papers 2009-03-29
- Change Management Basics: Roles in Change Management
- While there are many similarities between project management and change management (both are used to implement successful projects, both use a process, both use a set of prescribed tools), there is one major difference - a project manager applies project management on a project (a single resource can do the...
- White papers
- The Alignment Of Change Management Disciplines
- In the dynamic business environment of today, organizations have to cope up with large number of changes. The changes entail re-structuring of the organizational processes and systems. Change management is the concrete methodology followed by an organization in adapting to an environmental or otherwise change. It involves application of requisite...
- Presentations 2003-01-01
- Measuring For Change Management
- From the executive summary: ‘Change management is especially critical in today's highly decentralized, network-based environment. A key cause of high cost of ownership is the application of changes by those who do not fully understand their implications across the operating environment. Change management deals with ways changes are identified and...
- White papers 2003-05-09
- Change Management - It Starts at the Top
- Change is a common occurrence in business today. Because of this, it is important that one possesses strong management skills if one wants his or her business to be a success. Change management skills include leadership development, marketing and sales abilities to promote case for change, and communication skills (to...
- White papers
- Key Roles in Change Management - Putting the 'Gears' in Motion
- Change management requires each of the 'Gears' in the picture to fulfill their specific role. A change manager can facilitate assessments, create a change management strategy and develop change management plans, but they are not the only ones involved in managed change. This paper presents some key points to remember...
- White papers
- Change Management at Gardenway Inc.
- This paper examines the effect of change management, motivation theory, and performance appraisal techniques upon an organization's competitiveness. Specifically, the effect upon the workforce of organizational policy and processes regarding these areas is analyzed. The theoretical concepts are briefly described, and then applied to the recent events of Gardenway, Inc....
- White papers 2003-01-01
- TIME: The Enduring Change Management Strategy
- The use of time is an enduring change management strategy, but it takes top-down leadership to achieve the corporate cultural change this strategy embodies: the active participation and commitment of leadership is the necessary and sufficient condition for success. Since significant change is dependent upon cultural change, management persistence and...
- White papers 2005-10-10
- Change Management: Quality and Quantity - Does It Have to Be a Trade-Off?
- Quality and quantity are traditionally considered trade-offs - focusing attention and effort on one is at the expense of the other. But this does not have to be the case for software development. This white paper looks at challenges, roles and approaches to change management in the application development life...
- White papers 2003-05-01
- Change Management: A Strategic, Information-Centric Approach
- When change is desired or necessary, the enterprise's information architecture provides a means for determining the impact of the change and a blueprint for speedy implementation of change. An enterprise's information architecture encompasses data and technology. This paper describes the constancy of change, effective change management practices, an infrastructure that...
- White papers 2006-09-04
