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Relationship to Strategic Planning Change is initiated at many levels, yet a critical, natural link exists between strategic planning processes and change management. Strategic planning establishes a vision, and its component activities determine the future state and ongoing organizational changes...

Relationship to Strategic Planning Change is initiated at many levels, yet a critical, natural link exists between strategic planning processes and change management. Strategic planning establishes a vision, and its component activities determine the future state and ongoing organizational changes required to successfully operationalize and sustain it. Change management drives individual and collective adoption, thus ensuring achievement of expected benefits and return on investment. The vision, a leading component of strategic planning, is an aspirational and future-focused statement that typically describes why the change is needed and what the future state will be like and sometimes includes the risks to the organization if the change is not successful. The vision statement creates the initial and foundational link between strategic planning and change management because it: Provides clarity of direction and focus for the organization and stakeholders Identifies high-level results and expected benefits to be achieved Sets the stage for leaders to align stakeholders to a common plan Acts as a guide for decision making, communications, and engagement Successful changes require leaders to articulate a consistent, achievable, inspiring, and easily understood vision that guides the organization to measurable achievement of expected benefits. 4.3 Types of Organizational Change Types of organizational change and change definitions are almost infinite. Defining a change by the name of a project, a new systems initiative, process redesign, acquisition, policy, or procedure update is often incomplete. A change definition must be based on an analysis of a number of change variables that can differ from one change to the next, including technological complexity, number and type of impacted stakeholder groups, degree of process change, amount of structural adjustment, physical relocations, benefit or compensation impacts, workforce adjustments, speed of implementation, degree of job role change, and geographic dispersion. However, what makes each change truly unique is that it affects individuals and organizations with unique value systems, cultural norms, histories, experiences with past changes, leadership styles, and levels of competency in managing change. Two components comprise the basis of a change definition and risk assessment that leads to the appropriate scaling of change management effort, time, and resources: an analysis of change variables providing insight on its size and complexity and an assessment of the organization delivering insight regarding culture and readiness. All changes within an organization, not only large disruptive project changes with approved funding, dedicated resources, and project charters driven by strategic planning, can be assessed on these two components. Small changes with minimal impacts that do not flow through normal project governance processes and everything in between can be assessed on these components as well. Change management is not a one-size-fits-all approach and can be scaled to fit any organizational change.