Organisation Assessment
Understanding your organisation and those within it is the first thing that should be thought about when adopting a change. 70% of all organisational change projects fail, a figure that hasn’t altered by much since the ’90s. Why is this, well it’s due to not considering the people that are impacted by the change, and the important role they have. (read: The Truth Behind Why 70% of Organizational Change Projects Are Still Failing )
Therefore, it is vital to recognize how the change will affect the organisation and those within it, as well as how ready for change the organisation is, to gain an idea of the challenges that may be faced during the adoption.
By knowing your organisation's approach to change, and which teams or departments are more willing to adopt said change, tailored plans can be created to best suit the organisation, for example, training and communication plans.
At Simplify Change we have created an organisation assessment that allows the quick identification of the organisation's approach to technology, communication and training preferences along with other key points. This assessment is part of the Build step in our BEE methodology, to prepare and plan, creating the foundations to understand the new changes, in a coherent & consistent way so that it’s achievable.
This assessment gives an initial look into the company, how each individual operates and their personal thoughts, style and preferences are taken into account allowing the creation of more reliable plans.
Five Key Areas
1. Change Maturity
Change maturity is a measure of how your organisation operates and performs in times of change. Looking at the change maturity of an individual helps to understand the change readiness of your organisation, individuals and team. This will improve how the change adoption is managed.
Change maturity is captured in this assessment by establishing the individual’s ease with the amount of change within IT systems and how these changes are managed, implemented and promoted. This gives you an initial overview of what level your company is currently at and how much needs to be implemented for the change maturity to improve.
2. Confidence with Technology
Establishing people’s view on technology will tell you who’s comfortable using it and the percentage of the organisation that is, meaning that you can assess the complexity of the adoption in terms of the organisation’s ability. This then becomes useful as individuals with a particular strength and enjoyment for technology can be highlighted and subsequently engaged to become involved in helping drive the new technology throughout the project.
This section of the assessment reviews an individual’s confidence in technology in relation to their team and the time they are willing to dedicate to learning and discussing the IT products.
3. Communications
Communication is key within any organisation so when rolling out new products, it is no different, but knowing how to communicate to get the best engagement from your colleagues is vital.
This assessment will allow you to gauge an idea of your organisation's preferences when it comes to how and when people like to receive communications, helping to tailor the approach to reduce any unnecessary distractions.
This section asks about the current methods and frequency of communications, what methods they feel comfortable with and whether they’d have the ability to help send out targeted communications.
4. Impact on current ways of working
It is all well and good rolling out a new product but if you don’t know how it will affect your organisation and the priority that it has, there is a chance that the roll-out will be unsuccessful due to the lack of time and willingness imputed by those in the organisation.
This assessment helps to diminish and manage any disruption the launch of the product may have, reducing resistance to adoption.
This assessment looks at how big an impact the project will have on the individual and whether they are comfortable with that. As well as whether they are happy with the planned elements and direction of the project.
5. Training Preference
Training of your organisation is a major part of launching a new IT product, without detailed, targeted training, people will feel lost and resist adopting the change, equally if the training that is provided doesn’t suit your organisation, there will be a lack of attendance, also resulting in resistance of adoption.
So, to combat this, this section focuses on each individual’s training preferences so your organisation can be trained in a way they would like. By looking at their awareness of training options, how they would like to be made aware of these options and the frequency they are likely to take part in them.
