Who Needs to Know Your Change Management Methodology?
How effective can a change management methodology be if only a few people are aware of it?
We raise this question because we often see clients who are working on large-scale, complex transformational change but who only plan to educate a chosen few in the change management methodology.
If the goal of a change management methodology is to have that methodology guide you on what to do, when to do it, and how to monitor if it is successful, it stands to reason that there are several audiences that need to have some level of awareness and education-- and inter-action with the methodology. When we apply our proprietary Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM) on our clients' transformational and other types of change, we build a readiness plan that segments education 1) by role and 2) by what the audience needs to know and do in order to carry out that role. 
This is one element of what we mean when we say that the change management methodology should be applied in a "fit for purpose" way.
For example, we might breakdown the key stakeholder audiences as follows:
- Executives
- Senior Leadership Team
- Directors
- Managers
- Agents, PMO, IT
- Associates
Each of these audiences will differ in terms of how they will use and inter-act with AIM in terms of:
- Knowledge of the implementation strategy and structure
- Knowledge of the elements and principles of AIM
- Knowledge about sponsorship
- Knowledge about key deliverables such as the business case for action, key role map analysis, from-to analysis, and the identified human behaviors in the future state that must be reinforced for adoption of the change
- Formal training required
- Tactics for implementing
Taking this a step further, here is an example of what Senior Leadership Team members might need to be knowledgeable about regarding the implementation strategy and structure of a transformational change:
- underlying assumptions
- the business value of the transformational change
- how the governance influences and interacts with their role
Managers might only need to be knowledgeable about:
- how they will deploy the change
- the rationale for the change
Regardless of the specifics, the point is that there are many audiences that need some level of awareness of your change management methodology from an applied perspective. If your methodology only provides theoretical guidance but no operational direction, it will be of limited value in the real world of strategy execution.
