$1.$ Preparing for change

The first phase in Prosci's methodology helps change and project teams prepare for designing their change management plans. It answers these questions:

"How much change management does this project need?"

$$Who is impacted by this initiative and in what ways?$$

$$Who are the sponsors we need to be involved to make this initiative successful?$$

The first phase provides the situational awareness that is critical for creating effective change management plans. The outputs of this phase are:

Change characteristics profile

This provides insight into the change at hand, its size, scope and impact.

Organizational attributes profile

This gives a view of the organization and groups that are being impacted and any specific attributes that may contribute to challenges when changing.

Change management team structure

This structure defines how many change management resources are needed for the effort and where they are positioned in relationship to the project team and project sponsor

Sponsor assessment, structure and roles

This provides an understanding of the leaders across the organization who will need to act as sponsors of the change. Here we also identify possible challenges with certain leaders and start to formulate plans to get those leaders on board and actively sponsoring the change.

Impact assessment

This assessment identifies the groups of individuals being impacted by the change, in what ways they are being impacted, and unique challenges you may face with this group in the project.

Change management strategy

Based on the assessments in this phase, a strategy that scales the change management effort to align with the type and size of the change is articulated.