Key Points

A change measurement plan is essential to ensure you don’t just talk about the results you will achieve through an organizational change, but you actually achieve them.
When developing your plan, be realistic about the time and effort you can invest in data collection and analysis. It’s often a good idea to focus on a few key measures.
Your plan should include how you will monitor and discuss progress towards your goals. Research indicates it’s as important to overall performance as setting goals in the first place.

What is a change measurement plan?

In order to assess the results of your organizational change, you need to define what you mean by change success. That starts with identifying goals in key areas such as completion, achievement, and acceptability. While this is an important step in evaluating the impact of your change effort, by itself it is insufficient. In order to make measurement happen for your next organizational change, you need a plan and all the good thinking that goes into developing it.

The change measurement plan should include:

The goals, measures, and targets for the three dimensions of change success
The data source for specific measures (e.g., report, survey, observation)
When you'll collect the data (i.e., specific dates)
Who will do it (e.g., capture, format, analysis)
How and when the data will be used for monitoring or reporting (e.g., review date and audience)

Identify goals, measures, and targets

Goals, measures, metrics, indicators — people use a lot of different terms when speaking about measurement. If your organization has an established language for measurement, use it. Below I explain the language I use.

I use “goal" or "goal statement” to refer to what you want to achieve regarding outputs or outcomes (e.g., increased quality).
I use “measure” to indicate the types of information you’ll use to evaluate progress towards the goal (e.g., the number of complaints; the number of corrections; user satisfaction rating).
I use “target” to indicate how much progress you want to see (e.g., 10% increase from baseline in six months; 15% cumulative improvement from baseline in one year).

Some people wrap all of these into a single statement, which is fine. I find it useful to separate them to ensure each element is included, monitored, and measured appropriately.

Regardless of how you do, the examples below illustrate why it’s important to include each of these elements.

For example, quality communication is a reasonable goal, but it’s better if you define what you mean by quality. Measures spell out the definition. Targets help you set expectations for how much of an improvement you are aiming for and in what amount of time.

You can use more than a single measure and target for each goal if needed. Optimally, aim for the least number of measures possible — you are aiming to home in on the few measures that best reflect quality for your organization.

Be realistic about data sources and collection

When developing measures, it’s important to consider where and how you will get the data used to evaluate those measures. It’s easy to dream up measures for which you have no data — the trick is to find data sources that already exist or are relatively easy to develop.

Keep the following in mind:

When identifying measures, consider the amount of effort involved in collecting relevant data. Ask yourself, is the juice worth the squeeze?
Use existing data sources where possible. You may find the information you need in legacy surveys, automated reports, or be able to gather data through established meetings.
Plan ahead and assign responsibility. In my experience, it’s important to be explicit about how data collection will be done and by whom. If you need to pull system data on the 30th of each month, you’ll need to assign someone to do this. Likewise, with “before” surveys or collecting baseline data. You only get one chance to collect this type of data, don’t miss it.

Prepare to monitor your progress

Goal monitoring is essential for effective change measurement. Monitoring is basically how you keep tabs on what’s going well and what’s not. There is clear evidence from academic research that monitoring progress towards goals is as important to overall performance as setting goals.

Monitoring progress can be integrated into various aspects of the change effort. Aim to integrate it into existing structures as possible, rather than creating something new. Some other tips include:

Assign responsibility for key measures to specific individuals to ensure there is a clear go-to person for progress updates and someone who can identify issues early on.
Integrate monitoring into existing meetings of your team, workgroup, or governance body on a pre-defined schedule. Ensure sufficient time is allowed to discuss progress and identify needed improvements.

Send progress updates on a consistent schedule to the sponsor and other key decision-makers.
Integrate messages about progress into communications to key stakeholder groups (adjust messages as necessary to be appropriate for the audience.) People are interested to know how their efforts to change are translating into increase performance for the team or organization.
Use progress to date to inform coaching and ongoing training efforts to help staff successfully adopt the change and perform new behaviors.
Leadership can use monitoring as a means to show commitment to the effort, by asking questions, providing feedback, and assisting in troubleshooting.

Make your measurement actionable

Make the most of monitoring and reporting by helping people to understand the data they are looking at, and potential actions to take in response. Before sharing the data you have collected with others, be sure you have analyzed it and can highlight the most actionable items.

Consider questions such as:

What does it mean? Why does it matter?

Is it good? Is it bad? What patterns do you see?

What have you achieved? What have you learned?

What trends do you see in progress over time?
What interim achievements do you want to highlight?

What key questions must be answered?

Are there any unexpected issues that must be addressed?
Do data reflect a different reality than was anticipated — are adjustments to the plan required?

What are the options for action?

Why might this be happening? Based on that, what options are there for making improvements?

References

Battilana, J., Gilmartin, M., Sengul, M., Pache, A. C., & Alexander, J. A. (2010). Leadership competencies for implementing planned organizational change. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(3), 422-438.

Harkin, Benjamin, Thomas L. Webb, Betty P. I. Chang, Andrew Prestwich, Mark Conner, Ian Kellar, Yael Benn, and Paschal Sheeran. "Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence." Psychological Bulletin 142.2 (2016): 198-229. Web. May 2017.

Locke, Edwin A., and Gary P. Latham. "Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey." American Psychologist 57.9 (2002): 705.

Miller, Susan, (1997)“Implementing Strategic Decisions: Four Key Success Factors.” Organization Studies. 18, pp. 577-602. Note: The findings of this research are based on a small number of case studies (11 decisions in 6 organizations.)