Question

The course material lists the four stages of change management as: Diagnostic; Action Planning; Implementation/Intervention stage; and, Assessment/Evaluation.

Discuss which of these stages you believe would be the most difficult to adopt or apply, and why?

Word limit is 300 word

Answer 1

I believe, out of all these stages, Action Planning is the most crucial stage of the change management because if Planning goes wrong, the execution of the same certainly fails and evaluation would also point out the same error that is the error of ‘Faulty action planning’ itself.

In general, Planning is a process of working upon various types of ways that could help achieve a desirable outcome and accordingly, design the actions required to be taken to achieve the same along with the estimation of the resources that could be employed for the purpose and the preparation of overall time-frame to ensure the timely achievement of the objectives. Planning is important to the Organization because it is all-pervasive. Planning is necessary across all the Departments of an Organization.

It is to be noted that the Change programs cannot be successfully implemented in the Organization if the people by whom the change is expected to be undertaken, do not support the idea of the change management programs and show resistance towards implementation of the same thereby making the change programs ineffective. The resistance to change is a natural phenomena which is observed in human beings and therefore most change programs also fail due to this very reason. Also, the Change Management is a challenge by itself because Organizations often find it difficult to be effective in a turbulent environment while still maintaining its ethical core. In such a case, the role of Action Planning is extremely critical. If the Plan is consciously built, that can certainly guarantee the better chances of its success.

Thus, it could be aptly concluded that owing to the dynamic and versatile nature of Planning, Action Planning in Change management scenario is very significant.