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How and Why Business Plans Have Changed The fundamentals of business plan writing remain the same, but there are some crucial changes these days that you should keep in mind when crafting your plan.

By Tim Berry Edited by Dan Bova Aug 15, 2013

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

I encountered my first business plan in 1974. I worked on international plans for multinational companies in the 1970s, then on entrepreneurial plans for Silicon Valley startups in the 1980s, and on plans from startups everywhere in the 1990s and throughout this millennium. To this day, I read about 100 business plans a year as a member of a local angel investment group, and a judge of several major international business plan competitions.

The fundamentals of business planning have been remarkably stable for several decades. But the how, how much and even the whys have changed enormously.

The main fundamentals remain the same:

• It's about business and results . The value of a plan is its business impact, the decisions it causes, not its ideas, formatting, writing or appearance. A beautiful plan, unexecuted, is worth nothing. A mediocre plan, well executed, creates business value.
• It's the planning that matters, not the plan. Without regular review and revision, a plan is just, at best, an interesting exercise. It's not a document, it's a process.
• Form follows function. A business plan should be just big enough to cover the business need. It should grow organically. The plan contains only what's required for its business use.
• Planning manages change. Change doesn't negate planning. A well-formed plan connects dots and decisions to improve management and business results as assumptions change.
• Planning isn't accounting. Even though the projections look like accounting statements, the context is completely different. Where accounting needs infinite exact detail, planning is about aggregation and educated guessing.

Related: 10 Questions to Ask if You Want to Create a Winning Business Plan

Still, like so much else in business, planning has changed as the world changes.

• Time spans are shorter. In the old days, a plan might last a few months without revision, but today a plan is obsolete in a few weeks.
• The plans themselves are shorter. Hard as it is to imagine today, there was a time when potential investors wanted to see 75 to 100 page business plans full of validating information. Of course formats depend on the actual context and the business use, but all variations of business plans are shorter now than they once were. Business plans for angel investment are rarely more than 25 pages of text, not counting tables and illustrations and can be as little as 10 or 15 pages of text. In fact, business plans for competitions are often limited to 10 or 15 pages.
• Tools and techniques are different. Good business planning involves collections of components or modules including some texts, bullet points, lists, projections and illustrations. A single business plan might generate a pitch presentation, elevator speech and executive summary as outputs. And most plans stay on a network for easy access, and exist on a network in digital form, rather than on paper. Printouts are obsolete.

Business planning today reflects a rapidly changing world, but it hasn't lost its fundamental purpose since I picked up my first business plan nearly forty years ago.

Related: Why Your Business Could Be Failing Even If You Hit Your Numbers

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Expert Guide to Writing an Effective Change Management Plan

By Diana Ramos | December 22, 2016 (updated July 24, 2023)

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The one thing a business can almost certainly expect is change. A lot of it. Most organizational change happens for one of two reasons: unexpected circumstances or intentional actions implemented to facilitate organizational growth or progress. Whether the change is due to a market influence, a reduction in budget, resource constraints, or expansion, it’s a safe bet that organizational change will affect your business on a fairly regular basis. 

Change management has evolved from simply something that happens in organizations to an entire discipline. This comprehensive guide provides information on how creating a change management plan can help your organization prepare and handle forecasted and unforeseen changes. We’ll also provide direction on writing effective change management plans for managing organizational change, along with best practices and tips from experts in the field. 

Understanding the Change Management Process

Many change management theories, models, and frameworks have been developed based on research and experience. One of these theories is Kotter’s 8-step Change Management Process. World-renowned change expert, John Kotter, outlined this 8-step process for change: create urgency, form a powerful coalition, create a vision for change, communicate the vision, remove obstacles, create short term wins, build on the change, and anchor the change into corporate culture. 

These models or frameworks act as a guide to managing change both personally and within an organization. Most of these models include a supporting process or sequence of steps to move a change from initiation to completion. Within the sequence of steps, there is typically a ‘Planning’ stage where teams create a change management plan to help manage the project tasks and activities. 

Addam Marcotte, Vice President of Organization Development for FMG Leading says, “The one constant in life is change. This is especially true in the business environment with eternally changing conditions. As the world becomes more interconnected, interdependent, and complex, seemingly trivial variables can have profound impact on global markets. Studies have shown that agile organizations, those that can adapt to change rapidly, are more likely to succeed — therefore having competency in organizational change can no longer be a reactionary one-time solution, but is a vital element of organizational strategy. Organizational Change Management is a systematic approach to leading large scale change, from process and org structure to culture and human capital.”

What is a Change Management Plan and Why Do You Need One?

A change management plan helps manage the change process, and also ensures control in budget, schedule, scope, communication, and resources. The change management plan will minimize the impact a change can have on the business, employees, customers, and other important stakeholders.

Marcotte believes that, “Effective organizations are able to handle varying degrees of complex change and quickly pivot and navigate the changing landscape. Deep emergent change can be extremely disruptive and unsettling, whereas intentional incremental change may feel like minor efficiency improvements and largely go unnoticed. All forms and degrees of organizational change need someone leading the journey and continually communicating with employees. It is important to have a comprehensive and integrated change management plan to help clearly articulate organizational strategy, helping people understand ‘why’ the change is critical and what the future state will look and feel like.”

According to Amy Kauffman , Founder of Strategic Moxie, “You need a change management plan because strategy and processes are always perfect in their conception, but as time goes on these elements of business become living, breathing, and changing entities. Change management plans help you remain agile, adapt to challenges along the way, monitor success metrics, and track milestones.”

How to Write a Change Management Plan

There are several steps involved in writing a change management plan. You can get started by using a change management template. We’ve outlined them here and provided some best practices recommended by experts in the field:

1. Demonstrate the reasons for the change.

Kevin Lonergan of PMIS Consulting Limited explains that, “One should never assume that people know why change is needed. Even the blindingly obvious is never obvious to all. Make sure that the reasons for the change effort are clearly defined.” When your stakeholders have a clear understanding of why the change is needed and how it will improve business or the way they work, they are more likely to support rather than resist the change.

2. Determine the scope. The next step in writing the change management plan is determining who the change will affect. Also determine what the change will impact, including policies, processes, job roles, and organizational structure.

3. Identify stakeholders and the change management team. Marcotte explains that the “best practices in change management often include a task force or team who ‘owns’ the organizational change and is empowered to execute it. The composition of this team is extremely important and it must be led by a credible leader.” The change management team interacts with stakeholders, addresses concerns, and oversees a smooth change transition. Roles within the team require clear definition, including outlining each member’s responsibilities. A Change Advisory Board (CAB) may also be established to oversee changes, offering change approvals and guidance. 

4. Clarify the expected benefits. These benefits should be clearly delineated so that everyone involved understands the advantages of proceeding with the change. 

5. Milestones as well as costs must also be clearly outlined. Marcotte explains the importance of clear milestones: “Research shows 70% of changes fail because people believe that results relative to the effort aren’t worth it, or aren’t working. Establishing well-communicated and achievable milestones are vital to the success of any change plan. These milestones become symbols to employees that the plan is working, progress is happening, the direction is still right, and the effort is worth it.”

6. Create a change management communication plan.

Susanne Powelson , Vice President of Lovell Communications, Inc., explains the value and importance of clear, consistent communications as part of the change management plan. “The right strategic communications can help maintain employee focus and foster trust – even in the most uncertain times. Build trust among your employees by being visible and accessible. Strive to set a positive tone for the organization and resist the urge to let problems or shortfalls dominate all of your communications. Instead, focus on helping employees across the organization understand the benefits of the change. Create opportunities for employees to ask questions and let them know what information you can share, what information you can’t share and when they can expect further updates,” she says.

‌ Download Stakeholder Communication Plan - Microsoft Word

There are three basic elements to communications in the context of change management. 

• Identify the stakeholders and those impacted by the change. 
• Next, schedule regular face to face interactions and email communications to keep stakeholders updated on progress. 
• Finally, communications should be consistent, thorough, and regular. Communications should also clearly explain the change, define the reasons for change, present the benefits of the change, and always include change owner’s contact information.

Below you will find a sample of how Bob Kermanshahi, Head of Strategy at Siemens Real Estate for the Americas, (part of Siemens, a conglomerate with $20 billion in annual revenues from the Americas,) manages business transformation utilizing a formal change management plan. 

Siemens Case Study

Change Management Processes and Systems

Change management processes and systems pave the way for successful change management. It is essential to be able to submit a change request, track, schedule, and manage that request through delivery. Along the way, you must also monitor roadblocks, milestones, and resistance. A change management system will allow a single storage location for all data association with organizational changes, standardization of procedures, analysis of trends and activity, and easy access from anywhere at any time. 

Look for a system that offers the following functionality:

• Configurable change request forms
• Change approvals
• Change monitoring
• Updating change
• Change assignment to individuals, teams, and/or Change Advisory or Change Control Board
• Ability to classify as a change and reclassify as a defect if necessary
• Schedule of changes (Forward Schedule of Change)
• Configurable change management processes
• Role assignment
• Change log for historical tracking
• Budgeting and cost controls
• Ability to break work down into tasks

Resistance Management Plan

How you manage resistance is a critical element when managing change. After identifying the stakeholders, a project manager should examine how they will each be affected by the change. According to Lonergan, “It’s not only important to identify stakeholders, but also predict how they will respond to the change. Often stakeholders will respond by resisting change, so creating a resistance management plan is important.”

Currently, there is an extremely busy industry focused on creating and studying change management models, frameworks, processes, plans, and tools - not to mention professional trainings and certifications that span industry verticals. Since change is a necessary element of organizational growth, this industry will continue to prosper.   

Planning for Change in Healthcare Organizations

Planning for change in an organization is a necessary, yet often challenging aspect of business planning. In healthcare-oriented businesses in particular, change management is even more essential, as there are many more variables to keep in mind, like patient confidentiality, secure data storage, credentialing processes, and more.

Change management plans help to determine how changes will affect an organization, the scope of the change, and how change will be communicated to the rest of the organization. In healthcare organizations, this process needs to be transparent, quick, and updated regularly to maintain optimal patient care, while keeping providers and insurance companies on the same page. To plan for change in your healthcare business and ensure your organization remains efficient while keeping all information and data protected, you need a powerful, real-time, and secure tool.  

Smartsheet is a work execution platform that enables healthcare companies to improve work efficiency, scale repetitive processes, and securely store and share protected health information. Streamline documentation, improve communication of changes both internally and externally, and modify healthcare processes for the better, while also maintaining top-level data security compliant with HIPAA’s regulatory requirements. Track the progress of changes in individual processes with all-up reports and centralized dashboards.

Interested in learning more about how Smartsheet can help you maximize your efforts? Discover  Smartsheet for Healthcare .

Smartsheet: The Ultimate Tool for Creating a Change Management Plan

Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team — and adapt as those needs change. 

The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. 

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time.  Try Smartsheet for free, today.

Discover why over 90% of Fortune 100 companies trust Smartsheet to get work done.

The four building blocks of change

Large-scale organizational change has always been difficult, and there’s no shortage of research showing that a majority of transformations continue to fail. Today’s dynamic environment adds an extra level of urgency and complexity. Companies must increasingly react to sudden shifts in the marketplace, to other external shocks, and to the imperatives of new business models. The stakes are higher than ever.

So what’s to be done? In both research and practice, we find that transformations stand the best chance of success when they focus on four key actions to change mind-sets and behavior: fostering understanding and conviction, reinforcing changes through formal mechanisms, developing talent and skills, and role modeling. Collectively labeled the “influence model,” these ideas were introduced more than a dozen years ago in a McKinsey Quarterly article, “ The psychology of change management .” They were based on academic research and practical experience—what we saw worked and what didn’t.

Digital technologies and the changing nature of the workforce have created new opportunities and challenges for the influence model (for more on the relationship between those trends and the model, see this article’s companion, “ Winning hearts and minds in the 21st century ”). But it still works overall, a decade and a half later (exhibit). In a recent McKinsey Global Survey, we examined successful transformations and found that they were nearly eight times more likely to use all four actions as opposed to just one. 1 1. See “ The science of organizational transformations ,” September 2015. Building both on classic and new academic research, the present article supplies a primer on the model and its four building blocks: what they are, how they work, and why they matter.

Fostering understanding and conviction

We know from research that human beings strive for congruence between their beliefs and their actions and experience dissonance when these are misaligned. Believing in the “why” behind a change can therefore inspire people to change their behavior. In practice, however, we find that many transformation leaders falsely assume that the “why” is clear to the broader organization and consequently fail to spend enough time communicating the rationale behind change efforts.

This common pitfall is predictable. Research shows that people frequently overestimate the extent to which others share their own attitudes, beliefs, and opinions—a tendency known as the false-consensus effect. Studies also highlight another contributing phenomenon, the “curse of knowledge”: people find it difficult to imagine that others don’t know something that they themselves do know. To illustrate this tendency, a Stanford study asked participants to tap out the rhythms of well-known songs and predict the likelihood that others would guess what they were. The tappers predicted that the listeners would identify half of the songs correctly; in reality, they did so less than 5 percent of the time. 2 2. Chip Heath and Dan Heath, “The curse of knowledge,” Harvard Business Review , December 2006, Volume 8, Number 6, hbr.org.

Therefore, in times of transformation, we recommend that leaders develop a change story that helps all stakeholders understand where the company is headed, why it is changing, and why this change is important. Building in a feedback loop to sense how the story is being received is also useful. These change stories not only help get out the message but also, recent research finds, serve as an effective influencing tool. Stories are particularly effective in selling brands. 3 3. Harrison Monarth, “The irresistible power of storytelling as a strategic business tool,” Harvard Business Review , March 11, 2014, hbr.org.

Even 15 years ago, at the time of the original article, digital advances were starting to make employees feel involved in transformations, allowing them to participate in shaping the direction of their companies. In 2006, for example, IBM used its intranet to conduct two 72-hour “jam sessions” to engage employees, clients, and other stakeholders in an online debate about business opportunities. No fewer than 150,000 visitors attended from 104 countries and 67 different companies, and there were 46,000 posts. 4 4. Icons of Progress , “A global innovation jam,” ibm.com. As we explain in “Winning hearts and minds in the 21st century,” social and mobile technologies have since created a wide range of new opportunities to build the commitment of employees to change.

Reinforcing with formal mechanisms

Psychologists have long known that behavior often stems from direct association and reinforcement. Back in the 1920s, Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning research showed how the repeated association between two stimuli—the sound of a bell and the delivery of food—eventually led dogs to salivate upon hearing the bell alone. Researchers later extended this work on conditioning to humans, demonstrating how children could learn to fear a rat when it was associated with a loud noise. 5 5. John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner, “Conditioned emotional reactions,” Journal of Experimental Psychology , 1920, Volume 3, Number 1, pp. 1–14. Of course, this conditioning isn’t limited to negative associations or to animals. The perfume industry recognizes how the mere scent of someone you love can induce feelings of love and longing.

Reinforcement can also be conscious, shaped by the expected rewards and punishments associated with specific forms of behavior. B. F. Skinner’s work on operant conditioning showed how pairing positive reinforcements such as food with desired behavior could be used, for example, to teach pigeons to play Ping-Pong. This concept, which isn’t hard to grasp, is deeply embedded in organizations. Many people who have had commissions-based sales jobs will understand the point—being paid more for working harder can sometimes be a strong incentive.

Despite the importance of reinforcement, organizations often fail to use it correctly. In a seminal paper “On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B,” management scholar Steven Kerr described numerous examples of organizational-reward systems that are misaligned with the desired behavior, which is therefore neglected. 6 6. Steven Kerr, “On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B,” Academy of Management Journal , 1975, Volume 18, Number 4, pp. 769–83. Some of the paper’s examples—such as the way university professors are rewarded for their research publications, while society expects them to be good teachers—are still relevant today. We ourselves have witnessed this phenomenon in a global refining organization facing market pressure. By squeezing maintenance expenditures and rewarding employees who cut them, the company in effect treated that part of the budget as a “super KPI.” Yet at the same time, its stated objective was reliable maintenance.

Even when organizations use money as a reinforcement correctly, they often delude themselves into thinking that it alone will suffice. Research examining the relationship between money and experienced happiness—moods and general well-being—suggests a law of diminishing returns. The relationship may disappear altogether after around $75,000, a much lower ceiling than most executives assume. 7 7. Belinda Luscombe, “Do we need $75,000 a year to be happy?” Time , September 6, 2010, time.com.

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Money isn’t the only motivator, of course. Victor Vroom’s classic research on expectancy theory explained how the tendency to behave in certain ways depends on the expectation that the effort will result in the desired kind of performance, that this performance will be rewarded, and that the reward will be desirable. 8 8. Victor Vroom, Work and motivation , New York: John Wiley, 1964. When a Middle Eastern telecommunications company recently examined performance drivers, it found that collaboration and purpose were more important than compensation (see “Ahead of the curve: The future of performance management,” forthcoming on McKinsey.com). The company therefore moved from awarding minor individual bonuses for performance to celebrating how specific teams made a real difference in the lives of their customers. This move increased motivation while also saving the organization millions.

How these reinforcements are delivered also matters. It has long been clear that predictability makes them less effective; intermittent reinforcement provides a more powerful hook, as slot-machine operators have learned to their advantage. Further, people react negatively if they feel that reinforcements aren’t distributed fairly. Research on equity theory describes how employees compare their job inputs and outcomes with reference-comparison targets, such as coworkers who have been promoted ahead of them or their own experiences at past jobs. 9 9. J. S. Adams, “Inequity in social exchanges,” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology , 1965, Volume 2, pp. 267–300. We therefore recommend that organizations neutralize compensation as a source of anxiety and instead focus on what really drives performance—such as collaboration and purpose, in the case of the Middle Eastern telecom company previously mentioned.

Developing talent and skills

Thankfully, you can teach an old dog new tricks. Human brains are not fixed; neuroscience research shows that they remain plastic well into adulthood. Illustrating this concept, scientific investigation has found that the brains of London taxi drivers, who spend years memorizing thousands of streets and local attractions, showed unique gray-matter volume differences in the hippocampus compared with the brains of other people. Research linked these differences to the taxi drivers’ extraordinary special knowledge. 10 10. Eleanor Maguire, Katherine Woollett, and Hugo Spires, “London taxi drivers and bus drivers: A structural MRI and neuropsychological analysis,” Hippocampus , 2006, Volume 16, pp. 1091–1101.

Despite an amazing ability to learn new things, human beings all too often lack insight into what they need to know but don’t. Biases, for example, can lead people to overlook their limitations and be overconfident of their abilities. Highlighting this point, studies have found that over 90 percent of US drivers rate themselves above average, nearly 70 percent of professors consider themselves in the top 25 percent for teaching ability, and 84 percent of Frenchmen believe they are above-average lovers. 11 11. The art of thinking clearly, “The overconfidence effect: Why you systematically overestimate your knowledge and abilities,” blog entry by Rolf Dobelli, June 11, 2013, psychologytoday.com. This self-serving bias can lead to blind spots, making people too confident about some of their abilities and unaware of what they need to learn. In the workplace, the “mum effect”—a proclivity to keep quiet about unpleasant, unfavorable messages—often compounds these self-serving tendencies. 12 12. Eliezer Yariv, “‘Mum effect’: Principals’ reluctance to submit negative feedback,” Journal of Managerial Psychology , 2006, Volume 21, Number 6, pp. 533–46.

Even when people overcome such biases and actually want to improve, they can handicap themselves by doubting their ability to change. Classic psychological research by Martin Seligman and his colleagues explained how animals and people can fall into a state of learned helplessness—passive acceptance and resignation that develops as a result of repeated exposure to negative events perceived as unavoidable. The researchers found that dogs exposed to unavoidable shocks gave up trying to escape and, when later given an opportunity to do so, stayed put and accepted the shocks as inevitable. 13 13. Martin Seligman and Steven Maier, “Failure to escape traumatic shock,” Journal of Experimental Psychology , 1967, Volume 74, Number 1, pp. 1–9. Like animals, people who believe that developing new skills won’t change a situation are more likely to be passive. You see this all around the economy—from employees who stop offering new ideas after earlier ones have been challenged to unemployed job seekers who give up looking for work after multiple rejections.

Instilling a sense of control and competence can promote an active effort to improve. As expectancy theory holds, people are more motivated to achieve their goals when they believe that greater individual effort will increase performance. 14 14. Victor Vroom, Work and motivation , New York: John Wiley, 1964. Fortunately, new technologies now give organizations more creative opportunities than ever to showcase examples of how that can actually happen.

Role modeling

Research tells us that role modeling occurs both unconsciously and consciously. Unconsciously, people often find themselves mimicking the emotions, behavior, speech patterns, expressions, and moods of others without even realizing that they are doing so. They also consciously align their own thinking and behavior with those of other people—to learn, to determine what’s right, and sometimes just to fit in.

While role modeling is commonly associated with high-power leaders such as Abraham Lincoln and Bill Gates, it isn’t limited to people in formal positions of authority. Smart organizations seeking to win their employees’ support for major transformation efforts recognize that key opinion leaders may exert more influence than CEOs. Nor is role modeling limited to individuals. Everyone has the power to model roles, and groups of people may exert the most powerful influence of all. Robert Cialdini, a well-respected professor of psychology and marketing, examined the power of “social proof”—a mental shortcut people use to judge what is correct by determining what others think is correct. No wonder TV shows have been using canned laughter for decades; believing that other people find a show funny makes us more likely to find it funny too.

Today’s increasingly connected digital world provides more opportunities than ever to share information about how others think and behave. Ever found yourself swayed by the number of positive reviews on Yelp? Or perceiving a Twitter user with a million followers as more reputable than one with only a dozen? You’re not imagining this. Users can now “buy followers” to help those users or their brands seem popular or even start trending.

The endurance of the influence model shouldn’t be surprising: powerful forces of human nature underlie it. More surprising, perhaps, is how often leaders still embark on large-scale change efforts without seriously focusing on building conviction or reinforcing it through formal mechanisms, the development of skills, and role modeling. While these priorities sound like common sense, it’s easy to miss one or more of them amid the maelstrom of activity that often accompanies significant changes in organizational direction. Leaders should address these building blocks systematically because, as research and experience demonstrate, all four together make a bigger impact.

Tessa Basford is a consultant in McKinsey’s Washington, DC, office; Bill Schaninger is a director in the Philadelphia office.

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Explore the Levels of Change Management

Lost Without a Map? A Change Strategy to Guide Your Success

Tim Creasey

Updated: May 10, 2024

Published: February 1, 2024

Developing a change management strategy provides direction and purpose for all other change management activities. By outlining the unique characteristics of the change and its risks and potential resistance, change practitioners set themselves and their project team partners up for success.

In this article, you’ll discover what change management strategies are, why you need them, and, most importantly, the steps you can follow to create an effective change management plan in your organization.

What Are Change Management Strategies?

Organizational change management strategies are critical for businesses to remain competitive. A change management strategy is a detailed plan or approach to facilitate the effective implementation of organizational changes. These changes can include significant aspects of their operations, structures, business processes or culture. 

Change strategies should be proactive and planned from the onset of an initiative. But they can also serve as a response plan to enable organizations to adopt and use changes.

The Prosci Methodology is a detailed framework and strategy for managing the people side of change. It is made up of three key elements:

• Prosci ADKAR® Model – Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement define the five outcomes an individual must achieve to make a change successfully.
• Prosci 3-Phase Process – A structured process that bridges the gap between individual and organizational change, and makes change scalable.
• Prosci Change Triangle (PCT) Model – A foundational model that helps change practitioners understand the four critical aspects of a change and how they promote project health.

Together, these strategies are combined to form the Prosci Methodology to support individuals and organizations during a transition.

Prosci Enterprise Solutions Get expert support on projects and initiatives when you partner with Prosci. Learn More

Why You Need a Change Management Strategy

Despite your best intentions, change is usually seen as chaotic. It can be, especially if your organization doesn't follow a structured process or has failed with change before. However, having a change management strategy makes the transition smoother and ensures you reach your desired outcomes.

Here's how a well-defined strategy achieves this:

Manage resistance to drive adoption

Organizational change often triggers resistance behaviors in people who must adopt new ways of working. It's a natural response. But left unchecked, it can derail your initiative.

Change management strategies can help you identify the root cause of resistance behaviors in people and other stakeholders during change initiatives. This could be a lack of information, employee anxiety about changing environments, or job security.

Once you identify the various root causes, change teams can implement targeted solutions, including:

• Q&A sessions – Openly sharing the reasons for and benefits of change, and answering people's questions, builds understanding and trust.
• Stakeholder engagement – Enlisting people impacted by the change to create the solution helps them feel a sense of ownership.
• Feedback loops – Implementing mechanisms for ongoing feedback, adjusting based on real-time input and making the process more inclusive and less daunting.

Applying these and other strategies can help you minimize resistance behaviors while helping people adopt and use a change in their daily work.

Communicate proactively to gain commitment and support

Effective change management hinges on strong stakeholder engagement. Here's how a well-defined strategy promotes this:

• Proactive communication – The strategy outlines regular communication with all stakeholders, keeping everyone informed and involved.
• Transparent discussions – Openly sharing the reasons behind the change, benefits, and how people will be supported during the process builds understanding and trust.
• Targeted messages – The strategy defines the “who” and “what” of communication, ensuring each stakeholder receives relevant information.

By delivering effective communications, you build awareness and trust, and you bolster your change management strategy and implementation.

Minimize disruption during change

Change can throw a wrench into daily operations. Here's how change management strategies help minimize disruption:

• Step-by-step planning – This lays out the tactics and activities required to enable people to adopt and use the solutions implemented.
• Phased implementation – This rolls out the change in stages, allowing for adjustments and training at the appropriate times to enable adoption and usage.
• Well-timed communications – Key roles offer the right kind of communication at the right time to eliminate confusion, anxiety and resistance behaviors that slow progress.

By planning for potential roadblocks and keeping everyone in the loop, a change management strategy ensures a smoother transition and minimizes disruption to daily operations.

Equip impacted people and teams with critical skills

Change breeds doubt among the people who must adopt and use it, often because they lack the skills they need to succeed. An effective change management strategy builds skills and abilities in the following ways:

• Functional know-how – Skill building is designed into the change management strategy so impacted people are ready to use the solution in their work at go-live.
• Supervisor skills – People managers learn to play a critical role during change by helping to manage resistance with teams, communicate and liaise with leadership, and more. 
• Sponsor guidance – Executives often don't know how to perform their roles during change, and an effective change management strategy shows them the way.

When you prepare and equip people for their unique roles during change, you give them the knowledge and ability they need to support and implement the change with confidence.

Maximize return on investment

Change can be costly, requiring time, money and resources. Without a plan, you may not achieve your goals and the investment is lost. That's where change management comes in.

A well-defined strategy focuses on achieving the desired outcomes and maximizing your return on investment (ROI). Here's how:

• Increased adoption – Effective communications and skill-building enable greater employee engagement with and commitment to the change.
• Reduced resistance – Proactive strategies help you avoid and mitigate barriers to change, clearing the way for people to be successful.
• Improved efficiency – Effective frameworks and processes drive a streamlined path to proficiency, speed of adoption and ultimate utilization.

By maximizing ROI through increased adoption, reduced resistance and improved efficiency, your organization gains a competitive advantage. Change becomes a catalyst for growth, not a drain on resources.

10 Steps To Create an Effective Change Strategy

Change is inevitable for successful organizations, but you need a well-defined change management strategy to ensure a smooth transition. Here are 10 steps to create a well-defined strategy:

1. Evaluate the change to understand it

Changes can be formalized projects, strategic initiatives, or even small adjustments to how the organization operates. 

Before crafting a change management strategy, it's vital to understand the nature of the change itself. Here are some key questions to consider:

• Impact scale – What is the scope of the change?
• People affected – How many people will be impacted? Who is being impacted?
• Differing impacts – Are people being impacted the same, or are they experiencing the change differently? 
• Change elements – What’s actually changing? Are processes, systems, job roles or something else being modified?
• Timeline – What's the time frame for implementing the change? Is it a quick fix or a longer-term rollout?
• Competing initiatives – Are there any other major changes happening right now? Too much change at once can be overwhelming.

Answering these questions enables you to create tailored organizational change management strategies.

2. Assess for change readiness

Before diving into a change initiative, it's crucial to assess your organization's “change readiness.” This involves understanding the backdrop against which you're introducing the change.

• Employee and manager sentiment – Do employees and managers generally see a need for this change? Are they open to it, or is there skepticism?
• Past change experiences – How did the organization handle past changes? Were they successful? Did they leave behind any negative consequences?
• Shared vision – Does everyone have a clear understanding of the organization's overall goals? A shared vision helps people see how the change fits into the bigger picture.
• Change saturation – How much change is already happening in the organization?

With an in-depth understanding of your organization and its history, you can prepare for potential problems and tailor your strategy for success.

Prosci 10 Aspects of Change Impact

3. Understand how the change impacts people and groups

Before implementing a change, assess its impact on different parts of the organization. A single change, such as the deployment of a web-based expense reporting program, will impact different groups uniquely:

• Systems – A combination of people and applications to meet a set of objectives. 
• Job roles – A description of a person’s expected activities to perform their job well.
• Critical behaviors – Essential or vital response of a group or individual in response to an action, environment, person or stimulus. 
• Processes – Which existing workflows will be altered? For example, will a new web-based program require changes to expense reporting procedures?
• Tools – A system or item used with a specific purpose and objective in mind. It might include mechanical tools or technical objects, such as software programs or web authoring tools. 
• Location – A physical place that provides facilities for a stated purpose.
• Compensation – The amount of the monetary and non-monetary pay provided in exchange for work performed. 
• Performance reviews – The process of how performance is measured and assessed taking into account objectives.
• Reporting structure – The authority relationships within an organization to whom people report to.
• Mindset/attitude/beliefs – The mental frame of mind reflected in behaviors.

By mapping out the impacted groups, processes, technology and other aspects, you can create specific and targeted plans later in the change management process. This ensures everyone gets the support they need to adapt smoothly.

4. Choose the change management structure

The change management team structure determines who does the change management work and how they interact with the project team.

Change Management Structure

Here are some common structures:

• Embedded change manager – A change management expert is assigned directly to the project team and works alongside them throughout the process.
• Centralized support – A dedicated change management team provides support and guidance to multiple project teams across the organization.
• Project team lead – Change management responsibilities are assigned to a specific member of the project team in addition to their existing duties.

The key takeaway? Clearly define change management responsibilities and allocate the right resources based on your project's needs. This will ensure your team has the support it needs for a successful transition.

5. Build a coalition of sponsorship

The sponsor coalition is your team of key leaders and managers who will actively support and drive the change forward. It's crucial to have the right people on board.

• The primary sponso r – This is your primary sponsor, the person who greenlights and champions the change. They need to be highly visible and actively involved throughout the entire project. The primary sponsor also plays a key role in building the broader sponsor coalition.
• The sponsor coalition – Choose leaders from the groups most impacted by the change to join the sponsor coalition. Each member has a critical role of building support within their teams and clearly communicating the change to their teams.

This strong network of champions ensures everyone impacted by the change understands its purpose and feels supported throughout the transition.

6. Head off resistance before it starts

Often, after facing pushback on a project, teams realize they could have predicted resistance points. Here's how to be proactive with change management strategies:

• Will specific regions or departments be impacted more than others?
• Did some groups propose different solutions to the same issue?
• Are certain teams heavily invested in the current way of doing things?
• Identify and address root causes of resistance – Analyze the root causes, proactively address barriers, and plan activities to address persistent barriers to adoption.

By pinpointing potential resistance points up front, you can develop targeted tactics to address them before they become roadblocks. This proactive approach makes the transition smoother for everyone involved.

7. Assess and understand the risks

Change Management Strategy

• Change characteristics – How dramatic and widespread is the change itself? Bigger changes pose a bigger risk.
• Organizational attributes – Does your company culture resist change? A history of resistance means a higher risk.

By considering these factors, your change management team can assess the overall risk and find specific areas of concern. Change practitioners can then make plans to address people's needs and ease their worries.

8. Develop an effective communications plan

A clear and consistent communication strategy ensures that all stakeholders and employees are informed and can be prepared appropriately. It builds trust, alleviates fears, and reduces rumors that can lead to resistance behaviors. Let's delve into crafting a communication plan for your change initiative:

• Identify what needs communicating – Identify everything stakeholders must know before and throughout the change. This includes the “what” and “why” behind the change, as well as its impact, benefits, timeline and implementation steps. Designate roles who must send the messages and which messages each should send.
• Choose methods and channels – Decide which platforms you'll use for each type of communication. For example, town hall meetings, presentations and email newsletters are great for organization-wide communications. Employees or stakeholders with specific questions or concerns can use internal communication tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams.

Use the Prosci Communications Checklist to create a detailed communications plan. By implementing this plan, you can increase employee engagement and mitigate resistance.

9. Keep changes on track

Regularly monitor the progress of key elements within your change initiative. Compare it with the goals and objectives, including short-term milestones and long-term outcomes, to get a roadmap for success.

Use performance dashboards, surveys, feedback mechanisms and benchmarking to understand where your project stands. Also, schedule regular meetings with the change management team and other key stakeholders to assess progress.

To evaluate the effectiveness of change activities, look at both quantitative and qualitative data:

• Quantitative measures – Include metrics like cost savings, time efficiencies, sales figures, or customer satisfaction scores.
• Qualitative feedback – Insights from employee feedback, customer reviews and stakeholder opinions can provide context to the numbers and show areas for improvement.

Here's a complete guide to metrics for measuring change management for the full picture of your change initiative's performance.

Use the data collected from monitoring efforts to make informed decisions. If certain aspects of the change aren’t meeting expectations, use data analysis to identify why. Then, adapt and refine the change strategy as needed.

10. Make changes stick

Don't let the hard work stop after launch. Reinforcement is vital.

Impact of Planning for Reinforcement on Project Success

Prosci Best Practices in Change Management research revealed that 81% of people who planned for reinforcement and sustainment activities met or exceeded project objectives. This shows that reinforcing the new behaviors, systems, or business processes implemented during change management initiatives is essential for turning temporary adjustments into lasting habits. You can achieve this through:

• Celebrating wins – Recognize achievements, big or small, to keep momentum high.
• Providing ongoing support – Offer resources and training and answer questions to ensure continued success.
• Highlighting positive impacts – Showcase how the change benefits the organization and individuals.

By reinforcing changes, you can make them a durable part of the operational and cultural fabric, ensuring sustained benefits.

Should You Use One Strategy for Change Management?

A one-size-fits-all approach won't work in change management. Consider these scenarios:

• Merging with a large company
• Transitioning suppliers to a new online system
• Moving to a different office space within the building
• Implementing a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system
• Experiencing a leadership shift

These are distinctly different changes, and each requires change management to be successful. Each impacts people and how they do their jobs. Each can suffer from slow adoption and low utilization. Each has risks associated with people becoming disengaged or resisting the change.

Not all changes require the same level of change management effort. The most effective approach varies depending on your specific project. Change management strategies help you determine the appropriate amount and type of support needed for a successful transition, taking into account the unique circumstances of your initiative.

What Happens Next?

Developing change management strategies is the essential first step in any transformation. It acts as your project's roadmap, guiding informed decisions and breathing life into the change itself. This strategy clearly outlines who will be impacted and how the change will affect the organization. The change management strategy contributes to the development of change management plans. Your change strategy provides high-level direction, while your core change plans translate that direction into specific, actionable steps to guide successful implementation.

Tim Creasey is Prosci’s Chief Innovation Officer and a globally recognized leader in Change Management. Their work forms the basis of the world's largest body of knowledge on managing the people side of change to deliver organizational results.

See all posts from Tim Creasey

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Organizational Change Management: What It Is & Why It’s Important

• 21 Jan 2020

Virtually every organization will, at some point, undergo a transition or change in order to remain viable and scale. Whether onboarding new employees, growing a department, or merging with another company, these changes can have a significant impact on the trajectory of your business.

Unfortunately, organizational change isn’t always easy to adapt to and can be intimidating for all team members who find themselves impacted by it.

As a manager tasked with overseeing organizational change or guiding your employees through it, it’s important to know what the process looks like and what to expect. Change, although challenging, can be a major opportunity for growth and career advancement, so long as you know how to approach it.

Here’s a primer on what organizational change management is and some tips for navigating it.

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What is Organizational Change Management?

Organizational change refers to the actions in which a company or business alters a major component of its organization, such as its culture, the underlying technologies or infrastructure it uses to operate, or its internal processes. Organizational change management is the process of guiding organizational change to a successful resolution, and it typically includes three major phases: preparation, implementation , and follow-through.

What Causes Organizational Change?

Many factors make organizational change necessary. Some of the most common faced by managers include:

• New leadership at the helm of the company or within its departments
• Shifts in the organizational team structure
• The implementation of new technology
• The adoption of new business models

To ensure a smooth transition, it’s important to have a set organizational change management process that can be applied across various types of change.

Types of Organizational Change

Adaptive changes are small, incremental changes organizations adopt to address needs that evolve over time. Typically, these changes are minor modifications and adjustments that managers fine-tune and implement to execute upon business strategies. Throughout the process, leadership may add, subtract, or refine processes.

One example of an adaptive change is an organization that upgrades their computer operating systems from Windows 8 to Windows 10.

Transformational changes have a larger scale and scope than adaptive changes. They can often involve a simultaneous shift in mission and strategy, company or team structure, people and organizational performance, or business processes. Because of their scale, these changes often take a substantial amount of time and energy to enact. Though it's not always the case, transformational changes are often pursued in response to external forces, such as the emergence of a disruptive new competitor or issues impacting a company’s supply chain.

An example of a transformational change is the adoption of a customer relationship management software (CRM), which all departments are expected to learn and employ.

Many changes will fall somewhere between adaptive and transformational on the spectrum. For this reason, managers need to understand that the change process must be tailored to the unique challenges and demands of each situation.

Why Is Organizational Change Management Important?

Organizational change is necessary for companies to succeed and grow. Change management drives the successful adoption and usage of change within the business. It allows employees to understand and commit to the shift and work effectively during it.

Without effective organizational change management, company transitions can be unpredictable and expensive in terms of both time and resources. They can also result in lower employee morale and skill development.

A company’s reaction and adaptation to change is also a critical consideration for key stakeholders like investors, suppliers, and prospective employees when deciding whether to work with or for a company. As a result, a lack of effective change management can lead to an organization’s failure.

A Manager’s Role in Organizational Change

Within an organization, every employee has a different role in assisting with change. While many staff members may complete heavily detailed work, senior-level executives with longer tenure might have different goals. Even within management, leaders and managers perform different tasks.

Leaders, for example, have to be courageous by taking on risks. They need to look at the big picture and articulate high-level change to the company, explain why it’s occurring, and motivate people to support the transition. To be successful as a leader , you must be insightful and know who to put in charge of carrying out change processes.

Managers are more concentrated on making business transitions successful. They focus on implementing change by determining the discrete steps that need to happen and their sequence. Managers are also typically responsible for allocating resources, such as personnel, and determining how success is measured. Ideally, leaders will also be managers , but it’s the primary responsibility of a manager to know how to design, direct, and shape change processes.

To achieve this, you must have a wide array of management skills , such as:

• Effective communication , including actively listening to your team and colleagues
• A highly developed level of emotional intelligence
• Strong organizational skills
• Attention to detail
• Problem-solving and decision-making skills
• Delegating without micromanaging

Preparing for Organizational Change

To prepare for organizational change, it’s essential to first define the organizational change, understand why it’s critical, and garner support from your colleagues.

Then, create a roadmap that clearly articulates and measures success and explains how the business—and its employees, customers, and constituencies—will be affected.

Ensure the process plan aligns with business goals and outlines the implementation and sustainability of the organizational change. Note what challenges may arise and be flexible enough to adjust accordingly. Be sure to celebrate small victories along the way.

Change management doesn’t stop once you’ve successfully executed an organizational transition. Both during and after the process, you need to continuously assess outcomes, track performance to goals, train employees on new methodologies and business practices, and readjust goals as necessary to increase the likelihood of success.

Developing the Skills You Need to Manage Organizational Change

Many managers experience organizational change throughout their careers. By learning how to preempt and address the challenges associated with change, you can ensure you’re equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to manage it.

If you’re looking for opportunities to improve your organizational change management abilities, enrolling in an online management course, like Management Essentials , is one option that can provide you with real-world skills, teach you common business strategies, and prepare you to handle any transitional challenge that comes your way.

Do you want to become a more effective leader and manager? Download our free leadership and management e-book to find out how. Also, explore our online leadership and management courses to learn how you can take charge of your professional development and accelerate your career.

This post was updated on January 3, 2023. It was originally published on January 21, 2020.

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Article • 10 min read

The Four Principles of Change Management

How to support change in your organization.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

No organization can afford to stand still. There are always new challenges to meet, and better ways of doing things. However, every change you need to make should be planned and implemented with care, otherwise it could end up doing more harm than good!

That's where change management comes in. It's a structured approach that ensures changes are implemented thoroughly and smoothly – and have the desired impact.

In this article, we explain how you can enact positive and productive change in your organization using four core principles of successful change management.

What Is Change Management?

Change management draws on theories from many disciplines, including psychology, behavioral science, engineering, and systems thinking. And there are many different models to choose from. For example, Lewin's Change Management Model splits the change process into three key stages known as "unfreeze-change-refreeze," while Kotter's 8-Step Change Model provides a more comprehensive guide through change.

A central idea of all change management theories is that no change ever happens in isolation. In one way or another, change impacts the whole organization and all of the people in it. But with good change management, you can encourage everyone to adapt to and embrace your new way of working.

4 Change Management Principles

Successful change management relies on four core principles:

• Understand Change.
• Plan Change.
• Implement Change.
• Communicate Change.

Let's explore each of these in turn, along with some tools and techniques that you can use to put them into practice:

Principle 1: Understand Change

To successfully promote the benefits of the change, you need to understand them yourself. So, think about:

• Why you need to change. What are your key objectives?
• What will the benefits of the change be to the organization?
• How will it impact people positively?
• How will it affect the way that people work?
• What will people need to do to successfully achieve the change?

It can also be helpful to think about what the negative outcomes of not making the change would be. Beckhard and Harris' Change Equation shows that, for change to work, there has to be sufficient dissatisfaction with the old way of doing things. But people also need to feel confident that the new approach will be better – and that there's a clear route to get there.

Principle 2: Plan Change

Effective change doesn't just happen by chance, and any plan you make has to be right for your organization. The way that change projects are managed can vary from organization to organization. Some have very rigid change methodologies, while others are more open and flexible in their approach.

However, in general, you'll need to consider the following:

• Sponsorship. How will you secure, engage and use high-level support and sponsorship of the change?
• Involvement. Who is best positioned to help you to design and implement the change? For example, will you need external expertise? Or can you use internal resources?
• Buy-in. Change is most effective when you are able to win support from people across the business. How do you plan to achieve this?
• Impact. Finally, think about what success should look like. How will you predict and assess the impact of the change that you need to make? What goals do you need to achieve?

There are several tools that you can use to plan change:

• The Burke-Litwin Change Model allows you to formulate an approach that suits the structure, dynamics and current context of your business.
• Leavitt's Diamond is a useful framework for working through the impacts of any proposed change – on tasks, people, structure, and technology.
• Impact Analysis can help you to uncover the unexpected consequences of change.
• SIPOC Diagrams are comprehensive tools that you can use to check how change will impact your suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs, and customers.

Principle 3: Implement Change

So how exactly are you going to make change happen?

As we've seen, there are many different strategies that you can choose to put your change into practice. Kotter's 8-Step Change Model , for example, explains how to inject a sense of urgency into your actions, so that you build momentum and encourage everyone to get behind your changes.

Meanwhile, the Change Curve reminds you to be mindful of people's feelings while putting your plan into action. It shows the stages that we all tend to go through during organizational change – from shock and denial, to the point where we're fully invested in the new approach.

The Bridges Transition Model is a helpful tool for guiding and supporting people through periods of change. And Mind Tools Club and corporate members can listen to our Expert Interview with transition consultant Susan Bridges .

Whatever tools you choose, the following steps can help you to implement change in a positive way:

• Ensure that everyone involved in the changes understands what needs to happen – and what it means for them.
• Agree success criteria for your changes, and make sure that they're regularly measured and reported on.
• Map and identify all of the key stakeholders that will be involved in the change and define their level of involvement.
• Identify any training needs that must be addressed in order to implement the change.
• Appoint "change agents," who'll help to put the new practices into place – and who can act as role models for the new approach.
• Find ways to change people's habits , so that the new practices become the norm.
• Make sure that everyone is supported throughout the change process.

Principle 4: Communicate Change

Communication can be a make-or-break component of change management. The change that you want to implement has to be clear and relevant, so people understand what you want them to do and why they need to do it. But you also have to set the right tone, so that you get the emotional reaction you're hoping for.

It's a good idea to link the changes that you're planning to your organization's mission or vision statements . Not only will this help people to see how the change positively impacts the "bigger picture," it will also provide them with an inspiring, shared vision of the future.

Also be sure to practice good stakeholder management . This will ensure that you give the right people the right message, at the right time, to get the support that you need for your project.

The ADKAR Change Management Model is a particularly useful tool that you can use to help communicate your change. It outlines five things you should address in your communications:

• Awareness (of the need for change).
• Desire (to participate in and support it).
• Knowledge (of how to change).
• Ability (to change).
• Reinforcement (to sustain the change in the long term).

What Can Prevent Change?

Even the best-laid plans can suffer setbacks, so be ready for problems when they arise. Some people may be pessimistic about your plans, so you'll need to acknowledge, understand and address any resistance or "immunity" to change .

You may even come up against cultural barriers to change. If your organizational culture doesn't embrace change – or even pushes against it – you'll have to find ways to reward flexibility, create role models for change, and repeat your key messages until the mood starts to improve.

Change is complex, and knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to do.

Develop your understanding of the "road bumps" that can impact change by watching our video, 7 Reasons Why Change Can Fail .

Which Leadership Style Is Best for Change Management?

There's no "one-size-fits-all" approach to change management – so there's no perfect way to lead it.

But, in general, it's important to stay authentic and to lead in a way that's right for you. You can also flex and adapt your approach to suit the particular challenges that your organization faces – and the behaviors that you're trying to change.

Successful change leaders tend to show the following characteristics:

• The ability to build coalitions and inspire trust .
• Strong communication skills at every stage.
• Emotional intelligence , to pick up on resistance to change and acknowledge the personal difficulties that people have with it.
• The ability to think strategically and link the change to the "bigger picture."

Change management is a structured approach to implementing change in an organization. It recognizes that change can be a painful process which can have a far-reaching impact on the organization and the people who work for it.

There are four key principles of change management:

• Understand Change: for change to be effective, you need to understand all the "ins and outs" of the change. For example, what it is, how it will be achieved, and why it needs to happen.
• Plan Change: this can include achieving high-level sponsorship of the change project, as well as identifying wider involvement and buy-in opportunities.
• Implement Change: when you come to carry out your plan, you need to ensure that everyone involved knows what they're doing. This may encompass addressing training needs, appointing "change agents," providing support for people across the organization, and setting specific success criteria.
• Communicate Change: everyone needs to know why the change is happening, feel positive about it, and understand how they can achieve success.

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Featured Reads

• Business strategy |
• 6 essential steps for a successful chan ...

6 essential steps for a successful change management process

Change management gives you a step-by-step process to handle large transitions—such as adopting a new company-wide tool or bringing new leadership onboard. With a solid change management process, you can help your team adjust and take transition in stride. In this article, we describe how to design an effective change management process in six steps.

Without proper planning, trying to implement organizational change can lead to chaos, confusion, and reduced company velocity. Instead, you need to roll changes out carefully to make the transition as seamless as possible.

Simply put, you need an effective change management process.

In this article, we’ll discuss what change management is and how you can create a change management process for a seamless organization-wide transition. 

What is change management?

Change management is the process of preparing for and managing any new organizational change. During the change management process, you will: 

Prepare for the transition to a new change. 

Gain organizational support for whatever the change is.

Deploy the change thoughtfully over time.

The most important thing for change management is to approach the change deliberately and from several angles. Before you make an organizational change, think about how that change will impact members of your organization at different levels and on different teams. 

For that reason, change management frameworks often include strategies to help teams introduce an organizational change slowly over time, pilot the change with a subset of the company, or ensure buy-in from the right stakeholders before rolling out a new initiative.

Change management is a process, as well as a methodology. You may never have spent this much time thinking about how to roll out a change initiative, and that’s ok. By following a change management process, you can best equip your team and company to prepare for and benefit from a new change.

Our tried-and-tested 6-step change management process

To help new teams adopt Asana, our Professional Services and Customer Success teams built an effective change management process inspired by traditional change models and informed best practices from customers who successfully implemented Asana at their organizations. The resulting methodology, the Asana Way of Change, helps teams roll out new tools or technologies at an organizational level.

Whether you’re implementing Asana or a different tool, here’s how you can use the Asana Way of Change to help your teams adapt to the new process.

1. Define your “why”

Before you introduce a major change to your organization, you first need to ask yourself: 

Why are you doing this? 

What pain points is this change solving? 

Though not every member of your organization will be thrilled with the change—because we’re all pretty change averse—having a concrete reason for why you’re doing this will help.

There are three different elements to defining your “why:”

Craft your “why statement.”

To start, document why you’re implementing this organizational change. This “why statement” will be your compass for all of the work to come.

“[Team/Organization name] is implementing this [change] in order to [manage these projects and processes]. In doing so, we hope to [alleviate these pain points] and [accomplish these goals].”

For instance, if you’re rolling out a work management tool, you might write:

“Our company is implementing this new work management tool in order to improve cross-functional collaboration and visibility. In doing so, we hope to increase company productivity and complete more projects on schedule.”

Define your success metrics

You’ll also want to define what success looks like for your implementation process . Sit down with your change management team to set metrics. You might want to include key performance indicators like:

Deadlines to meet change management milestones

Adoption or training percentages across the company

Utilization rate across the company by a certain date

For example, to roll out a work management tool, you might have some of the following KPIs:

We will start rolling out this tool to a small group on March 3rd. Employees will have the opportunity to opt-in in mid-June. Then, everyone at our company should be onboarded and familiar with the tool by July 17th.

Teams should send weekly project status reports in the work management tool, and work should be managed exclusively in the tool.

100% of employees should be active on the tool by July 30th.

Assemble your Adoption Alliance

Rolling out a significant change isn’t a one-person job. You need a team of people, and your Adoption Alliance—otherwise known as your proxy team—are those people. There are three types of proxy team members:

The Convention Setter: This is essentially a workplace influencer. Your convention setter(s) will help you define how you’ll implement this major change across the company. They might lead trainings or answer questions team members have along the way.

The Awareness Builder: This is a member (or members) of your company’s leadership team. Your awareness builders may not be as close to the change being implemented, but they’ll be the voice of support. The awareness builder should communicate your “why statement” in order to increase team buy-in.

The Product Advocate: These are individual contributors or early adopters who are excited to help build momentum for this change.

2. Discover your “now”

In order to implement broad-scale change, you first need to start small. Choose one workflow to implement in the new system first, so your Adoption Alliance can build practices and examples before you roll it out completely. Ideally, choose a workflow that is collaborative and broad, so you can work out any kinks before you implement change.

For example, to roll out a new work management tool, you might select a team or department, like the Marketing department . Before introducing the Marketing department to your new tool, consider building out demo environments of how they might use it. For example, you might show them how they can run more collaborative marketing campaigns with the new tool.

3. Design your first workflow

This is your chance to test out your new change on one workflow or process. Your convention setter should hold training for the selected team or workflow. Make sure your product advocate is also on hand to help celebrate wins and document the process working effectively.

At this point, you’ll likely run into questions you haven’t thought of before. Make sure to document frequently asked questions (and their answers) so you can implement them in your documentation when you roll this change out more broadly.

To illustrate, in the rollout of your new work management tool, you’ve already built demo environments for the marketing team . All that’s left is to hold training sessions with the team to show them how the tool works. During these trainings, you should:

Encourage participants to plan cross-functional initiatives —like the marketing campaign you demoed—in the new tool tool.

Check in frequently to see how the rollout is going and answer any questions the team might have.

Document their successes so you can use these moments to inspire other teams to adopt the new tool.

4. Enable your team and celebrate wins

While your proxy team is getting set up in your chosen workflow, make sure to check in with them frequently about their progress, and celebrate any wins—even small ones. 

Getting this momentum up front will not only help your change gain steam—it’ll also build an entire cohort of pro-change people who can become product advocates in their own right when you roll this change out more broadly.

5. Set up for future success

At this point, your proxy team should be up and running in the new way of operating. To prepare to introduce this change to rest of your organization, use this time to:

Celebrate the team’s early victories 

Collect regular feedback

Monitor tool adoption 

Build upon best practices 

Including FAQ documentation, help sessions, and a plan for continuous onboarding of new teammates in a central place will ensure long-term success.

6. Measure and expand use

Once you feel like you’ve worked out the issues in your first workflow, it’s time to roll out your change initiative more broadly. Use the training sessions, FAQ documentation, and prep you’ve done with your proxy team to help guide the rest of your organization. 

Depending on the size of your company, plan to hold office hours with your Adoption Alliance to answer any questions. Encourage your product advocate(s) to check in and celebrate wins frequently in order to help your new work management tool gain momentum.

Before you know it, you’ve successfully completed your change management plan!

Benefits of change management

With effective change management, you can introduce new processes without disrupting your team or organization. We tend to be pretty attached to the “old way” of doing things, even if the new way is, objectively, better. A change management plan helps your team realize the value of the proposed change, by making it as minimally disruptive as possible.

With a successful change management process in place, you can expect:

A higher rate of success: By rolling out large changes slowly, addressing issues, and celebrating wins in the early stages of your change management process, you can drive greater benefit realization while also preparing the rest of the organization for success. 

Reduced risk: According to Mckinsey, 70% of change programs fail largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support. Implementing a process that addresses these common roadblocks will lead to less wasted resources and a better chance of success.

Improved management of future changes: Change is frequent in today’s business landscape. By continuously improving your change management process every time a new update rolls out, you’re ensuring the next transition is even smoother than the last. 

Consistency when managing change: You can streamline organizational change management when there is a standard change management model in place. 

Better alignment of practice and values: Your employees are your company’s greatest assets, so positioning a change in a way that aligns with their core values will help them be more receptive to the change process. 

Other change management models

Change management processes go back to the early 1960s, and there have been several models of change management over the years. Here are three traditional change management models that organizations still find effective to this day. 

Lewin’s change model

Kurt Lewin , a German-American psychologist, is best known for his contributions of applied research to communication practices. Lewin’s change model breaks change management into a three-stage process:

Unfreeze: During the Unfreeze phase, you will help your team or company overcome their initial change aversion. Not only will you analyze any aversion to the change, but you’ll also begin convincing your team why you need the change. At this point in Lewin’s change model, your focus is on preparing your team for something new.

Change: The Change step is when you roll out the organizational change. Keep in mind that Change may be a multi-step process as you run into unforeseen obstacles and work to slowly onboard everyone onto the new system, whatever it may be.

Freeze: You’ve implemented the Change—now it’s time to freeze it in place so the “new” way of doing things becomes the standard.

The ADKAR model

The ADKAR model was created by Jeff Hiatt. ADKAR is an acronym, which stands for:

Awareness of the need for change

Desire to participate and support the change

Knowledge of what to do to ensure successful change

Ability to implement the change

Reinforcement to ensure the change continues to be implemented in the long term

The 8-step process for leading change

Dr. John Kotter invented this method, which he outlined in his book, Leading Change . This process is the main inspiration for Asana’s Way of Change. According to Kotter, the eight steps are:

Create a sense of urgency to emphasize the importance of acting immediately

Build a guiding coalition to guide, coordinate, and communicate the organizational change

Form a strategic vision and initiatives to clarify how the future will be different from the past

Enlist a volunteer army to rally around the change

Enable action by removing barriers in order to provide the freedom your organization needs to generate real impact

Generate short-term wins to energize the organization to persist

Sustain acceleration and be relentless about initiating change until your vision is a reality

Institute change until it’s strong enough to replace old habits

When to use change management

You shouldn’t roll out the full change management process for every organizational change. Change management is only essential when the potential pushback is going to be large or company-wide. Remember that, as humans, we can be averse to change —we tend to like the current system (even if it’s not the best process), and it can be hard for people or teams to imagine working in a new way.

Here are a few examples of organizational changes you’d introduce with a change management process:

New company-wide tool or technology

Change in leadership or organizational structure

Work culture or values updates

Updated company policies, HR programs, or benefits

Merger or acquisition

The most important thing to keep in mind when implementing a change management process is to be thoughtful about when and how you’re rolling out this change to your organization.

At Asana, our Professional Services and Customer Success teams frequently help teams build a change management strategy to roll out a new company-wide tool or technology. With Asana , teams don’t just have a tool to organize and execute work—they’re also rolling out a new approach to team collaboration through work management . Using a change management process can help ensure success and adoption.

The key to organizational change is change management

No matter what organizational change you’re rolling out or which change management methodology you use, a thoughtful, measured process is the key to change management. Help your team successfully adapt to any change by using change management.

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Change Management Plan What is it with Example and How to Create Yours?

Published: 26 December, 2023

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Organizational Development

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Plenty of businesses and business people claim they want to generate change in their companies and industries, but despite having big dreams, very few succeed. We believe the main reason these ventures fail is that they lack a Change Management Plan.

A Change Management Plan is an explicit description of how the different segments of a business will navigate innovation and transformation. The way we talk about change is often metaphorical, or aspirational. Your Change Management Plan will distil your vision into actionable processes that enable the advances you’re looking to make.

In this article, we will discuss how a Change Management Plan is an effective tool for innovation, and how you can use your own Plan as an engine for transformation and growth.

What is a Change Management Plan

The change management plan is a structured approach that an organization follows to successfully introduce and manage changes within the company. It is typically used for significant or complex changes that have a significant impact on job roles and require a more strategic approach to implementation.

The plan outlines the steps necessary to transition from the current state to the desired future state and includes a plan for monitoring and measuring the success of the change.

One popular model for managing change is the 8-Step Change Model, which consists of eight steps that guide an organization through the process of implementing and managing change. The model begins with identifying the reason for change and gathering and analyzing data to understand the current situation.

It then moves on to developing a vision and strategy for the desired future state, communicating the change to stakeholders, empowering employees for success, creating a detailed plan for implementation, and executing the plan. Finally, the model includes a step for evaluating and adjusting the change as needed to ensure its success.

For a more tangible understanding, consider this change management plan example , A multinational company decided to transition from its legacy project management software to a more modern, cloud-based solution. Recognizing the need for change, they conducted extensive surveys and data analysis, revealing widespread dissatisfaction with the current system.

The vision was to improve collaboration among global teams and enhance project visibility. The change was communicated transparently to all stakeholders, and employees were empowered through comprehensive training programs. The implementation plan included a phased rollout, starting with smaller teams before company-wide adoption. Regular evaluations were conducted, and adjustments were made based on user feedback. The new software significantly improved project efficiency, reduced delays, and fostered better collaboration across departments, demonstrating the success of the change management plan.

The 8-Step Change Model provides a structured approach for managing change and can be used in conjunction with a change management plan to ensure a smooth and effective transition.

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The 8-Step Process For Leading Change

Change management importance, change management can help organizations to:, (1) minimize resistance and increase support for change initiatives..

By having a well-structured change management plan, organizations can reduce resistance to change by effectively communicating the reasons for change and addressing potential concerns.

(2) Ensure that changes align with the organization’s overall strategy and goals.

A change management plan helps ensure that changes align with the overall business strategy and business goals and that the changes are aligned with the organization’s vision and mission.

(3) Enhance the effectiveness and success of change initiatives.

A change management plan helps organizations to implement changes more effectively and increases the chances of success.

(4) Minimize disruption to operations and minimize the impact of change on employees.

By effectively managing change, organizations can minimize the impact of change on employees and reduce disruption to operations, ensuring that the change process is smoother and more efficient.

(5) Improve communication and collaboration during the change process.

A change management plan helps improve communication and collaboration between different stakeholders during the change process, ensuring that everyone is working towards a common goal.

(6) Ensure sustainability of changes by embedding new practices into the organizational culture.

A change management plan helps organizations embed new practices into the organizational culture, ensuring that changes are sustained over time.

(7) Increase the chances of success by anticipating and addressing potential problems before they arise.

By anticipating and addressing potential problems before they arise, organizations can increase the chances of success and reduce the risk of failure.

How do you Write a Change Management Plan?

As you set to write a Change Management Plan, it’s important to remember why you’re writing it to begin with: you want to control the chaos that accompanies any major overhaul of an organization’s way of doing business. Managing the fear and uncertainty that people feel at this time will help change occur far more smoothly; having a clear roadmap of how you’ll bring that change to life is a big help.

Below we walk through the steps involved with writing a Change Management Plan that you can use to move your business forward.

Create the Need for Change

Step (1): Identify the Reasons for change & create urgency

• Create Awareness of the need for change
• Articulate a powerful rationale and business case.
• Open the Dialogue and Create Urgency

Step (2): Form a Powerful coalition and build the guiding team

Assemble and nominate a team with enough power and influence to lead the change effort

Change the Direction

Step (3): Develop a Vision & Strategy for Change

Develop a clear vision of how the future will be different and define a roadmap toward achieving that vision.

Step (4): Communicate the Vision and Strategy

• Use every possible vehicle to communicate the vision and gain buy-in
• Address concerns, lead by example, and reward people

Change Behavio r

Step (5): Empower Actions & Remove Barriers

• Eliminate barriers that impede transformation & empower people to take actions
• Align resources, systems, and structures to support the vision and strategy

Step (6): Create Quick Wins & Celebrate Achievements

• Create visible quick wins
• Identify and Reward change agents involved

Change Sustainability

Step (7): Secure Successes, Accelerate & Build on the Change

• Consolidate and build on the change
• Define goals that ride on the momentum
• Use credibility to change policies and procedures that don’t fit the vision.

Step (8): Make Change Stick & Anchor Change in the Corporate Culture

• Continually articulate the connections between the new way of working & corporate success.
• Weave new corporate culture and style into leadership development and succession planning

Change Management Processes

Change management processes and systems pave the way for successful change management. It is important to be able to submit a change request, and then track, schedule, and manage that request through delivery. A change management system will allow a single storage location for all data associated with organizational changes, standardization of procedures, analysis of trends and activity, and easy access anywhere at any time.

Look for a system that offers the following functionality:

• Ability to break work down into tasks
• Configurable change request forms
• Budgeting and cost controls
• Change log for historical tracking
• Role assignment
• Configurable change management processes
• Schedule of changes (Forward Schedule of Change)
• Ability to classify as a change and reclassify as a defect
• Ability to change the assignment to individuals, teams, and/or Change Advisory or Change Control Board
• Updating changes
• Change monitoring
• Change approvals

Change is inevitable.

No marketplace survives intact forever, and successful businesses adapt as necessary to ensure their growth and prosperity. Additionally, businesses should change purposefully for innovation that makes better use of their resources and competitive advantage.

Following an articulated Change Management Plan will help guide your organization successfully through the decisions you make today for the opportunities you’ll find tomorrow.

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What is a Business Plan? Definition, Tips, and Templates

Published: June 07, 2023

In an era where more than 20% of small enterprises fail in their first year, having a clear, defined, and well-thought-out business plan is a crucial first step for setting up a business for long-term success.

Business plans are a required tool for all entrepreneurs, business owners, business acquirers, and even business school students. But … what exactly is a business plan?

In this post, we'll explain what a business plan is, the reasons why you'd need one, identify different types of business plans, and what you should include in yours.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a documented strategy for a business that highlights its goals and its plans for achieving them. It outlines a company's go-to-market plan, financial projections, market research, business purpose, and mission statement. Key staff who are responsible for achieving the goals may also be included in the business plan along with a timeline.

The business plan is an undeniably critical component to getting any company off the ground. It's key to securing financing, documenting your business model, outlining your financial projections, and turning that nugget of a business idea into a reality.

What is a business plan used for?

The purpose of a business plan is three-fold: It summarizes the organization’s strategy in order to execute it long term, secures financing from investors, and helps forecast future business demands.

Business Plan Template [ Download Now ]

Working on your business plan? Try using our Business Plan Template . Pre-filled with the sections a great business plan needs, the template will give aspiring entrepreneurs a feel for what a business plan is, what should be in it, and how it can be used to establish and grow a business from the ground up.

Purposes of a Business Plan

Chances are, someone drafting a business plan will be doing so for one or more of the following reasons:

1. Securing financing from investors.

Since its contents revolve around how businesses succeed, break even, and turn a profit, a business plan is used as a tool for sourcing capital. This document is an entrepreneur's way of showing potential investors or lenders how their capital will be put to work and how it will help the business thrive.

All banks, investors, and venture capital firms will want to see a business plan before handing over their money, and investors typically expect a 10% ROI or more from the capital they invest in a business.

Therefore, these investors need to know if — and when — they'll be making their money back (and then some). Additionally, they'll want to read about the process and strategy for how the business will reach those financial goals, which is where the context provided by sales, marketing, and operations plans come into play.

2. Documenting a company's strategy and goals.

A business plan should leave no stone unturned.

Business plans can span dozens or even hundreds of pages, affording their drafters the opportunity to explain what a business' goals are and how the business will achieve them.

To show potential investors that they've addressed every question and thought through every possible scenario, entrepreneurs should thoroughly explain their marketing, sales, and operations strategies — from acquiring a physical location for the business to explaining a tactical approach for marketing penetration.

These explanations should ultimately lead to a business' break-even point supported by a sales forecast and financial projections, with the business plan writer being able to speak to the why behind anything outlined in the plan.

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Fill out the form to access your free business plan., 3. legitimizing a business idea..

Everyone's got a great idea for a company — until they put pen to paper and realize that it's not exactly feasible.

A business plan is an aspiring entrepreneur's way to prove that a business idea is actually worth pursuing.

As entrepreneurs document their go-to-market process, capital needs, and expected return on investment, entrepreneurs likely come across a few hiccups that will make them second guess their strategies and metrics — and that's exactly what the business plan is for.

It ensures an entrepreneur's ducks are in a row before bringing their business idea to the world and reassures the readers that whoever wrote the plan is serious about the idea, having put hours into thinking of the business idea, fleshing out growth tactics, and calculating financial projections.

4. Getting an A in your business class.

Speaking from personal experience, there's a chance you're here to get business plan ideas for your Business 101 class project.

If that's the case, might we suggest checking out this post on How to Write a Business Plan — providing a section-by-section guide on creating your plan?

What does a business plan need to include?

• Business Plan Subtitle
• Executive Summary
• Company Description
• The Business Opportunity
• Competitive Analysis
• Target Market
• Marketing Plan
• Financial Summary
• Funding Requirements

1. Business Plan Subtitle

Every great business plan starts with a captivating title and subtitle. You’ll want to make it clear that the document is, in fact, a business plan, but the subtitle can help tell the story of your business in just a short sentence.

2. Executive Summary

Although this is the last part of the business plan that you’ll write, it’s the first section (and maybe the only section) that stakeholders will read. The executive summary of a business plan sets the stage for the rest of the document. It includes your company’s mission or vision statement, value proposition, and long-term goals.

3. Company Description

This brief part of your business plan will detail your business name, years in operation, key offerings, and positioning statement. You might even add core values or a short history of the company. The company description’s role in a business plan is to introduce your business to the reader in a compelling and concise way.

4. The Business Opportunity

The business opportunity should convince investors that your organization meets the needs of the market in a way that no other company can. This section explains the specific problem your business solves within the marketplace and how it solves them. It will include your value proposition as well as some high-level information about your target market.

5. Competitive Analysis

Just about every industry has more than one player in the market. Even if your business owns the majority of the market share in your industry or your business concept is the first of its kind, you still have competition. In the competitive analysis section, you’ll take an objective look at the industry landscape to determine where your business fits. A SWOT analysis is an organized way to format this section.

6. Target Market

Who are the core customers of your business and why? The target market portion of your business plan outlines this in detail. The target market should explain the demographics, psychographics, behavioristics, and geographics of the ideal customer.

7. Marketing Plan

Marketing is expansive, and it’ll be tempting to cover every type of marketing possible, but a brief overview of how you’ll market your unique value proposition to your target audience, followed by a tactical plan will suffice.

Think broadly and narrow down from there: Will you focus on a slow-and-steady play where you make an upfront investment in organic customer acquisition? Or will you generate lots of quick customers using a pay-to-play advertising strategy? This kind of information should guide the marketing plan section of your business plan.

8. Financial Summary

Money doesn’t grow on trees and even the most digital, sustainable businesses have expenses. Outlining a financial summary of where your business is currently and where you’d like it to be in the future will substantiate this section. Consider including any monetary information that will give potential investors a glimpse into the financial health of your business. Assets, liabilities, expenses, debt, investments, revenue, and more are all useful adds here.

So, you’ve outlined some great goals, the business opportunity is valid, and the industry is ready for what you have to offer. Who’s responsible for turning all this high-level talk into results? The "team" section of your business plan answers that question by providing an overview of the roles responsible for each goal. Don’t worry if you don’t have every team member on board yet, knowing what roles to hire for is helpful as you seek funding from investors.

10. Funding Requirements

Remember that one of the goals of a business plan is to secure funding from investors, so you’ll need to include funding requirements you’d like them to fulfill. The amount your business needs, for what reasons, and for how long will meet the requirement for this section.

Types of Business Plans

• Startup Business Plan
• Feasibility Business Plan
• Internal Business Plan
• Strategic Business Plan
• Business Acquisition Plan
• Business Repositioning Plan
• Expansion or Growth Business Plan

There’s no one size fits all business plan as there are several types of businesses in the market today. From startups with just one founder to historic household names that need to stay competitive, every type of business needs a business plan that’s tailored to its needs. Below are a few of the most common types of business plans.

For even more examples, check out these sample business plans to help you write your own .

1. Startup Business Plan

As one of the most common types of business plans, a startup business plan is for new business ideas. This plan lays the foundation for the eventual success of a business.

The biggest challenge with the startup business plan is that it’s written completely from scratch. Startup business plans often reference existing industry data. They also explain unique business strategies and go-to-market plans.

Because startup business plans expand on an original idea, the contents will vary by the top priority goals.

For example, say a startup is looking for funding. If capital is a priority, this business plan might focus more on financial projections than marketing or company culture.

2. Feasibility Business Plan

This type of business plan focuses on a single essential aspect of the business — the product or service. It may be part of a startup business plan or a standalone plan for an existing organization. This comprehensive plan may include:

• A detailed product description
• Market analysis
• Technology needs
• Production needs
• Financial sources
• Production operations

According to CBInsights research, 35% of startups fail because of a lack of market need. Another 10% fail because of mistimed products.

Some businesses will complete a feasibility study to explore ideas and narrow product plans to the best choice. They conduct these studies before completing the feasibility business plan. Then the feasibility plan centers on that one product or service.

3. Internal Business Plan

Internal business plans help leaders communicate company goals, strategy, and performance. This helps the business align and work toward objectives more effectively.

Besides the typical elements in a startup business plan, an internal business plan may also include:

• Department-specific budgets
• Target demographic analysis
• Market size and share of voice analysis
• Action plans
• Sustainability plans

Most external-facing business plans focus on raising capital and support for a business. But an internal business plan helps keep the business mission consistent in the face of change.

4. Strategic Business Plan

Strategic business plans focus on long-term objectives for your business. They usually cover the first three to five years of operations. This is different from the typical startup business plan which focuses on the first one to three years. The audience for this plan is also primarily internal stakeholders.

These types of business plans may include:

• Relevant data and analysis
• Assessments of company resources
• Vision and mission statements

It's important to remember that, while many businesses create a strategic plan before launching, some business owners just jump in. So, this business plan can add value by outlining how your business plans to reach specific goals. This type of planning can also help a business anticipate future challenges.

5. Business Acquisition Plan

Investors use business plans to acquire existing businesses, too — not just new businesses.

A business acquisition plan may include costs, schedules, or management requirements. This data will come from an acquisition strategy.

A business plan for an existing company will explain:

• How an acquisition will change its operating model
• What will stay the same under new ownership
• Why things will change or stay the same
• Acquisition planning documentation
• Timelines for acquisition

Additionally, the business plan should speak to the current state of the business and why it's up for sale.

For example, if someone is purchasing a failing business, the business plan should explain why the business is being purchased. It should also include:

• What the new owner will do to turn the business around
• Historic business metrics
• Sales projections after the acquisition
• Justification for those projections

6. Business Repositioning Plan

When a business wants to avoid acquisition, reposition its brand, or try something new, CEOs or owners will develop a business repositioning plan.

This plan will:

• Acknowledge the current state of the company.
• State a vision for the future of the company.
• Explain why the business needs to reposition itself.
• Outline a process for how the company will adjust.

Companies planning for a business reposition often do so — proactively or retroactively — due to a shift in market trends and customer needs.

For example, shoe brand AllBirds plans to refocus its brand on core customers and shift its go-to-market strategy. These decisions are a reaction to lackluster sales following product changes and other missteps.

7. Expansion or Growth Business Plan

When your business is ready to expand, a growth business plan creates a useful structure for reaching specific targets.

For example, a successful business expanding into another location can use a growth business plan. This is because it may also mean the business needs to focus on a new target market or generate more capital.

This type of plan usually covers the next year or two of growth. It often references current sales, revenue, and successes. It may also include:

• SWOT analysis
• Growth opportunity studies
• Financial goals and plans
• Marketing plans
• Capability planning

These types of business plans will vary by business, but they can help businesses quickly rally around new priorities to drive growth.

Getting Started With Your Business Plan

At the end of the day, a business plan is simply an explanation of a business idea and why it will be successful. The more detail and thought you put into it, the more successful your plan — and the business it outlines — will be.

When writing your business plan, you’ll benefit from extensive research, feedback from your team or board of directors, and a solid template to organize your thoughts. If you need one of these, download HubSpot's Free Business Plan Template below to get started.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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14 Reasons Why You Need a Business Plan

10 min. read

Updated May 10, 2024

There’s no question that starting and running a business is hard work. But it’s also incredibly rewarding. And, one of the most important things you can do to increase your chances of success is to have a business plan.

A business plan is a foundational document that is essential for any company, no matter the size or age. From attracting potential investors to keeping your business on track—a business plan helps you achieve important milestones and grow in the right direction.

A business plan isn’t just a document you put together once when starting your business. It’s a living, breathing guide for existing businesses – one that business owners should revisit and update regularly.

Unfortunately, writing a business plan is often a daunting task for potential entrepreneurs. So, do you really need a business plan? Is it really worth the investment of time and resources? Can’t you just wing it and skip the whole planning process?

Good questions. Here’s every reason why you need a business plan.

• 1. Business planning is proven to help you grow 30 percent faster

Writing a business plan isn’t about producing a document that accurately predicts the future of your company. The  process  of writing your plan is what’s important. Writing your plan and reviewing it regularly gives you a better window into what you need to do to achieve your goals and succeed. 

You don’t have to just take our word for it. Studies have  proven that companies that plan  and review their results regularly grow 30 percent faster. Beyond faster growth, research also shows that companies that plan actually perform better. They’re less likely to become one of those woeful failure statistics, or experience  cash flow crises  that threaten to close them down. 

• 2. Planning is a necessary part of the fundraising process

One of the top reasons to have a business plan is to make it easier to raise money for your business. Without a business plan, it’s difficult to know how much money you need to raise, how you will spend the money once you raise it, and what your budget should be.

Investors want to know that you have a solid plan in place – that your business is headed in the right direction and that there is long-term potential in your venture. 

A business plan shows that your business is serious and that there are clearly defined steps on how it aims to become successful. It also demonstrates that you have the necessary competence to make that vision a reality. 

Investors, partners, and creditors will want to see detailed financial forecasts for your business that shows how you plan to grow and how you plan on spending their money. 

• 3. Having a business plan minimizes your risk

When you’re just starting out, there’s so much you don’t know—about your customers, your competition, and even about operations. 

As a business owner, you signed up for some of that uncertainty when you started your business, but there’s a lot you can  do to reduce your risk . Creating and reviewing your business plan regularly is a great way to uncover your weak spots—the flaws, gaps, and assumptions you’ve made—and develop contingency plans. 

Your business plan will also help you define budgets and revenue goals. And, if you’re not meeting your goals, you can quickly adjust spending plans and create more realistic budgets to keep your business healthy.

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• 4. Crafts a roadmap to achieve important milestones

A business plan is like a roadmap for your business. It helps you set, track and reach business milestones. 

For your plan to function in this way, your business plan should first outline your company’s short- and long-term goals. You can then fill in the specific steps necessary to reach those goals. This ensures that you measure your progress (or lack thereof) and make necessary adjustments along the way to stay on track while avoiding costly detours.

In fact, one of the top reasons why new businesses fail is due to bad business planning. Combine this with inflexibility and you have a recipe for disaster.

And planning is not just for startups. Established businesses benefit greatly from revisiting their business plan. It keeps them on track, even when the global market rapidly shifts as we’ve seen in recent years.

• 5. A plan helps you figure out if your idea can become a business

To turn your idea into reality, you need to accurately assess the feasibility of your business idea.

You need to verify:

• If there is a market for your product or service
• Who your target audience is
• How you will gain an edge over the current competition
• If your business can run profitably

A business plan forces you to take a step back and look at your business objectively, which makes it far easier to make tough decisions down the road. Additionally, a business plan helps you to identify risks and opportunities early on, providing you with the necessary time to come up with strategies to address them properly.

Finally, a business plan helps you work through the nuts and bolts of how your business will work financially and if it can become sustainable over time.

6. You’ll make big spending decisions with confidence

As your business grows, you’ll have to figure out when to hire new employees, when to expand to a new location, or whether you can afford a major purchase. 

These are always major spending decisions, and if you’re regularly reviewing the forecasts you mapped out in your business plan, you’re going to have better information to use to make your decisions.

7. You’re more likely to catch critical cash flow challenges early

The other side of those major spending decisions is understanding and monitoring your business’s cash flow. Your  cash flow statement  is one of the three key financial statements you’ll put together for your business plan. (The other two are your  balance sheet  and your  income statement  (P&L). 

Reviewing your cash flow statement regularly as part of your regular business plan review will help you see potential cash flow challenges earlier so you can take action to avoid a cash crisis where you can’t pay your bills. 

• 8. Position your brand against the competition

Competitors are one of the factors that you need to take into account when starting a business. Luckily, competitive research is an integral part of writing a business plan. It encourages you to ask questions like:

• What is your competition doing well? What are they doing poorly?
• What can you do to set yourself apart?
• What can you learn from them?
• How can you make your business stand out?
• What key business areas can you outcompete?
• How can you identify your target market?

Finding answers to these questions helps you solidify a strategic market position and identify ways to differentiate yourself. It also proves to potential investors that you’ve done your homework and understand how to compete. 

• 9. Determines financial needs and revenue models

A vital part of starting a business is understanding what your expenses will be and how you will generate revenue to cover those expenses. Creating a business plan helps you do just that while also defining ongoing financial needs to keep in mind. 

Without a business model, it’s difficult to know whether your business idea will generate revenue. By detailing how you plan to make money, you can effectively assess the viability and scalability of your business. 

Understanding this early on can help you avoid unnecessary risks and start with the confidence that your business is set up to succeed.

• 10. Helps you think through your marketing strategy

A business plan is a great way to document your marketing plan. This will ensure that all of your marketing activities are aligned with your overall goals. After all, a business can’t grow without customers and you’ll need a strategy for acquiring those customers. 

Your business plan should include information about your target market, your marketing strategy, and your marketing budget. Detail things like how you plan to attract and retain customers, acquire new leads, how the digital marketing funnel will work, etc. 

Having a documented marketing plan will help you to automate business operations, stay on track and ensure that you’re making the most of your marketing dollars.

• 11. Clarifies your vision and ensures everyone is on the same page

In order to create a successful business, you need a clear vision and a plan for how you’re going to achieve it. This is all detailed with your mission statement, which defines the purpose of your business, and your personnel plan, which outlines the roles and responsibilities of current and future employees. Together, they establish the long-term vision you have in mind and who will need to be involved to get there. 

Additionally, your business plan is a great tool for getting your team in sync. Through consistent plan reviews, you can easily get everyone in your company on the same page and direct your workforce toward tasks that truly move the needle.

• 12. Future-proof your business

A business plan helps you to evaluate your current situation and make realistic projections for the future.

This is an essential step in growing your business, and it’s one that’s often overlooked. When you have a business plan in place, it’s easier to identify opportunities and make informed decisions based on data.

Therefore, it requires you to outline goals, strategies, and tactics to help the organization stay focused on what’s important.

By regularly revisiting your business plan, especially when the global market changes, you’ll be better equipped to handle whatever challenges come your way, and pivot faster.

You’ll also be in a better position to seize opportunities as they arise.

Further Reading: 5 fundamental principles of business planning

• 13. Tracks your progress and measures success

An often overlooked purpose of a business plan is as a tool to define success metrics. A key part of writing your plan involves pulling together a viable financial plan. This includes financial statements such as your profit and loss, cash flow, balance sheet, and sales forecast.

By housing these financial metrics within your business plan, you suddenly have an easy way to relate your strategy to actual performance. You can track progress, measure results, and follow up on how the company is progressing. Without a plan, it’s almost impossible to gauge whether you’re on track or not.  

Additionally, by evaluating your successes and failures, you learn what works and what doesn’t and you can make necessary changes to your plan. In short, having a business plan gives you a framework for measuring your success. It also helps with building up a “lessons learned” knowledge database to avoid costly mistakes in the future.

• 14. Your business plan is an asset if you ever want to sell

Down the road, you might decide that you want to sell your business or position yourself for acquisition. Having a solid business plan is going to help you make the case for a higher valuation. Your business is likely to be worth more to a buyer if it’s easy for them to understand your business model, your target market, and your overall potential to grow and scale. 

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• Writing your business plan

By taking the time to create a business plan, you ensure that your business is heading in the right direction and that you have a roadmap to get there. We hope that this post has shown you just how important and valuable a business plan can be. While it may still seem daunting, the benefits far outweigh the time investment and learning curve for writing one. 

Luckily, you can write a plan in as little as 30 minutes. And there are plenty of excellent planning tools and business plan templates out there if you’re looking for more step-by-step guidance. Whatever it takes, write your plan and you’ll quickly see how useful it can be.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software , a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. He has an MBA from Stanford and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching and evangelizing for business planning.

Table of Contents

• 6. You’ll make big spending decisions with confidence
• 7. You’re more likely to catch critical cash flow challenges early

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How to Make a Change Management Plan (Templates Included)

A change management plan is a critical part of any project plan can be the difference between project success and failure. Let’s break down how to create one so you can better manage project change, no matter where it shows up in your project life cycle.

What Is a Change Management Plan?

A change management plan is a process that implements a change or changes in a project or across an organization. You can think of a change management plan as a roadmap that shows all the steps you need to take from identifying the change to realizing it. This plan not only sets the course by which you can execute the change, but asks how it will impact the project or organization, how workflows will be affected and whether it will alter your relationship with your customers or teams.

Manage Change, Reap the Benefits

By using an effective change management plan you’re able to manage the process and thereby be more productive in its execution. It helps you control the budget, schedule , scope and resources. It even impacts your communication process. In fact, the change management plan is systemic, touching on all aspects of project management. When done correctly, it will minimize the impact to your project or organization.

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Change Log Template

Use this free Change Log Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Elements of a Change Management Plan

Define the following elements below to create an effective change management plan for your project.

• Change Management Roles:  First, who is going to be doing what in your change management plan? Who has the authority to submit a change request, who reviews them and who authorizes them? You’ll need to define roles and responsibilities for effective change control
• Change Control Board:  Staff your change control board with people who will receive the change requests and have the authority to approve or veto them.
• Develop a Process: You need a process in order to effectively submit, evaluate, authorize and manage and control the change requests. Without a process, change management is unmanageable.
• Change Request Form: You can’t have a process, however, if you don’t first create a change request form to capture the data. It’s important that the information you collect is consistent throughout the project.
• Change Log: Basically, this is a place to collect, and then track all the change orders . Without a central location where changes can be identified, requests approved and assignments documented, there’s no way to know if there’s been any progress.
• Use a Tool: A project planning software  can help you keep track of changes through every phase of the project until it’s finally resolved.

Project management software can help you execute your plan. ProjectManager has an award-winning Gantt chart that can be used to create your change management plan: organize tasks, link dependencies, set milestones and even filter for the critical path. The plan can be shared with your team, who can use our multiple project views to collaborate better. You won’t find an easier-to-use or more powerful change management software. Get started with ProjectManager today for free!

How to Make a Change Management Plan

Jennifer Bridges, PMP, breaks down how to create a change management plan in the following video. She explains how change is measured against the project baseline , which is the detailed description of the time, cost, scope and quality of the project that you have determined when planning. Therefore, a change management plan is going to take that baseline and ask how, what, when where, why and how to figure out change and how to manage it.

After you watch the video, be sure to try some of our free templates below to help you manage change and your project.

Pro-Tip: There are different types of change management, and the best way to get a holistic understanding of it is through the triple constraint. There are processes established to help with the change management process , and it’s crucial to know them. Also, keep in mind that change management procedures vary depending on the industry you’re in. For example, change order forms are used primarily in construction to change the scope of projects.

Take it Further: Sometimes, when tough changes happen in the midst of execution, technical debt can be accrued. Learn all about it and how to minimize it.

Our free change log template for Excel is part of any thorough change management plan.  It is the next step once a change has been proposed and authorized by the project manager. This free template has space to write the change request type, the date it was identified, a brief description, the priority and its status.

We’ve created other change management templates for Word and Excel you can download from our online library. Below are three free templates to get you started.

More Change Management Plan Templates

Change management can be planned, executed and monitored best with project management software , but if you’re not using that tool then you can still get by with templates. ProjectManager has dozens of free templates on its site, which touch on every aspect of a project, including the change management plan.

Change Request Form Template

Before a change can be approved, stakeholders or project team members should use a change request form to suggest changing the project scope or project plan. If their request is feasible, it can be approved and turned into a change order.

Change Order Form Template

Our free change order form template for Excel is just the tool to streamline the change approval process. It helps you understand the change, from the opportunity it offers and the reason for the change to how long it’ll take, who requested it and who will authorize or deny it.

Action Plan Template

Get that change management plan executed properly with our free action plan template for Excel. This is where you can organize all the tasks that are necessary to implement the change. You can note which action steps occur during which phase in the project and then assign them to your team. They’ll see the start date and due date as well as the planned hours you expect for the duration of each task. There’s even room for resources and costs related to the work.

Go Beyond Change Management Templates with ProjectManager

ProjectManager is cloud-based work and project management software that connects hybrid teams to help implement change across an organization or project. Real-time data makes it collaborative to the core and multiple project views mean anyone in any department, no matter how, when or where they work can use it the way they want, whether in a task list, Gantt or kanban board.

You’ve seen how a Gantt chart can organize the change management plan but when that plan is assigned to teams that maybe work in a more agile environment, then they need a different tool. Kanban boards visualize workflow and workflows can be customized to automate task approvals, for example. Managers have control and transparency, while team members can manage their backlog and collaborate when planning sprints.

Track Change on the Dashboard

Monitoring change is how you make sure your actual progress is aligned with your change management plan. Our real-time dashboard gets live data and crunches the numbers to display metrics on time, cost and more in easy-to-read graphs and charts. It’s a status report whenever you need one so you can catch issues and resolve them before they cause problems.

ProjectManager is award-winning work and project management software that connects hybrid teams for greater productivity. Manage change without impacting your schedule or budget. Get started with ProjectManager for free today!

Deliver your projects on time and on budget

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4 Strategies to Guide Your Team Through a Departmental Transition

• Susan Peppercorn
• Tony Martignetti

Start by communicating the “why” clearly and authentically.

Whether initiated by strategic realignment, leadership changes, or market demands, departmental transitions test a leader’s mettle. In this article, the authors offer four strategies to guide your team through a departmental transition while maintaining morale, productivity, and cohesion: 1) Communicate the “why” clearly and authentically. 2) Acknowledge the emotional impact. 3) Cultivate ownership and involvement. 4) Prepare your team for future changes.

Organizational change is constant in an era marked by rapid technological advancements, shifting market dynamics, and the lingering effects of a global pandemic. A survey by McKinsey & Company found that 80% of organizations have experienced some form of transformation in the past five years, yet only a third of these initiatives have been successful.

• Susan Peppercorn  is an executive career transition coach and speaker. She is the author of  Ditch Your Inner Critic at Work: Evidence-Based Strategies  to Thrive in Your Career. Numerous publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, the Boston Globe, and SELF Magazine have tapped her for career advice. You can download her free Career Fit Self-Assessment and 25 Steps to a Successful Career Transition .
• TM Tony Martignetti is the chief inspiration officer at Inspired Purpose Partners , where he advises leaders to stay grounded in chaotic times. He is the best-selling author of Climbing the Right Mountain: Navigating the Journey to An Inspired Life and Campfire Lessons for Leaders: How Uncovering Our Past Can Propel Us Forward .

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6 reasons why big businesses need small businesses.

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Young happy confident businesspeople, owners of a small company and a new business, satisfied and ... [+] motivated go to a meeting with a large corporation. Economic and marketing experts go to office work

As an advisor to small businesses and entrepreneurs, I too often hear the desire to be a big company. I have to remind owners that there are advantages to being small, and in fact, many large companies leaders wish their business was small again, to let them be more focused on their customer needs and their own satisfaction, rather than constant pressure from investors.

The challenge of every business is to capitalize on strengths, stay healthy, and achieve success. I recently was impressed by a summary of these challenges in a new book, “ Small Business, Big Success ,” by Cynthia Kay. She is the founder of an award-winning media production and communications consulting firm and has worked extensively with both large and small companies.

She starts by highlighting the top reasons why we both believe that big businesses normally like small companies, and actually look to them as complementary to their needs. I will paraphrase these reasons here, adding my own insights, and I recommend that every small business owner orient their strategy and action plans along these lines:

1. Small businesses are easy to do business with. They don’t have complicated processes and procedures that have to be adhered to. Also, small businesses are not likely to have a whole legal staff that wants to negotiate every point of a new contract. Customers of all sizes can easily establish a relationship with key decision makers.

2. Organizations are flexible to new requirements. They can move schedules around, assign people to step in when needed, and don’t have an 8-5 mentality. Small companies know they must adapt to competitive business environments and practices in terms of technology, structure, work organization, and human resource management all at once.

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3. Can change course when needed without delay. If the scope of a project or customer relationship changes, there is no need to negotiate with endless gatekeepers to get the approvals required to keep from stalling the work. Work delays can damage a big company’s reputation with any customer, and other stakeholders could be disillusioned or impacted.

4. Bring big businesses great new ideas. Small businesses are closer to customers and are always looking for new opportunities or solution innovations. They are not so wed to the way things have always been done, and thrive on new solutions, services, or business model ideas. Historically, most new ideas are sourced from small businesses.

5. Have a “can-do” mentality at all levels. Because the teams are small, they don’t have the luxury of experts to do any given task. They are willing to take on any challenge, and accept that mistakes are inevitable, but don’t have to be accepted as failures. Mistakes are opportunities to learn, improve, and grow, instead of dwelling on what went wrong.

6. Teams are “lean” so provide value at low cost. Small-business owners always spend client’s money as if it were their own, and don’t ever want to waste scarce resources. Big clients appreciate that and rely on their relationships with small partners to keep everyone focused on key issues. These lean teams take pride in their skills and high productivity.

Despite these points, I recognize there has often been a love/hate relationship between small business and big business. Big companies get tired of being called slow and inefficient, while small-business owners often feel that big business gets all the breaks, special treatment, and legislation to help them compete. I urge both to not let emotions interfere with business opportunities and relationships.

I assure you that if you do the things outlined here while you are small, you will be attractive to larger businesses and clients. Your odds of succeeding will increase, whether your long-term strategy is to stay small, or continue to grow and compete with the larger businesses out there.

We need both, working hand-in-hand, to satisfy the rapidly changing needs of today’s world-wide economy.

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Sony and Apollo’s Plan for Paramount: Break It Up

CBS and other well-known properties would be sold if Sony and Apollo were able to buy Paramount. But the new owners would keep the movie studio.

By Benjamin Mullin and Lauren Hirsch

Shari Redstone helped build Paramount Global into a media empire, but if Sony Pictures Entertainment and the private-equity giant Apollo Global Management succeed in acquiring it, they plan to break it all up, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The plan would include auctioning off CBS, cable channels like MTV and the Paramount Plus streaming service, said the people, who asked not to be identified sharing private details. Paramount Pictures — home to blockbusters like “The Godfather,” “Top Gun” and the “Mission: Impossible” franchise — would be combined with Sony’s business.

Sony and Apollo, which made a nonbinding expression of interest in acquiring Paramount for $26 billion last week, are also likely to keep Paramount’s library of films and TV shows and the rights to well-known characters, including the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and SpongeBob SquarePants. They have not yet outlined this plan to Paramount or its advisers.

A breakup of Paramount would represent a major changing of the guard in the entertainment industry. CBS and Paramount have been controlled by the Redstone family for decades, since the media mogul Sumner Redstone assembled the conglomerate in a series of audacious deals. His daughter, Ms. Redstone, championed a 2019 deal to reunite it, and she remains Paramount’s controlling shareholder.

Sony and Apollo are now engaging with Paramount’s financial advisers on next steps in their proposal, the people said. The two companies have not yet signed formal nondisclosure agreements or begun due diligence reviews, a process that could take weeks.

Though it’s still early, the two bidders have already begun to envision how a deal for Paramount could unfold. The two would likely operate the company as a joint venture controlled by Sony, with a minority stake owned by Apollo, the people said. Sony would look to combine the marketing and distribution functions of the Paramount movie studio with its own operations, and divest the rest of the properties.

Over time, Apollo could sell its stake in the joint venture back to Sony or to another buyer. It’s not yet clear just how large a stake Apollo would hold in the business, though the company plans to invest billions in the deal, one person said.

A breakup of Paramount is not a preferred outcome for Ms. Redstone, who would prefer the company to pass on to another buyer intact, a person familiar with her thinking said. But it wouldn’t necessarily be a dealbreaker if the offer was compelling, the person said.

There are other suitors. Skydance, a media company founded by the tech scion David Ellison, has been in discussions with Paramount for months about a potential deal. Exclusive negotiations between Skydance and Paramount lapsed last week, shortly after Sony and Apollo put in their expression of interest. But Skydance remains interested.

Sony and Paramount have different approaches to the entertainment business, and a deal would probably result in a U-turn for Paramount. Unlike Paramount, which streams its content on Paramount+, Sony licenses its movies and TV shows to companies like Netflix and Disney. Sony would probably not change that approach in a deal with Paramount and would most likely look to combine Paramount+ with a rival service, such as Comcast’s Peacock or Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max.

Sony has long pursued Paramount’s movie studio. Several years ago, Sony executives reached out to Paramount to see if the company would be willing to sell Paramount Pictures or merge it into a joint venture, but Paramount signaled it was interested only in a deal for the whole company. So when Apollo made a bid for all of Paramount this year, Sony decided to team up.

Any deal by Sony would face regulatory hurdles. Regulations restrict foreign owners from holding licenses for U.S. broadcast stations, which could prevent Sony — which is owned by the Japanese-based Sony Group — from owning CBS-affiliated TV stations. But they could divest the stations immediately, or have Apollo apply for the license. They are also considering other options for the stations.

The deal would also most likely require clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the panel in Washington that scrutinizes acquisitions by foreign owners.

Sony and Apollo believe that when they decide to sell the Paramount assets , there could be many logical buyers, the three sources said. Warner Bros. Discovery, which does not own a broadcast network, could be a suitor for CBS. TV station groups like Nexstar and Tegna could be logical buyers for CBS’s owned and operated TV stations.

The hardest asset to sell would most likely be Paramount’s cable networks, like MTV and Nickelodeon, but those could be sold to a TV programmer looking for greater scale in negotiations with cable companies like Charter and Comcast.

Benjamin Mullin reports on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact Ben securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or email at [email protected] . More about Benjamin Mullin

Lauren Hirsch joined The Times from CNBC in 2020, covering deals and the biggest stories on Wall Street. More about Lauren Hirsch

College Savings Foundation Highlights Key 2024 Changes: Expert Vivian Tsai on Improved 529 Plans

MAY 15 2024

As the costs at some colleges near $100,000 a year, families need a savings strategy they can bank on. Financial experts and plan investors agree that 529 college savings plans are a smart choice for many. And, as of 2024, there are even more benefits, including higher contribution limits and the flexibility to roll unused money into a Roth individual retirement account free of tax penalties.

US overhauls electric grid to make way for more renewables

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Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; additional reporting by Nichola Groom; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Chris Reese, Susan Fenton and Marguerita Choy

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Valerie Volcovici covers U.S. climate and energy policy from Washington, DC. She is focused on climate and environmental regulations at federal agencies and in Congress and how the energy transition is transforming the United States. Other areas of coverage include her award-winning reporting plastic pollution and the ins and outs of global climate diplomacy and United Nations climate negotiations.

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Biden signs sweeping aviation safety, reform bill into law

President Joe Biden on Thursday signed sweeping aviation legislation to boost U.S. air traffic controller staffing, increase funding to avert runway close-call incidents and speed refunds for canceled flights.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a bill that strikes climate change from state law

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a Feb. 8 luncheon in Tampa, Fla. Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed Wednesday by DeSantis. Chris O'Meara/AP hide caption

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a Feb. 8 luncheon in Tampa, Fla. Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed Wednesday by DeSantis.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that also bans power-generating wind turbines offshore or near the state's lengthy coastline.

Critics said the measure made law by the former Republican presidential hopeful ignores the reality of climate change threats in Florida, including projections of rising seas, extreme heat and flooding and increasingly severe storms.

It takes effect July 1 and would also boost expansion of natural gas, reduce regulation on gas pipelines in the state and increase protections against bans on gas appliances such as stoves, according to a news release from the governor's office.

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DeSantis, who suspended his presidential campaign in January and later endorsed his bitter rival Donald Trump, called the bill a common-sense approach to energy policy.

"We're restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots," DeSantis said in a post on the X social media platform.

Florida is already about 74% reliant on natural gas to power electric generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Opponents of the bill DeSantis signed say it removes the word "climate' in nine different places, moves the state's energy goals away from efficiency and the reduction of greenhouse gases blamed for a warming planet.

"This purposeful act of cognitive dissonance is proof that the governor and state Legislature are not acting in the best interests of Floridians, but rather to protect profits for the fossil fuel industry," said Yoca Arditi-Rocha, executive director of the nonprofit Cleo Institute, which advocates for climate change education and engagement.

Their batteries hurt the environment, but EVs still beat gas cars. Here's why

The legislation also eliminates requirements that government agencies hold conferences and meetings in hotels certified by the state's environmental agency as "green lodging" and that government agencies make fuel efficiency the top priority in buying new vehicles. It also ends a requirement that Florida state agencies look at a list of "climate-friendly" products before making purchases.

In 2008, a bill to address climate change and promote renewable energy passed unanimously in both legislative chambers and was signed into law by then-Gov. Charlie Crist, at the time a Republican. Former Gov. Rick Scott, now a Republican U.S. senator, took steps after taking the governor's office in 2011 to undo some of that measure and this latest bill takes it even further.

The measure signed by DeSantis would also launch a study of small nuclear reactor technology, expand the use of vehicles powered by hydrogen and enhance electric grid security, according to the governor's office.