When rolling out SharePoint to an organisation, the words “change management” will often follow in quick succession.  But you do you know what that means exactly?  The End of Business has a great chapter on this that is well aligned to the SharePoint world.

In the first phase you need to document the desired changes, but the second phase on how to manage change is where it really counts.  These are the ones that you can apply to SharePoint.

1. Planning – isn’t the global SharePoint community constantly going on about this? Change management plans and models need to be in place.  Plan, plan, plan.
2. Buy-in – real change won’t happen without executive / stakeholder support.
3. Metrics – how will you know you’ve succeeded?  Define what success means to you.
4. Playbook – documented guidelines and parameters for people to achieve success. Governance right?  Just don’t overdo it, you want people to actually make a change.
5. Training – creating a program for everyone to perform as expected. If you want people to use SharePoint to become more social, you need to teach them the functionality that will allow them to do that.
6. Communication – this is my favourite topic as my regulars will know.  If you want people to change, you need to communicate how and why they need to.  Constantly and effectively.
7. Workflow – introduction of new processes for collaboration and decision trees.  Automate your SharePoint governance so people can request sites, support and log problems.
8. Recognition and rewards – if your staff adopt SharePoint in the way you want them to and start influencing others to do the same – shout it from the rooftops.  Recognise leadership and do something about it.  People need to feel good about doing something before they’ll do it.
9. Implementation – roll out the change management program through an inspired event supported by internal champions who inspire at every level. This is your SharePoint evangelists – invaluable in any large organisation wanting to adopt SharePoint.
10. Help – people won’t “just” know how to use SharePoint, put measures in place to support them all along the learning process.  This never goes away, so make sure you plan for it.

Phase 3 is reinforcing that change on an ongoing basis – assess, measure, engage, plan and celebrate.

Change is a good thing and everybody can change.