Change Planning

The 'Old Process'

Change Planning relates to the cultural and business changes that your new system brings with it.

Using a Web Content Management System example, the 'old' process may have been something as follows:

• Marketing executive creates a news article for publication on the website as a Word Processor document
• This is then emailed to the Marketing Manager for approval
• The Marketing Manager makes some changes/amendments and advices the original author
• The revised document is emailed to IT for conversion into HTML for inclusion on the site
• IT converts the document (but introduce some spelling mistakes) and make it available on a 'staging' environment for proofing and sign off
• The original author and Marketing manager are emailed and advised where the document is available for viewing and asked to proof and approve
• The author finds some typographic errors and emails IT with a list of the changes
• The Marketing Manager finds the same typographic errors plus some layout changes due to the article being too long when presented on the website and emails IT with their list of the changes
• IT make the changes and re-publishes it on the 'staging' environment for proofing and sign off
• Steps 6-9 are repeated until everyone is happy and IT publish the article to the live web server.

This process can create five or more versions of the original article and the work effort is duplicated as multiple people are identifying the same issues. Furthermore this process can typically take 4-5 days, due to workload (often IT) and the availability of the author (Marketing Executive) and approver (Marketing Manager).

The 'CMS Process'

The new process, within the CMS, for the same event may be:

• Marketing executive creates a news article for publication on the website within the CMS. Upon previewing it on the preview version of the website, they decide it is too long and edit it to a more appropriate length
• The author submits it for approval prior to publication
• The Marketing Manager gets an automatic notification by email that an article needs reviewing and approving, with a link to the original document in the CMS
• The Marketing Manager reviews the article and corrects some minor issues
• The Marketing Manager publishes the article direct to the live website

This process only creates a single version of the article, although a complete history of the article is maintained, and no work effort is duplicated. IT does not need to convert, correct or publish the final article, and everyone from the original author knows exactly what the final article will look like on the website. Typically time from creation to publication - HALF A DAY; an improvement of some 700%-1000% in time alone!

Planning and managing this type of change is essential to the success of your new project.