OCM Needs an AI Makeover
"Which Organizational Change Management (OCM) tools could benefit from an AI-driven makeover?” This transformative question led Gretchen Asher, a Change Management Expert with over 20 years of experience, to create Change Essentials AI. This innovation streamlines one of the most time-consuming tasks for change practitioners: the stakeholder assessment and the change impact analysis.
The challenge
The stakeholder assessment and change impact analysis are critical components of any change management initiative. These processes involve identifying the current state, mapping the future state, and analyzing the gaps—a time-intensive endeavor that often leaves practitioners with little time to focus on stakeholder engagement. Yet it is stakeholder engagement—not just analysis—that drives successful change adoption. So, the question arises: can AI help automate these repetitive tasks and free up valuable time for engagement activities?
Enter The Change Impacts Navigator
The answer lies in The Change Impacts Navigator, a SaaS tool that Asher designed in partnership with developers to leverage AI to transform the stakeholder assessment process. Here’s how it works: a practitioner feeds data into the tool, and in just 10 seconds, it generates a comprehensive analysis, delivering critical outputs:
A flow diagram of current and future states. This visual representation maps out the workflow, highlighting the transition from the current state to the future state.
Change impact analysis by job role between current and future state.
The tool identifies and categorizes changes by job role, sorting them into three distinct buckets:
Category #1: What goes away? These are the activities performed in the current state (Today) that will no longer be necessary in the future.
Category #2: What remains the same? These are tasks that will continue unchanged between the current and future states.
Category #3: What is new? These are tasks introduced in the future state (Tomorrow), requiring new skills or approaches.
In addition to these outputs, change practitioners can enhance their value to the project team by using The Change Impacts Navigator to review various scenarios that affect stakeholders. This enables the technical team to identify the best approach for both the project and its stakeholders. Until now, change management experts lacked an automated tool to achieve this level of analysis. With these insights, practitioners can clearly understand how roles and responsibilities will evolve, allowing them to develop targeted strategies to manage change more effectively.
Balancing automation with human intuition
One key design principle behind The Change Impacts Navigator is that it doesn’t replace the expertise of the OCM consultant. While the tool provides a robust foundation, it is the consultant's expertise, intuition, and in-depth project knowledge that turn data into actionable strategies. For instance, the tool might classify a task as “remaining the same” when, in reality, it’s performed in a new location. This flexibility allows practitioners to adjust the analysis and tailor their approach to the unique needs of each project.
Why engagement trumps communication
In the realm of change management, there’s often a debate about what drives adoption more effectively: communication or engagement. While communication is undeniably important, many practitioners, including Asher, the creator of Change Essentials AI, argue that stakeholder assessment and engagement hold the key to success. Even a mediocre communication plan can achieve high adoption rates when paired with stellar stakeholder engagement. The time saved by automating assessments enables change managers to focus on these high-value activities, ultimately improving adoption outcomes.
A perfect union: OCM and AI
For decades, change managers have relied on outdated tools, with the pinnacle of innovation often being a “fancy Excel spreadsheet.” But times are changing. The integration of AI into OCM practices represents a perfect storm of opportunity. By automating repetitive tasks, AI tools like The Change Impacts Navigator empower practitioners to allocate more time to strategic, human-centered activities. This shift is not just timely—it’s groundbreaking.
The marriage of OCM and AI is here, and it’s already reshaping the way change practitioners work. As tools like Change Essentials AI redefine the way change practitioners work, the future of change management is poised to be not only more efficient and effective but also deeply human-centered.
Contact ChangeStaffing to learn more about how to give change management an AI makeover!
Thank you to Gretchen Asher from Change Essentials AI for her thought leadership and for collaborating with us on this blog.
Written by Kylette Harrison