Change Management Plan
Printer-friendly versionAs you collected information in Part One, you were also assessing the readiness of your school or district to accept the changes associated with implementing the Parent Portal.
Each of the stakeholder groups – parents, teachers, principals, trustees, district staff – needs to be willing to adopt potentially new ways of working for the Portal to have the intended effect. You need to assess the readiness of each of these groups to adopt change. BE careful to assess both the state of parent engagement strategies with respect to school readiness and the readiness of everyone to use the technology. These are different change isuses, as the first is related to practice in your school or district, and the second is more related to skill development.
Assessing readiness is not difficult when you already have communication channels built with your stakeholders. Use those to discover, to really listen, to what people are seeking from these technologies. Look at the Features and Functions section for ideas on how to connect with those that will be the prime users of your Portal.
When you understand where people are at, you can build change strategies that help bring them to the place they need to be to take full advantage of your Portal. Do not forget that you may need to address parent engagement strategies generally before you build a Portal to support them. Review Building Community for some helpful hints.
What is a change strategy? These are actions that support people during change – adopting a new technology, learning new skills, working together in a different way. Change is about letting go of one way and taking on a new way. Many people are uncomfortable with change, but can become comfortable when they are provided with the right information, the appropriate training, and an opportunity to voice their concerns and have their concerns addressed. Sometimes the worst part of change is not knowing what or why something is happening. When you understand through a readiness assessment where people are at in their knowing, you can build communication and training plans to fill the gap.
Your Change Management Plan will outline your change strategies and the timeline associated with the delivery of those strategies. A sample plan might look like this:
| What to do | Who should do it | How to do it |
|---|---|---|
| Set collective goals for the initiative | Project Team |
|
| Define and develop training strategies and materials | Training Team |
|
| Deliver communications activities | Communications Team |
|
| Assess progress | Project Team |
|
Sally's Good Ideas
Don’t despair if you do not have enough people to create teams addressing the different pieces of work. Just be sure that someone is responsible for the activity.
