APMG’s Change Management Training Course Outline

The Change Management Foundation course has been designed to provide a robust foundation for anyone involved in organisational change initiatives. Candidates gain the knowledge and understanding necessary to contribute to specifying, developing, implementing and sustaining change initiatives.

By the end of the change management foundation course, candidates should be able to:

• Identify key features of the organisational context in which a change initiative is taking place including the benefits the organisation is seeking to drive, the approach being taken to the change and the organisational culture.
• Contribute a range of perspectives on the range of human responses seen in a change initiative, suggesting ways in which a change can be managed to minimise negative impacts and in which people can be supported through change.
• Distinguish between well-founded concerns about a change and resistance to change, recognising signs of resistance and proposing approaches that will mitigate it.
• Recommend and support appropriate actions taken by people in various change roles, especially change sponsors, line leaders and change agents, and help to build and maintain effective teamwork through change.
• Describe significant elements of the stakeholder engagement process in a change initiative, and relate this to building appropriate communications strategies.
• Discuss with colleagues the different areas of impact of a change initiative, the severity of those impacts and how change progress can be measured.

The objectives of Change Management Foundation Certification are expanded on in this blog.

The course content is structured into five main syllabus areas. These align with the structure of the accompanying Change Management Study Guide.

1. Organisational context and approach
2. People and change
3. Change leadership and teams
4. Stakeholders and communication
5. Work of the change manager

The following topics are included in the course syllabus.

This section starts with scene setting, offering ways to understand the organisational context within which change is happening, and then describes different approaches that can be designed, based on the type of change you are dealing with.

Scene setting

• Change management and benefits; there are clear links between benefits realisation and effective change management, which helps with getting people to do something differently.    
• Levels of adoption (Kelman); in the early stages of a change initiative, it helps to understand the type and level of change required, so that effort can be focused and applied appropriately.
• Cynefin model – simple or chaotic change; with any change initiatively understanding the current situation and what we are dealing with is an essential first step. This model helps with exploring ‘how well do we, and how well can we understand the current situation?’
• Planned and emergent change; typical types of organisational change are compared and contrasted, to consider how best to work with them.
• Systems thinking; this is helpful for considering the wider impact of change and where competing pressures may be that can hinder change.
• Organisational culture; the effects of culture are embedded in every aspect of organisational life. Changes large or small could have cultural implications, even when not intended. It includes different layers of culture and how to recognise them.     
• Force-field analysis; an effective tool for understanding the competing pressures around change, those factors that help drive the change forward and those that are potential barriers or sources of resistance.

Structuring approach to change

• Co-design; what this approach is, what it is not, when and how to apply it and the potential pitfalls.
• ADKAR; there are many approaches for structuring change management. This is a commonly used approach which can provide a high level framework for change.
• Evolving the n-step process; many organisational models have been popular over the years, they typically consist of several steps to be followed. The number of steps vary, hence the collective ‘n-step’ title of these approaches.
• Delivery strategy and change management; how deliverables are implemented can have a significant impact on the way change is managed. Four main approaches for implementation are compared.
• Agile practices; agile practices that draw on common agile principles, concepts, mindsets, behaviours and techniques.
• Continuous change management cycle; the second edition of the Change Management Body of Knowledge introduces a change practice framework. At its heart sits the concept of continuous and adaptive planning. The typical phases of a continuous change management cycle are included.
• Change managers and agile practices; using agile techniques in a change management context can be helpful. Core principles, capabilities and practices that change managers can incorporate during change are covered.
• Change strategy; the purpose of a change strategy and its key components are listed with consideration for how to integrate the change strategy with other workstreams and their strategies.   

This section covers how people respond to change, how they learn and different theories and concepts for motivating people that can be applied to support them through change.  

Human responses to change

• People are all different;  these differences mean that people can respond to change in very different ways. Understanding some of these differences between people helps to manage relationships and connect with them more effectively.
• Introduction to neuroscience and change; the aspect of neuroscience that has most to do with management of change is ‘social neuroscience’. Insights from this field help strengthen and give renewed credibility to recommendations about managing change.
• The change curve; a way of understanding the typical human responses to change. The change curve shows how personal performance, energy and characteristically, mood vary through the normal process of change.
• Leading the change journey; the phases of transition are experienced by people, in their own personal way. These phases are sequential but overlapping. There is useful guidance here about how to support people through these phases.  

Human motivations / drives

• Reward and punishment; early experiments and models around modifying behaviour were based on using reward and punishment. The ideas from this behavourist approach are considered in the context of organisational change.
• Positive psychology and resilience; the relevance of positive psychology in supporting change management and human resilience is considered, along with Appreciative Inquiry as an approach to help focus on what is working, rather than what is not.   
• Change formula; the change formula provides a straightforward, easy to communicate way of understanding the factors that make change more or less attractive to people.
• Survival and learning anxieties; similar to the change formula, is another more personal, balancing act that influences people’s willingness to engage with a change initiative. This highlights two types of anxiety as motivators of behaviour.

Learning and change

• Competence and learning; any change requires learning to take place. The conscious competence learning model describes the stages that a learner goes through when learning a new skill.
• Learning process and individual preferences, learning dip; it is useful to consider how different people like to learn and the steps through the learning. People have distinct preferences for one or more steps in the cycle. 

This section covers who change managers need to connect and build relationships with, as well as the role of leadership in creating psychological safety and a climate for change.  

Leadership through change

• Key roles in the change process; change managers connect with many people who perform different functions surrounding the change process. Understanding the key roles they typically need to interface with is essential.
• Role of a change sponsor; the Sponsor’s role is a significant contributor to successful change and included here are a list of priorities for sponsors to focus on.   
• Change agent’s role and personal influence; change agents do not typically have formal line authority to facilitate change, however they play a key role in supporting change. The required functions of an effective change agent are considered.
• Role of local leadership in change; line leadership or middle managers are at the heart of the organisation. Failing to engage this key group with change can create unnecessary barriers.
• Leadership and psychological safety in change; leaders can build a climate of psychological safety for people facing change, by focusing on establishing a set of core conditions. These core conditions help build trust, relieve learning anxiety and build resilience that facilitates personal change.
• Leadership shaping organisational culture; when engaging in change that impacts culture, it is helpful to pay attention to the mechanisms by which culture is communicated. Strong cultural messages are those that communicate which behaviours are positively encouraged and which are not.

Teams and change

• Team structures and change; when considering a change initiative it is important to consider the variety of teams and team structures that occur within the organisation and how they can be harnessed to provide momentum for change.
• How teams develop (Tuckman); successful change requires building a team or teams that have the ability and credibility to influence stakeholders and guide them through change. Team dynamics can change as the change progresses, so it is helpful to understand the stages of team development.
• Assessing and growing team effectiveness (Lencioni); this model identifies five dysfunctions that characterise an ineffective team. These dysfunctions point to five positive characteristics that should be developed when seeking to build an effective change team.
• Harvesting the value of team diversity; diverse teams can have significant advantages over less diverse ones. Included are recommendations for how to harvest the benefits from having this diversity.

Change managers proactively engage with stakeholders. They focus their attention on identifying stakeholders and finding appropriate strategies to communicate and engage with them, throughout change. A well thought through and structured approach to change communication and stakeholder engagement contributes to change success.

Stakeholder engagement

• Stakeholder definition and identification; effective stakeholder engagement begins with identifying stakeholders. Useful questions to consider when doing this are included.
• Stakeholder analysis; once stakeholders have been identified, further analysis is needed to understand more about them, starting with segmenting them into logical groupings and understanding their levels of interest in the change.
• Stakeholder levels of power and stakeholder mapping; an understanding of power sources and attitudes to power is helpful for understanding stakeholders and how best to prioritise effort for managing them.   
• Building engagement; potential barriers to engagement are considered and principles for building engagement with stakeholders, during change are highlighted.
• Planning stakeholder engagement; clarifying outcomes for engaging with stakeholders is an essential step before developing a stakeholder engagement strategy.

Communication

• Basics of communication theory; early models focused on the mechanics of communication. Appreciating the human complexities at play is necessary for effective communication to take place.  
• Barriers to communication; there are many potential barriers to communication during change. Understanding what these barriers are is an important step for dealing with these barriers.
• Messaging to communicate change; communication messaging during change needs to be sensitive to the potential impact of change on people, build understanding of the need for change and gain people’s commitment to get engaged in change.
• Communicating change – hearts and minds; communication and engagement approaches appeal to people’s hearts as well as minds. This requires not only using logical reasoning to explain the drivers for change, but also appealing to their emotions.
• Ways in which we connect with people; there is so much choice in the way we can communicate with others, that it is easy to overlook the basics and essential means of communicating and connecting with people.
• Communication channels; understanding the range of communication channels available and how and when these channels can be used effectively will contribute to change success.
• Communication planning; successful change communication requires effective planning and focused effort all the way through the change process. Included is an outline of a typical change communication strategy.

This section focuses on change impact analysis, understanding and dealing with resistance to change, and identifying and putting in place effective measures for change.

Assessing impact / severity

• Assessment of change impacts; ways to assess change impacts from the viewpoint of the organisation and different stakeholders are considered and how to categorise the change impacts. This information can be used to determine gaps or barriers to achieving the intended outcomes.
• Change impact severity; it is helpful to define the severity of the change impacts for the different stakeholders, in order the understand the risks involved and consider how to deal with them. 

Resistance to change

• Underlying causes of resistance; taking the time to understand the root causes of resistance will increase the likelihood of choosing a suitable response to address it.
• Reasons for resistance; some common reasons for resistance during change are listed along with suggested ways to deal with this resistance. These are useful for understanding how to support people through change.

Change analytics

• Measurement types; it is essential to define and agree a set of measures and indicators that will reflect progress and show whether the change initiative is on track. The factors to consider when defining measures are highlighted.
• Building a change analytics strategy; change analytics is the measurement of how effective change interventions are and the likelihood of benefits realisation. Types of suitable measures are considered along with the means to gather and evaluate data during change.   

The Foundation course introduces Change Management and is therefore designed for anyone involved in organisational change, including current and aspiring change managers, as well as those who design, develop, and deliver change initiatives, projects or programmes.

This syllabus is typically run over three days, with the Foundation exam at the end of the course. However, self-paced and other online options are available from Accredited Training Organisations. 

Beyond the best practices and insights learners will gain from the above syllabus, there are many benefits for organisations when their staff undertake this training.

There is also a Practitioner Level available, for which Foundation is a prerequisite. The Practitioner level course builds on what is covered at the Foundation level, and includes the additional topics:

• Building momentum and sustaining change
• Learning – identifying learning needs and objectives
• Coaching to support change
• Handling conflict
• Facilitating for collaborative design of change.

As detailed in the above outline, the Change Management Foundation offers an overview of different approaches to change, human responses to change, and management strategies.