Most change programs focus on activities, the actions through which changes are implemented. However, far too often, people are ultimately unaware of the change because it wasn’t communicated. When thinking about and designing a change, it is crucial to begin with how it will be communicated. This can even change the design of the change itself and validate the reasons for the change before its execution.

With most clients, we encounter a need for dozens or even hundreds of changes annually. This pressure is essentially constant, but it is not necessarily a bad thing. Adaptation must reflect current needs.

It’s often said that an Agile team welcomes change. And a good Agile team not only welcomes it but even initiates it.

Traditional management systems taught us to focus on activity. Don’t talk about it—just do it. And since there is so much to do, many activities begin and are then paused. Some are completely canceled, others are left unfinished, as new change demands arise.

Communication: The Last Point of Change?

Even those few successful changes rarely complete the final step—communicating the change itself.

I’ve often encountered situations where people objected that they weren’t informed about the completion of the change. Others didn’t even know that a change was happening in the company. In most cases, they didn’t understand why the change was necessary. Some didn’t know what the change meant or how it would impact their daily lives. Key questions had no clear answers.

The biggest problem, even with successful changes, is the timing of this communication—usually at the end, when the change has already been implemented.

Communication: The Beginning of Change

Since communication about changes is often forgotten, a good self-manipulation technique is the simple Futurespective technique: writing an article about the change.

Simply write an article about the change before it is implemented. Ideally, write this article together with the team that will design and implement the change. You don’t have to worry about it taking too long. If you know a few facilitation tricks, such a change can surprisingly be handled mostly with the silent writing technique—without talking. In 30 minutes, you might be done. Or you can write a letter about the change, sentence by sentence.

If the article or letter isn’t done in 30 minutes, that’s actually good. It will force your team to reflect on the change. It will make you align on its outcome, attributes, and the change process itself. It will make you think about how you will measure the change and how to prove its success.

Communication about the change prepared in advance will make you think through and reflect on the change.

What to Share About the Change?

Since this article is written mentally at a time when the change has already been implemented, it will be written in the past tense. You deliberately communicate the end state of the change, but you communicate it at the beginning of the change process.

Don’t forget to consider:

  • Who is the article about the change written for?
  • Who will be part of the change?
  • Who will be lightly affected by the change?
  • Who is paying for the change?
  • Who might suffer from the change?
  • How has the state of the company changed once the change is complete?
  • How has this affected all those involved and those not directly involved?
  • How will you measure the success of the change?
  • How will you know during the change implementation if the change is successful?
  • What has been done to make the change real?
  • Why did you choose this particular change?
  • What goals has the change helped you achieve?
  • What problems has it helped eliminate?
  • Who initially wanted the change?

Remember, every change needs to be communicated 10,000 times.

Communication is simply never enough when it comes to change.

Learn to define your own approach to designing and implementing change in your company, with the guidance of experienced change agents in the Scrum Mastership MasterMind program: Team Development.