The End?

Is a change process ever over? How do you know when it is time to give up and move on to other things? In the real world the change often just becomes mainstream, part of the way in which we do things, and other change processes come to dominate our lives. Occasionally we can become fixated by the change and pursue it to the death even when the return on the effort is marginal. This can be the case when people are given specific projects to complete with no clear exit strategy. So the purpose of this section is to explore the notion of completion.

There are a number of signs that a change process has reached the end of its life-time. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's been successful - it could mean that it has just lost momentum and will need reviving to effect the desired change.

• People stop calling meetings.
• People stop coming to meetings.
• The change is now embedded in practice.
• Other committees and groups have taken it on board as part of their agenda.
• The original drivers no longer exist or the change process has been overtaken by other events.
• Senior management support has evaporated.
• Staff talk positively about it if there is talk of changing it further.
• The resources have run out.
• Staff are tired of the rhetoric.

Things to do to aid completion:

• Go back to the earlier aims of the change process (if you can find them) and assess the extent to which they have been met.
• Reinvent the change process (if the desired changes weren't met but are still valid).
• Redesign the change process if the change has only been partially met.
• Check whether any staff appointed to be involved in the change process need to be re-assigned?
• Check whether other staff affected by the change process now need to have their roles redefined to accommodate changes in working practices.

Write a final report (and circulate widely) to indicate a formal end.

• Draw a formal line under the process by a paper to a formal meeting.
• Let everyone know that the project has come to an end - caution: this can lead to people not taking the change seriously any longer and regressing into old ways.

Evaluation is an essential part of this process whether or not the change achieved the desired outcome. If you set SMART targets in the first place you should be well on your way to being able to say how well you met your aims. You may also find the Post Project Review template helpful.

If you achieved your aims - congratulations! If you didn't then you will have learned some valuable lessons to help you in the future. You may wish to review your aims or measure them against best practice in which case the following tools may help:

Balanced Scorecard - concentrates on four perspectives from which to view an organisation.

Benchmarking - can help you compare your own organisation's performance with best practice.