How to Measure Change Management Success

My Dad was a builder. He’d often say, ‘measure twice, cut once’.

When it comes to leading change, success needs a plan. You need a scope of work with a clear view of organisational history and the foundation you’re starting from.

It’s a lot like building. Without a plan, tracking people progress in parallel to the workplace system, process or cultural changes the project team are working on, may be flawed. You’ll be off by degrees and trying to recover lost time. You’ll be chasing your tail and measuring more than twice!

Organisations spend time, money, and energy implementing change initiatives, but without measuring the ‘right things’, how can you tell if your data and efforts are on track or if you’ve truly made a difference?

The Opportunity for Personal Leadership

This is where individual, personal leadership comes into play. As change leaders, we don’t just roll out processes and expect results; we track, evaluate, and adjust our approach to ensure stakeholders are prepared as much as they can be, are able to manage the change phase when it’s deployed and have what it takes to sustain it into business as usual.

Every employee, no matter our role, has the opportunity to demonstrate leadership by understanding the nature of change and measuring the success of change within their area in ways that embrace organisational values and unity, going beyond the superficial.

Success is not simply about completing a project on time or within budget.

The Challenge Question

Here’s a question I invite you to reflect on: What does success really mean for your change initiative? Is it the number of people engaged, communicated with or trained? The systems put in place? Or is it something deeper—like the shift in culture, behaviour, and mindset across the organisation?

And are people digesting the findings of the assessments and interval reporting?

We often get caught up in ticking boxes—did we launch on time, did we stick to the budget?

But success in change management is that and much, much more. It’s about transformation. Have we truly embedded the change within the organisation, or is everyone just waiting for things to go back to ‘normal’? And what happens if they do go back to a pre-go-live state?

Empathy: The Struggle is Real

I understand the pressure you’re under. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the need to show quick wins, and sometimes it seems like the only way to prove success is by focusing on the short-term metrics—like adoption rates and immediate feedback. But true change takes time, and the results we’re looking for may not always be instant.

As a change leader, it’s crucial to balance the short-term gains with long-term impact. I’ve seen many organisations struggle with this. They launch new systems or processes, celebrate the rollout, and then… crickets. Months later, they wonder why things have drifted. That’s because success isn’t measured at the finish line of implementation—it’s measured in the weeks, months, and even years after.

When the technical solution, system or process change is the right fit for the business and delivers on the integration promise, then the successful speed of adoption, utilisation and skill proficiency occurs over time, one person at a time. That needs a whole lot of patience and bold leadership.

When the technical solution, as good as it may be, still requires too much customization or simply cannot be made to fit, bold leadership makes the tough call and rolls back. That decision also requires long-tail support and resoluteness to understand and measure employee capability gains while maintaining your strategic focus on the future. This experience will form part of ‘historical change’ and can be incorporated in the next round of Change Readiness Assessment data.

A Way Forward: Building a Measurement Plan

So, how do we ensure we’re measuring what really matters?

1. Define Success Early:
Right from the start, you need to define what success will look like. This isn’t just about operational metrics like ‘how many people were trained’ or ‘how many systems were rolled out.’ Think deeper—consider how the change will impact behaviours, decision-making, and overall organisational culture.

I’ve been using the PROSCI® Change Readiness Assessment tool for many years and I find it incredibly valuable whether I’m involved from the very start of a change initiative or stepping into an in-flight project, leadership role or consulting gig. It asks all the right questions. This becomes your building block to measuring change success.

2. Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
Develop KPIs that reflect both the immediate and long-term outcomes. Immediate KPIs might include system usage rates or the number of employees completing training. Long-term KPIs should focus on behavioural shifts—are people adopting the new processes without reverting to old habits? Are employees more engaged, and is productivity improving as a result of the change?

Have conversations with your Project Governance Board, ask the right questions. Does the budget provide for post-go-live adoption support if the technology solution won’t be ready to roll out until the eve of go-live? What does that look like? Once you have clarity on it, you can set about measuring change success.

3. Set Milestones Along the Way:
Create checkpoints throughout the change process, not just at the end. Regularly assess how things are going. Are people engaging with the change? Are there early signs of resistance or adoption? Adjust your strategy as needed based on real-time data.

I’ve used a bunch of measurement tools from Excel dashboards, to periodic online ADKAR Surveys and the PROSCI® advanced PROXIMA Dashboard for practitioners. I like the ADKAR Dashboard for its cumulative tracking and visibility of people shifting from red to green. Great resources and reporting is made easy. Be sure to check with your cybersecurity team for permission to use these tracking tools and connect them with the national liaison for PROSCI® to ask about enterprise solutions that meet requirements.

4. Involve the Whole Team:
Measuring success isn’t just the job of the project lead or the executive team. Everyone involved in the change must clearly understand what success looks like and how it will be measured. PROSCI® research confirms most employees will need communication and direction from their immediate supervisors and the big boss for benefits to be realized. That’s why activating change sponsors and ambassadors is critical to empowering your frontline to prepare, manage and sustain the changes in their work areas.

Tip: Design communications that are crafted for target audiences in multi-channel formats so information is mobile-friendly, and can be digested on the fly, in a way they like to process info e.g. take that written communication and do a talking head video over it. Post the hyperlink in multiple locations that can be accessed on the internal intranet and by external logins e.g. Microsoft SharePoint or Atlassian Confluence.

5. Use Both Quantitative and Qualitative Data:
Numbers are important, but they don’t tell the whole story. Combine quantitative metrics (like adoption rates, and performance data) with qualitative feedback (employee surveys, interviews) to get a well-rounded view of how the change is truly being received and integrated. This is where storytelling comes in. I like using the AI integration tool ‘CrystalKnows’ which provides wordsmithing tips for key personas.

 

Hot Topic Scenario: Hybrid Work and Change Management

Let’s talk about a real-world scenario we’re all facing: hybrid work. Many organisations are grappling with how to measure the success of hybrid work models. Is success measured by the number of people returning to the office, or by how well teams adapt to working in a flexible environment? The challenge here is not just about counting heads—it’s about assessing engagement, productivity, and employee satisfaction in a more fluid and dynamic work setting. This will no doubt be an interesting season ahead for the likes of Amazon and Tabcorp as reported in The Australian Financial Review.

Consider this: If employees feel more empowered, more engaged, and are able to leverage technology, create connections, and balance work and personal life better with a hybrid model, isn’t that a success in itself? Sometimes, the best metrics aren’t the ones that appear in spreadsheets—they’re the ones reflected in your employee retention and attraction rates and the behaviours and well-being of your people.

Call to Action

If you’re working with a Change Manager they’ll be asking you, “What’s in your business case? What are you hoping to achieve? How will you know we got there? What does good look like?”

If you want to ensure the success of your change initiatives, you need to start by measuring the right things. Don’t just aim for quick wins and surface-level metrics. Dig deeper. Ask yourself, What will success look like in six months? In a year? Define your KPIs early, check in often, and involve your entire team in the process. It’s not enough to implement change—you need to make sure it lasts and help your people to be successful too.

Anything else, is setting people up for disappointment when we’d prefer to be building people up.

So, take the first step today by identifying the key metrics that will truly define success for your organisation, and start measuring the real impact of change.

Sound like a plan?

 

About the Author

Tarran Deane is an accomplished transformation specialist and change management leader and advisor, with a focus on helping organisations achieve sustainable transformation. As a PROSCI-certified practitioner and Grad Dip. Strategic Leadership, Tarran has led successful change initiatives across diverse sectors, empowering leaders to inspire and guide their teams through the complexities of change.
Tarran still works full-time connecting people to purpose and delivering change outcomes.

For fun…
When Tarran’s not busy with work you’ll find her riding through the hills near her home on her Ducati 800 Monster, watching MotoGP races on Kayo, intentionally catching up with family and friends, and trying to sing in key!

Connect with Tarran at www.TarranDeane.com or on LinkedIn @TarranDeane.

 

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