Change management is the process of planning, implementing, and controlling change in an organization. It involves setting a clear vision for change, implementing change, managing resistance, measuring change, and ensuring that employees are engaged and equipped to embrace the new way of doing things. Lack of measuring change impact is a poor change management practice, and it results in wastage of resources especially time and money that are invested in implementing these change initiatives.

When change’s impact is not measured, there is no proper change management because there is no data that shows whether the organisation is transitioning from the current state to the desired state. As a result, they may end up having similar problems in future or they may completely miss the opportunity that was supposed to be seized. Without measuring the impact of change, organizations miss out on valuable insights that could lead to effective improvements. In addition to the above, measuring the impact of change provides an opportunity for organizational learning and continuous improvement. Without learning, organizations may miss out on opportunities to refine their change management processes and achieve better results in future initiatives. Furthermore, successful change needs to be sustained and that happens when the organisation measures and communicates the outcomes of their change initiatives. Moreover, when employees perceive that change initiatives are not properly managed, they may lose trust and confidence in future change initiatives and become resistant to change. This will lead to stagnation and rigidity resulting in poor service delivery and lack of business competitiveness.

Organisations are advised to use the logic model to plan, manage and measure change.  It provides a visual representation of the inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts of a program, project, or change initiative. When applied to change management, a logic model can help organizations track and evaluate the progress and success of their change efforts. It defines objectives, activities, outputs, outcomes, and change indicators. Its components include clarifying change objectives and outcomes starting with identifying key inputs. These are the resources, such as time, money, and personnel, that are needed to drive change initiatives. This step ensures that there is a clear understanding of what is being allocated to the change effort. The second component of the framework is to outline key change activities or actions that will be undertaken in driving change initiatives. These activities are directly linked to the change objectives, and they simplify how change can be monitored during the implementation stage. 

The third component is linking activities to change outputs, and this is a critical first step of change measurement. Change output indicators measure the tangible, immediate, and quantifiable results of the activities or processes carried out during the change program. Depending on the type of change these outputs may include things like training material, number of people trained, communication plan, reports, new processes among others. Successful completion of these outputs means change milestones are accomplished and this means the organisation can then measure change outcomes. Change outcomes indicators are the fourth component of this framework and they may be short-term and long-term outcomes. These indicators measure the immediate and intermediate effects or changes that result from the outputs of the change program. Short-term outcomes may include changes in knowledge, attitudes, or behaviors of employees as a direct result of the change activities. Long-term outcomes, on the other hand, reflect the broader, more lasting impacts of the change on the organization. For example, long term outcome may be percentage improvement of service delivery level or market share growth rate in case of profit-making business. 

The last component of the framework is measuring change impact, and these are the change indicators that denote the ultimate impact desired from the change. These indicators are concrete, observable, and quantifiable metrics that allow organizations to assess whether the change is having the intended long-term impact. This may include changes in overall organizational performance, increased market share, enhanced customer satisfaction, higher profitability, or improvements in the organization’s competitive position in the industry. To effectively measure the success of a change program, organizations should use a combination of these indicators to provide a comprehensive picture of the program’s effectiveness and its ability to achieve its intended outcomes and impact.