This document provides a checklist for business readiness planning with questions in several key areas: change strategy, communications, training, support, and documentation. It prompts identifying stakeholders and their roles, how the change supports organizational priorities, leading people through the change process, evaluating stakeholder buy-in, managing resistance, defining key messages and audiences, identifying training needs and timelines, planning support resources and evaluation, and determining documentation requirements. The checklist aims to guide comprehensive planning across multiple workstreams to successfully implement organizational changes.

1. Business Readiness Planning Checklist
Questions Answer
Change Strategy (insert name of point person)
1 Do a hygiene check! Do you have adequate sponsorship? Are roles and
decision makers clearly defined?
2 Complete a thorough stakeholder analysis. What is the role of each
stakeholder group in the change? From which stakeholder groups do
you need to get buy-in and at what stage?
3 Does the change compete or conflict with other changes or work
priorities?
4 How does your program support foundation-wide priorities and/or the
scorecard? Is there an opportunity for leveraging the relationship of
this initiative to other work in your change strategy?
5 What is your plan for leading people through the change curve? Think
through exactly what will change and what's the distance from the
current state to the desired? Then consider what is each group's
"stake" in the change? And how do you get their support?
6 How will you evaluate whether the stakeholder groups are on board
with the change?
7 How will you gather feedback and measure adoption of the change?
8 What role does the business or end user have in defining the solution
and assessing the impact of the change?
9 How will you manage resistance to the change?
Communications (insert name of point person)
1 What key messages need to be communicated? Should not total more
than 5-7. Is it a new program or business process, or change(s) to a
current program?
2 What are the key components of the program or change? Should
include a discussion about timing as well.
3 Who is your primary audience for this communication: employees,
managers, assistants, etc.? Are there other audiences that need to be
aware of this communication? When thinking about your audiences, be
sure to think about it from their perspective and answer the questions:
What’s in it for them? Why should they care? How does it affect them?
4 What are you trying to accomplish as a result of communicating? What
action is being asked of your audience(s)? Change in behavior?
Process? No action, just FYI?
5 What other activities, programs, or functions might be impacted by this
initiative/communication? Is there an opportunity to leverage other
communication activities? Might your communications conflict with
the timing of other communications?
6 What vehicles are most appropriate for your communication: email,
The Commons, info sessions, Town Square dialogue, conference calls,
team/intranet sites, staff meetings, or a combination of these?
Consider the need for ongoing communication.
7 If you need a specific stakeholder group to communicate information
about the change to their teams, then you must be prescriptive about
what you are asking them to do. You will also need to provide specific
communication materials and distribution dates to them.
8 What potential obstacles need to be overcome to ensure the success
of your communication?
9 How will you know that your communication is successful? What
metrics will you use (survey(s), focus groups, etc.)?
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2. Business Readiness Planning Checklist
Questions Answer
Training (insert name of point person)
1 Who is your primary audience for training?
2 How many people will be need to be trained? If there is role specific
training be clear about the different levels of training.
3 Will training be required or optional? What logistical considerations
will be needed to support this decision?
4 What specific training needs have you identified (objectives for
training)?
5 What is your project timeline? When will training be required of
specific groups.
6 What are your perceived training constraints?
7 What specific training strategies would you like to see implemented
(elearning, instructor-led, job aids, etc.)?
8 Who will develop and deliver the training?
Support (insert name of point person)
1 Who will support the change upon launch? What is the resource plan
for providing this support?
2 What is your plan to train the support team on the change?
3 How long with the support team be in place?
4 How will you evaluate whether the support team is needed for longer
than initially planned?
5 What is your back-up plan if support is needed for longer than initially
planned?
Documentation (insert name of point person)
1 What types of documents and support materials will be needed and by
whom? What will admins and support desk staff need?
2 What types of job aids will users need?
3 Will users need detailed reference materials, such as a user guide? Will
they need supplementary materials, such as quick-reference guides,
getting started guides, FAQs, etc.?
4 If out-of-the-box content is available, will you use it as-is, or leverage
the content in some other form?
5 Who will create the documentation? Have you built editing and review
time into your schedule? Who will update and sustain the
documentation?
6 How will you distribute documents? Where will they be hosted online?
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