Making changes to your tech stack is risky. When change management goes wrong, important data is lost, end users are frustrated, and revenue is put in jeopardy. At the same time, there's no way to avoid change. Today's revenue engines depend on rapidly evolving tech stacks, a steady flow of high-quality data, never-ending org changes, and the ability to pivot processes based on the insights that data provides.
That's a lot of pressure for ops teams to bear. But the right processes can help you reduce risk and implement change without fear of breaking something or losing users' trust.
At a high level, change management refers to the systematic approach required to effectively manage significant changes to an organization. Any part of an organization, from HR to DevOps, can leverage change management practices. Ops teams are responsible for implementing and overseeing change management best practices for the processes and technologies used by go-to-market (GTM) teams. With change management strategies in place, ops teams don't just avoid risk, they also improve outcomes.
For example, McKinsey found that 90% of companies that successfully implement automation invest more than half of their budgets in change management and capability building. Small organizations don't necessarily need to allocate this much of their budget to change management, but the data underscores the need for a focused, methodical approach.
As you can see, communication accounts for two of the three best practices. When implementing change, it's vital for ops professionals to set the strategy for how to communicate that changes are coming and how users will be impacted. To do this, think about your current methods of communicating to users. Ideally, you already have a framework in place as part of your release management process.
But if not, ask yourself the following questions: Do you have regular meetings with the larger GTM organization? Do you meet with leadership? Do you send out communications via email, Slack, or the company intranet? Some combination of all of the above? Identify the best forum for delivering information about the changes you plan to make. Next, document what's most important for each group of stakeholders to know. For example, the leadership team may only need to know how the change will impact reporting. Users, on the other hand, will need information about how their daily processes will be affected.
The key is to provide enough information, at the right time, to give your audience a firm grasp on what is changing without overwhelming them with too many technical details. You don't want them to tune out because you're overwhelming them with details about metadata and object field properties. Putting it simply, your communications should explain why you're making changes, and what's in it for users.
Because Salesforce is typically the centerpiece of your tech stack, it's critical to approach Salesforce change management with careful precision. One seemingly small change can lead to a costly mistake down the line. Even though Salesforce comes with its own native Change Sets , they're limited in scope. And, if they're not properly planned, they can fail.
Whether you're using Change Sets or alternative Salesforce change management tools, it's important to start with a documented strategy. Use the following framework to create a change management process template to outline your strategy:
Even with a well-documented strategy and change management plan, it's possible that the changes you plan to make will lead to mistakes that you didn't anticipate. That's where Arovy comes in. As a change management platform , Arovy can help you see the impact of changes before you make them. Unless you built your company's tech stack from the ground up, it's hard to know the intricacies of every system and process you have in place. SaaS integrations can be imperfect. And even if you did build the tech stack from the ground up, relying on your memory to predict the impact of change is a risky proposition.
Arovy provides you with Change Intelligence , which is total situational awareness of the impacts and dependencies that are necessary to confidently manage complex technology. With that intelligence, you can develop your change management strategy more effectively and efficiently.
You can't know if your change management project has been effective if you don't have a way to measure outcomes. Define what success looks like, and monitor your progress after deployment.
Change is inevitable. Adopting good change management best practices is key to scaling your GTM organization, processes, and systems without wreaking havoc. With these steps in place, you can continually improve and refine GTM operations while reducing risk and increasing user adoption.