The Change Dashboard
A Planning Tool for Successful Change
The Dashboard has four key parts:
- Current State
- Desired State
- Project Overview (Change Strategy, Mechanism for Change, and Goal)
- Change Tactics
In this document we will introduce each part and prepare you to use the Dashboard with your team. The Dashboard is free to use and share with attribution.
Interested in bringing a Change Dashboard workshop to your campus? Contact ASCN for more information (cricpe-ascn@wmich.edu).
Download the White Paper (.pdf) Download a Printable Dashboard (.pptx) Download a Printable Dashboard (.pdf)
Who is the Change Dashboard for?
The Change Dashboard was developed for use in the ASCN Systemic Change Institute. Its structure was developed to scaffold thinking about change based on the experience of Henderson and others working with change agents in a variety of settings. The Dashboard is intended for use by teams, which often include members from many levels within an institution, such as faculty, administrators and others across campus interested in the project. See the case study for an example of a team and project.
How to use the Change Dashboard
We recommend printing a large, laminated poster-sized dashboard for your team or group. This living document can be written on with dry erase markers and modified as your project develops over time. Printed versions of the Dashboard can also be used for individual planning, presenting ideas to others, or tracking progress during a change initiative.
In this document, we propose a systematic way of filling out the Dashboard, which is an iterative process. Because the main goal of the Dashboard is to understand and create alignment between the different aspects of the change initiative, completing the dashboard usually leads to better understanding of the project, which in turn results in changes to the Dashboard.
In the following sections we discuss the parts of the Dashboard in the order that we recommend it be completed. However, the order of completion is not so important. If you are not able to follow the recommended path towards completion or if it seems easier to follow an alternative path, feel free to do so. The most important thing is to get something written down in every section so that you can start to look for problems and iterate.