A change management checklist template, for a small business rather than an IT department, is the list of things that have to happen to the procedures when the process changes: a new system, a new form, a role added or removed. Which procedures are touched; who revises each; who approves the new version; who is retrained and signs; how the old version is retired; and when the change is reviewed. The standard operating procedure template on this site prints the training minutes across the team that a revised procedure costs.
Find every procedure the change touches
A new invoicing tool touches every procedure whose steps name the old one, and a procedure whose steps say the usual system cannot be found by search. That is why the steps name systems exactly. The checklist starts with the search and the list of procedures it produces, each with its owner.
Revise, approve, version
Each touched procedure is revised by its owner, approved as a new version by its approver, with the version history saying what changed and why. The old version is retired, not deleted, so the record of how the task was done before the change survives. A change that revises procedures without versioning them leaves no evidence that the change was managed.
Retrain and sign
The people who do each touched task read the new version and sign that they did. The template prints that cost: people times minutes per procedure, across the touched set. A change with no training sign-off is one where the old way continues in practice with the new way on paper.
Retire, review, close
The old versions are retired on a date, the change is reviewed after a period to see whether the revised procedures are being followed, and the checklist itself is filed as the record of the change. RunbookDesk Pro keeps the versions, sign-offs and review dates that the checklist produces, and reminds the owner when the post-change review is due.
Questions people ask about change management checklist template
Is this the same as IT change management?
The shape is the same, a controlled change with approval and a record; the objects here are procedures and the people who follow them, not servers.
What is the most-skipped line?
Retraining. The procedure is revised and nobody who does the task reads it, so the change exists only on paper.
Can the free tool help?
The standard operating procedure template prints the training cost of a revised procedure across the team, without an account.