Change Capability Assessment guide

Is your organisation set up to deliver lasting transformation?

Use this practical assessment to reflect on your current change management capability and identify areas for improvement. These questions align with the five key steps to assessing and building effective change capability, as outlined in our article ‘Assessing and Strengthening Change Management Capability’.

Step 1: Clarify Your Transformation Ambition

What are you trying to achieve, and what level of change does it require?

• What are the major change initiatives planned for the next 12–24 months?
• For each initiative, how would you rate its scale and complexity (low, medium, high)?
• What degree of behaviour change will be required to achieve success?
• Is the transformation clearly defined and understood by senior leaders?

Tip: Mapping your “change pipeline” helps determine the level of capability you need.

Step 2: Define What Good Looks Like

What does effective change capability mean in your organisation?

Reflect on each area below. Is this a current strength, a partial strength, or a gap?

• Do leaders actively sponsor and role-model change?
• Are there clear roles, responsibilities, and decision-making structures for change?
• Do teams have the time, skills, and tools to support change?
• Is there a consistent method or “playbook” for delivering change?
• Are stakeholders engaged early with well-crafted and reinforced communications?
• Are change efforts supported by training, feedback, and reinforcement?
• Do you have ways to measure and learn from change progress?

Tip: Tailoring a change capability framework helps benchmark your organisation against a meaningful standard.

Step 3: Assess Current Capability

How well are you currently equipped to lead and embed change?

• Have you assessed change capability across both systems (processes, governance) and people (skills, behaviours)?
• What do senior leaders and delivery teams say about their confidence in managing change?
• Do you see signs of change fatigue, confusion, or resistance?
• Are there examples of strong or weak change delivery in recent projects?
• What gaps and risks are emerging in how change is being led?

Tip: Use interviews, surveys, document reviews and workshops to build a full picture constructively, not critically.

Step 4: Prioritise and Address Gaps

Where will improvements make the biggest impact?

• Which gaps are critical to transformation success (e.g. lack of sponsorship, low skill levels)?
• What strengths can you scale or replicate more broadly?
• Have you prioritised practical actions such as:

1. Leadership alignment workshops?
2. Change training for key roles?
3. Development of toolkits or templates?
4. Establishment of a change network?
5. Resource planning and governance setup?

Tip: Focus on interventions that can be felt quickly and support real, active projects.

Step 5: Build for Sustainability

Are you investing in long-term change capability?

• Are change skills embedded into job roles and performance processes?
• Is there a community of practice for change professionals?
• Are you capturing and sharing lessons learned from past change initiatives?
• Do you have a capability roadmap in place?
• How regularly do you measure your organisation’s change maturity?

Tip: Think beyond the next change, build the capability to deliver on an ongoing basis.

Your Next Step

If this assessment has sparked new insights or revealed areas of uncertainty, it’s a good time to dig deeper. At Project One, we help organisations like yours:

• Assess current change capability
• Design practical, tailored interventions
• Build internal confidence and reduce reliance on external help

Let’s start a conversation. Get in touch with our Change Management team to explore how we can support you in building a change capability that truly delivers.