Change ecosystem

The network of people, teams, and functions that contribute to organizational change. It mostly includes change sponsors, change managers, and business process leads from operations, including information technology, human resources, and communications and learning.

Change management

In the UN context, a strategic, structured, and inclusive process that helps to prepare, equip, and support individuals, teams, and organizations to successfully adapt to and sustain reforms or new ways of working. It ensures that technical, cultural, and behavioural shifts are achieved collaboratively and in alignment with the United Nations’ mission and values, and the diverse needs of its stakeholders. By focusing on both the human and systemic dimensions of change – including people, structures, processes, and procedures – change management increases the likelihood of successful and lasting transformation.

Change manager

Someone responsible for the implementation of change, either full-time or as part of another role.

Change portfolio management

Defined by change management experts Prosci as “a structured approach and set of tools for managing the cumulative and collective impact of a portfolio of change”.

Change practitioner

Someone contributing to the implementation of change projects as part of a change team or as part of a functional role.

Change saturation/change fatigue

The capacity of an organization to handle change. Change saturation/ change fatigue occurs when the number of changes an organization is implementing exceeds the capacity of people in the organization to effectively adopt and use those changes.

Change sponsor

Someone initiating and/or leading change. For organization-wide change efforts, the sponsor is someone in a senior leadership role. For technical change projects, the sponsor is the person to whom the project team is accountable and is not necessarily in a senior leadership role in the organization.

Digital transformation

Defined by change management experts Prosci as “a deliberate business model shift that integrates technology across operations, reshapes business processes, and empowers people to work in new ways”, reinventing the way the organization does business and ensuring that reinvention permeates everything the organization does.

Executive leaders

The most senior level of leadership in an organization, with ultimate responsibility for strategic direction, resourcing, decision-making and organizational performance

Organization

The organization within the UN system for which change sponsors, change practitioners and change managers work. It does not mean the United Nations in general, sometimes referred to as the Organization. Organizational change agility. The ability of an organization to rapidly anticipate and respond to change in a flexible and effective way. Three levels of organizational change agility are referenced in this report:

• Low organizational change agility: When an organization follows a rigid, top-down change management process, lacks stakeholder engagement, effective communication, and agile practices, and does not measure outcomes or adapt to feedback.

• Moderate organizational change agility: When an organization has a structured change management process with some stakeholder involvement and adequate communication, uses agile practices inconsistently, and measures some outcomes but does not adapt.

• High organizational change agility: When an organization has a flexible change management process driven by a compelling vision, engages stakeholders, communicates effectively, uses agile practices iteratively, and regularly measures outcomes to learn and adapt.

Organizational change management maturity

An organization's ability to implement, manage, and sustain change effectively, and the integration of change management into the organization’s culture, processes, and systems. See change management experts Prosci’s 5 Levels of Change Management Maturity for more detail.

Senior leadership

The most senior level of leadership in an organization, including Executive leadership.

UN system

Defined as the United Nations itself, plus “funds, programmes and specialized agencies, each of which has its own area of work, leadership and budget”. For more information on the UN system visit https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-system.