Study guide
4.4 The Change Strategy
APMG Change Management Foundation Exam
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1 Chapter 1: The v3 Foundation Exam and the Organisational Context
1.1 Exam Structure, the Five Syllabus Areas and the Certification Path 1.2 Scene Setting: External and Internal Factors Shaping Change 1.3 Change Management, Benefits and Dis-benefits
2 Chapter 2: Understanding the Change Context
2.1 Kelman's Three Levels of Adoption 2.2 VUCA and the Cynefin Framework 2.3 Planned Change versus Emergent Change 2.4 Systems Thinking in Change 2.5 Organisational Culture and Its Three Levels
3 Chapter 3: Diagnosing and Structuring the Change Approach
3.1 Lewin's Force Field Analysis 3.2 Co-Design 3.3 The ADKAR Model 3.4 Evolving the n-Step Process and Kotter's Eight Accelerators
4 Chapter 4: Delivery Strategy, Agile Practices and the Change Strategy
4.1 Delivery Strategy: Big Bang, Phased, Voluntary and Iterative 4.2 Agile Practices and Agile Change Practices 4.3 The Continuous Change Management Cycle 4.4 The Change Strategy
5 Chapter 5: People and Change — Individual Difference and Response
5.1 Differences in People and Personality Preferences 5.2 Neuroscience and Change: SCARF, Mindset and Insight 5.3 The Change Curve 5.4 Bridges' Transition Model
6 Chapter 6: Motivation, Resilience and Learning
6.1 Rewards, Punishment and Pink's Three Motivators 6.2 Positive Psychology, Resilience and Appreciative Inquiry 6.3 The Beckhard-Harris Change Formula and Schein's Two Anxieties 6.4 Competence, Learning and the Learning Dip 6.5 Learning Preferences: Kolb, Honey and Mumford
7 Chapter 7: Key Roles in Change Leadership
7.1 Key Roles in the Change Process 7.2 The Role of the Change Sponsor 7.3 The Change Agent's Role and Personal Influence 7.4 The Role of Local Leadership in Change
8 Chapter 8: Psychological Safety, Leadership and Culture
8.1 Psychological Climate and Psychological Safety 8.2 Carolyn Taylor: How Leadership Shapes Culture 8.3 Leadership Styles and Organisational Climate
9 Chapter 9: Teams and Change
9.1 Team Structures and Change Agent Networks 9.2 Tuckman's Stages of Team Development 9.3 Lencioni: Assessing and Growing Team Effectiveness 9.4 Harvesting the Value of Team Diversity
10 Chapter 10: Stakeholder Identification, Analysis and Engagement
10.1 Stakeholder Definition and Identification 10.2 Stakeholder Analysis, Segmentation and Empathy Mapping 10.3 Stakeholder Mapping and Sources of Power 10.4 Barriers to Engagement 10.5 Planning Stakeholder Engagement
11 Chapter 11: Communication Theory, Messaging and Emotional Connection
11.1 Communication Theory and the Communication Process 11.2 Barriers to Communication and Cognitive Biases 11.3 Messaging: Setting Context and the Tell, Sell, Include Approach 11.4 Appealing to Hearts and Minds
12 Chapter 12: Communication Channels and Planning
12.1 Ways of Communicating and VARK Language Style Preferences 12.2 Communication Channels: One-Way, Two-Way, Lean and Rich 12.3 Communications Planning
13 Chapter 13: Assessing Change Impact and Severity
13.1 Change Management as Risk Management and the Two-Step Assessment 13.2 Step 1: Categorising Impacts and Identifying Impact Areas 13.3 Step 1 Continued: Gap Analysis, Impact Profiles and Monitoring 13.4 Step 2: Change Impact Severity
14 Chapter 14: Resistance to Change
14.1 Causes of Resistance and Oreg's Four Neural Factors 14.2 Common Reasons for Resistance and How to Deal With Them 14.3 Building a Strategy to Manage Resistance
15 Chapter 15: Change Analytics and Exam Readiness
15.1 Measurement Types and the Change Delivery Scorecard 15.2 Building a Change Analytics Strategy 15.3 Exam Technique and Final Revision
4.4 The Change Strategy
Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI
A change strategy spells out the change management approach selected, allows others to understand and debate it, and sets expectations
Typical contents include background, level of adoption required, vision or focus statement, and lessons from previous change initiatives
It also covers the change management team and relationships, change networks, delivery strategy and implications, and high-level timing and approach
In a linear change the strategy is written up front and outlines high-level steps by phase
In a volatile situation it focuses more on the processes, tools and techniques to be used in given situations than on specific actions
Last updated: September 2026
The change strategy closes the Organisational context and approach area. It is the artefact where everything learned about context and everything decided about approach becomes explicit and reviewable.
Why a change strategy exists
CM3 names three purposes:
Spelling out the change management approach that has been selected — making the choice explicit rather than implicit in a series of activities
Allowing others to understand and debate the approach — a strategy nobody can argue with is a strategy nobody has engaged with
Setting expectations — about what the change team will do, what leaders must do, and what will not be done
The second purpose is the one most often lost. The point of writing the approach down is to invite challenge while it is still cheap to change. A change strategy circulated for information rather than for debate has forfeited most of its value.
Typical contents
- Section What it covers
- Background The context — drivers, benefits sought, what triggered the change
Level of adoption required Compliance, identification or internalisation, and therefore the depth of intervention justified
Vision or focus statement Where this change is heading, in language people can repeat
Lessons from previous change initiatives What worked, what failed, and what the organisation now believes about change
Change management team and relationships Who does what; relationships with the project, the sponsor and the business
Change networks Whether a change agent network will be used, how it will be recruited and sized
Delivery strategy and implications Big bang, phased, voluntary or iterative — and what each implies for training, support and communication
- High-level timing considerations Key dates, dependencies, constraints, periods to avoid
- High-level change approach The overall shape: which practices, which cycle, which sequence
- Level of adoption required
Including this explicitly is one of the most useful disciplines in the whole syllabus. It forces the conversation with the sponsor about whether the benefit survives compliance-level adoption or genuinely requires internalisation — and therefore whether the funded change effort is proportionate to the outcome expected. A great many change failures are visible in advance as a mismatch between the adoption level required and the intervention level funded.
Lessons from previous change initiatives
This section is where history of change — one of the internal context factors — enters the plan formally. Writing down what happened last time, and what the organisation consequently believes about change, does two things: it stops the current team repeating a known failure, and it signals to stakeholders that their scepticism has been heard rather than dismissed.
Linear versus volatile situations
CM3 draws an explicit contrast, and it is examinable:
In a highly linear approach to change , often working alongside traditional project approaches, the change strategy would be written at the beginning and outline high-level steps — what will happen and in which phase.
In a more volatile situation , the change management strategy focuses more on the processes, tools and techniques that would be used in certain situations rather than the actual actions — for example, whether a continuous change cycle is being used.
This distinction reflects the same logic as planned versus emergent change. Where the destination and sequence are knowable, commit them to paper. Where they are not, committing invented specifics to paper produces a document that is wrong within weeks and then ignored. In volatile conditions the durable content is the method : how decisions will be made, which feedback mechanisms will run, how prioritisation will work, and what triggers a change of approach.
Keeping it useful
Two practical points. First, the change strategy is not the communication plan or the stakeholder engagement strategy — those are separate documents covered later in the syllabus, and the change strategy sits above them, setting the approach they implement. Second, in a continuous change cycle the strategy is a living document. If the delivery strategy shifts from phased to voluntary adoption, or the required adoption level is revised, the strategy should be updated and re-circulated — otherwise the document that was written to set expectations begins quietly misleading people about them.
Who the change strategy is for
The document has three distinct audiences, and writing for only one is why so many change strategies go unread.
The sponsor and senior leaders need to see what is being asked of them and what the approach assumes about their involvement. This is where the required adoption level and the resourcing implications belong, because those are the decisions only they can make.
The project or programme leadership needs to see how change activity interlocks with delivery — which outputs the change approach depends on, when training must happen relative to release, and what the delivery strategy implies for both parties.
The change team itself needs it as an operating document: the approach, the practices in use, the relationships and the networks.
A strategy written only for governance reads as a compliance artefact and is filed. A strategy written to be argued with by all three audiences does the job CM3 describes — allowing others to understand and debate the approach, and setting expectations while those expectations can still be adjusted.
Length is not the measure. A short, specific strategy that names the adoption level, the delivery strategy and the lessons being applied is far more useful than a long one that describes change management in general.