Let's Talk Change Management: Share Your Insights 💡

We manage change using Wrike in several ways. Wrike is the home of our knowledge base, so when process or SOP changes occur, we write or update a knowledge base article and then are able to refference that permalink to make sure everyone is aware of and followihng the new procedure. Also, we use blueprints to launch tasks to individuals when a software update is needed. This allows us to report on the progress of the team's update. Lastly, we have implemented a Wrike-based ticketing system to request updates to our SOPs or workflows, which is visible to the entire team.

We use Wrike to capture, manage, and plan our change management projects.

We have a request form for dedicated MOps support and the bulk of the requests that come in are for changing or updating any given Marketing process.

We then leverage this request/project to plan our next steps and communicate with the team to review changes. Since the bulk of our processes is reflected in blueprints and forms, we will often duplicate and edit said items undergoing change and work with the team off of Wrike (via calls or in-person meetings) so go over the changes needed and review changes made. All of these changes are tracked in our Wrike project and we'll tag our stakeholders so they are aware when things are finalized. 

At the end of any change management initiative, we'll document the new process in Wrike - every team's space has a knowledge base folder so we will write up an entry in the relevant space(s).

Hi everyone! 😊

Wrike has been a game-changer for managing changes in our projects. We mainly use it for Project Changes and IT Updates, but it works for any type of change.

To identify necessary changes, we track feedback, monitor project progress, and spot roadblocks early using Dashboards and Custom Workflows. When planning, we rely on Task Dependencies and Blueprints to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

Communication is key, so we use @mentions, comments, and status updates to keep everyone aligned. Plus, Request Forms help streamline change requests, ensuring we capture all needed details upfront.

After implementing a change, we review results through Reports and Post-Project Reviews, making adjustments as needed. Wrike’s visibility makes the whole process smoother and more transparent.

Excited to hear how others use Wrike for change management! 🚀

Fabio

Here are a few ways we've integrated Wrike into our workflow, particularly focusing on change management and onboarding:

1. Blueprint Task Requirements: In each of our blueprint tasks within Wrike, we delineate specific requirements that must be met for the task to be marked as complete. This approach has provided clear guidelines for task assignees, reducing ambiguity and enhancing accountability. Additionally, these task requirements include detailed instructions for compliance purposes, ensuring that all tasks adhere to necessary regulatory standards and internal policies. By establishing these requirements upfront, we ensure that every team member knows exactly what's expected and can deliver accordingly.

2. Change Request Form: We've developed a change request form within Wrike that enables anyone in our Marketing team to submit changes to blueprints, processes, or task descriptions. This centralized system allows us to review and implement changes consistently, ensuring that all modifications are documented and communicated effectively. Once a change is approved, we make sure to inform all parties affected by the update, promoting transparency and collaboration throughout the organization.

3. Onboarding Management: Wrike has become an integral part of managing our onboarding process. By centralizing onboarding tasks and resources within our "Wrike Knowledge Base," managers can effortlessly track a new team member's learning progress. This visibility allows managers to provide timely support and ensure a smooth transition for new hires, enhancing their integration into the team.

Overall, Wrike has become a critical tool in our change management arsenal, helping us maintain clarity and consistency across projects. 

Wrike is helpful for us in that it simply shows where hangups happen and allows us to identify where we missed key tasks or deliverables. By being able to go back and review a project and when tasks were updated/completed, we are able to assess how effective the processes are and then begin to update to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Our marketing team leverages Wrike to manage various changes, from campaign updates and content revisions to process improvements. We identify necessary changes by analyzing project performance and gathering input from stakeholders. With Wrike, we build comprehensive plans using task assignments, custom workflows, and timelines to ensure seamless implementation. 

Thanks, Ali Moses, for sharing that! Those are important internal processes to make consistent and track. (Documentation might be my love language.)

I wonder how folks are using Wrike to coordinate and undergird wider change management (what I think of as "external") among end users, clients, and customers?

Our enterprise nonprofit tracks ADKAR-related tasks within some complex projects with organization-wide rollouts, often as part of the communication plan.

Sometimes changing who is working on a task can get confusing. Even if a task has been re-assigned, the task is still in everyone's inbox. This makes the first person confused if they are still on the job or not and can lead to 2 people doing the same job. I wish there was a way to make the transition more clear to everyone.

We currently have our entire changemangement process within Wrike.

Here we have every change on a series product. Simple blueprint with some approvals and then a lot of actions, but we're currently working on uupdating it so perhaps I can update once we figure out the process.

What types of changes do you use (or want to use) Wrike for? (i.e. Engineering Change Requests, Project Changes, IT Changes, other)

• Any time we have a new business unit coming on board - we have a blueprint that roadmaps the process steps, from identifying key stakeholders and champions, to walking through training materials - it's a handbook for what the team needs to consider for launching

How do you identify the changes that need to happen in your projects or processes?

• When change is needed, we will usually create a folder location, that houses the discovery process.  it is here, where we map out and plan out what needs to change, how long it will take to investigate the needs, insights required, etc.  From there we tied this into the execution of setting up the necessary steps.  If large processes are changing, it might involve planning training, or creating new resource repositories, and when needed share into our global account resource areas

What steps do you take to create a solid plan for implementing changes?

• First it is about discovery to understand what needs to change and if/how it will affect other users of the within Wrike

How do you use Wrike to communicate changes to your team and keep everyone on the same page?

• The team in charge of implementing changes tyically has access to the Change Management Project.  But since we have many BUs doing different things in different space - we leave Global Communications in our Public teams channels when necessary

What strategies or features do you use in Wrike to ensure everyone has the support and resources they need during changes?

• Training Schedule in public teams channels
• Intranet that connects to key resources in Wrike
• Regular meetings with BU leads/SMEs to ensure they have what they need!

Can you share any experiences where a particular Wrike tool made change management easier?

• When rolling out new ways of working in an office, it was instrumental in having a plan that the implementation team had - so that we could stay on time, and callout all the steps needed to execute.

We divide our change requests into 2 types of ownership: internal and external.  Our internal changes primarily center around product in 3 forms:

1. ECR (Engineering Change Request)
2. PCR (Packaging Change Request)
3. ACR (Artwork Change Request)

Because the above 3 forms can be interrelated, we drive this with a single Request Form the creates 1 to 3 tasks linked to each other by the primary change needed.  There are custom fields that identify aspects of the change, such as inventory disposition, information management, and QA documentation updates to name a few.  The appropriate teams are notified depending on which changes require notification, and all notifications are driven by automations.

External changes are typically one of two types:

1. PDR (Production Deviation Request)
2. SCAR (Supplier Corrective Action Report)

The external changes noted above depend on the status of received goods and just like our other CRs, appropriate teams are notified based on the impact of the issue identified.

For all changes noted above, each has its own Custom Item Type and unique workflow associated as well as approvals needed as specific statuses are reached and follow-ups are required.

We do engineering change management in Wrike, but at a corporate level will still need to embed a change management process into Wrike, so this will be a great resource for learning for you all!

First and foremost, changes in the team itself, for example tracking onboarding process.

Additionally, changes in projects - changes in timelines, in briefs, in external resources (we use Wrike as a central hub for all briefs etc).

How do you use Wrike to communicate changes to your team and keep everyone on the same page?

Wrike automations are the go-to feature to keep everyone aligned. 

What types of changes do you use (or want to use) Wrike for? (i.e. Engineering Change Requests, Project Changes, IT Changes, other)

• When new projects come into our pipeline, we leverage our methodology documentation along with a blueprint that outlines all the roles that need to be involved in our projects.

How do you identify the changes that need to happen in your projects or processes?

• We leverage request forms to capture any lessons learned or changes to help improve our user experience.

What steps do you take to create a solid plan for implementing changes?

• We capture any change and identify the type of change. This helps us assign the right role for investigating the change. 

What strategies or features do you use in Wrike to ensure everyone has the support and resources they need during changes?

• Dashboards, Project Plans (from our Blueprint that is supported by our project methodology documentation)

When one of our software products is sold, the implementation process begins shortly thereafter. This process consists of multiple interdependent and parallel tasks, involving numerous internal and external stakeholders from start to finish.

Collaborating as a team to define and document each step in a Wrike Blueprint has been transformative. We are already experiencing increased visibility, more efficient communication, and a reduced risk of delays.

Navigating this "change" of having a Blueprint to follow has been a positive experience for all on my team!

Our team manages change management in ways similar to those outlined in this post. By adopting a formulaic approach, we strive to create a structured, predictable, and repeatable environment within Wrike. We achieve this by leveraging the following key Wrike tools:

• Blueprints: Blueprints are the backbone of building in structure keeping project scope consistent.  Every project entered in Wrike starts with a blueprint.
• Risk Register: To address changes in project scope, we've created a RAID folder within our Wrike projects. All scope changes arising during a project are documented here, providing a historical log and facilitating effective change management.
• Forms: Upon project completion, we distribute a customer satisfaction survey via Forms to stakeholders. The resulting data enables us to analyze our processes and implement improvements, leading to enhanced outcomes for future projects.

Once a change is made, how do you review the results and gather feedback to refine the process?

Our team keeps the automatic updates on so that each team member who is part of the workflow is able to see when the change occurs. Once the project is over we go back to see where the inefficiencies occurred so that we can correct them for the next project.

We use other tools for our organization-wide change management processes, but some teams are using Wrike for internal CM. For Wrike itself, I have a blueprint Wrike Change Checklist that triggers whenever someone submits a Wrike Change request form. I then take that request to our Wrike Governance group that meets weekly, ask the questions from the checklist that apply to the request, and if the group approves it I then take the request through the rest of the checklist to ensure I'm covering all communication, configuration, support, etc. bases. 

We use Wrike forms for change requests, feedback responses, etc. It allows us to gather the information needed at first contact, instead of letting our constituents send an email which may or may not (usually may not :) have all the information we need to assess the change request and assign it out accordingly. 

Our marketing team leverages Wrike to manage various changes, from campaign updates and content revisions to process improvements. We identify necessary changes by analyzing project performance metrics and gathering stakeholder input, ensuring that our strategies remain effective and aligned with business goals.

With Wrike, we build comprehensive change management plans using:
✅ Task assignments to ensure accountability and clear ownership.
✅ Custom workflows to streamline approvals and track progress.
✅ Timelines and dependencies to maintain project alignment and avoid bottlenecks.

These tools help us implement changes seamlessly, keeping our team informed, organized, and agile in a fast-paced environment. 

We've had a lot of process changes and team changes throughout the past year and as we onboard new team members we are looking at ways to improve our processes by implementing a larger blueprint update to reflect new assignments, new workflows, and new tasks entirely. We've also implemented a change request blueprint that anyone on the team can use to request a change. This ensures we follow the right process and aren't having to manually fix things in Wrike each time. 

🔄 What types of changes do you use Wrike for?

We mainly use it for:

• Engineering Change Requests (ECRs)
• Project scope adjustments
• Process updates and optimizations
• Occasionally for IT system change logs

🔍 How do you identify the changes that need to happen?

Through:

• Feedback from cross-functional teams via Wrike request forms
• Retrospectives and project reviews
• Monitoring blockers or recurring issues flagged in dashboards and reports

🧱 Steps to create a solid change plan:

1. Open a task or project template for change planning
2. Add clear goals, impact analysis, and required resources
3. Assign tasks and deadlines using custom workflows
4. Tag all relevant departments so no one’s left out

📣 Communicating changes in Wrike:

• We use @mentions, custom fields, and status updates to keep everyone informed
• Create a dedicated change log folder/project for visibility
• Pin announcements in Wrike Spaces for quick access

🛠 Tools & strategies that help:

• Automation Rules to notify stakeholders or move tasks when status changes
• Dashboards for real-time tracking
• Blueprints for repeatable change processes
• Proofing & Approvals to get feedback on new documents or processes

✅ Post-change review & feedback:

• We use Wrike Reports to review outcomes vs. objectives
• Set up feedback tasks to gather input
• Use that input to tweak blueprints or workflows for next time

🌟 A Wrike tool that helped the most:

The Request Forms + Blueprints combo has been a game-changer. It streamlined our ECR intake and made sure every change request starts with the right info and flows through the correct process automatically. Total lifesaver! 

For every change we have in Wrike we do 2 things:
1- We document the change within a Wrike space (called DAM)
2- We use a Google chat group to inform the entire team of the change
3- After 15 days we ask if there are any needs or problems encountered following the change and if so we intervene

Great insights, everyone! Thanks for sharing 🤝 Our team is closely following the conversation here 😊

Basudha Sakshyarika Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

Basudha Sakshyarika Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover

I recently added a Change Request form for any changes that will impact the scope, cost or schedule. I have developed a procedure of using this form, but we have yet to use it. My goal is to be able to track all the changes for a project to analyze later for our future projects.=