7 Best Change Management Tools of 2023 (Ranked & Reviewed)

Change is hard.

People are creatures of habit, and businesses face resistance when they try to introduce new practices or remove existing ones.

But change is also necessary for people and businesses to grow and stay relevant.

While employee training software does help with some aspects of change management, they’re not a silver bullet.

That said, various tools within this industry can make change easier.

Digital adoption tools make it easier for employees to adapt to new digital tools and processes, training them to use the latest software in the most efficient way possible.

There are then change management tools.

These software solutions help businesses manage, track, and execute changes of all kinds, whether it’s a simple process change or a large-scale organizational transformation.

In this article, I’ll review the best change management tools, ranked according to their features, ease of use, pricing, and more.

This will help you choose the right tool for your business’s needs.

What Are The Best Change Management Tools?

Here are the best change management tools to consider.

1. Wrike

Best Overall Change Management Tool.

Wrike is the best overall change management tool because it has a comprehensive set of features for managing changes of all types.

It includes tools for tracking progress, assigning tasks, and measuring results.

Having a single source of truth with this platform allows businesses to manage changes more effectively and avoid duplication of effort.

Give your team 360° visibility to see what’s changed, who’s working on what, and ultimately measure how changes impact the business.

Allowing for true cross-departmental collaboration, Wrike is the perfect tool for managing changes of all sizes.

Wrike also offers powerful automation to help businesses save time and increase efficiency.

Key Features:

• Truly collaborate with your team to work together on changes, no matter where they are in the world.
• Accelerate approvals by automating tasks and sending reminders to keep everyone on track.
• Get smart with your data by tracking progress and measuring results to ensure that changes have the desired effect.
• Free your team from burnout by ensuring that changes are correctly managed and executed so everyone can focus on their work.
• Take control of information security by knowing who has access to what and when.

User Experience:

The ability to easily create tasks, chat with the right team members, and see the big picture with Wrike’s visual interface, sets it apart from other change management tools.

This makes it easier to manage changes, as you can see at a glance what needs to be done and who is working on what.

Pricing:

Here are the pricing plans Wrike offers:

• Free: $0
• Professional: $9.80
• Business: $24.80

These are on a per-user per month basis.

There is also an Enterprise and a Pinnacle plan.

You’ll have to contact the sales team for more information about this.

What I Like/Dislike About Wrike

Like:

• Ease of use and efficiency of communication allows for a streamlined change management process.
• Having an integrated marketing team able to see all aspects of a project prevents duplication of effort and increases transparency.

Dislike:

• A central location to store unrelated project notes would make finding these easier when needed.

Product Updates:

• Subtask creation now makes it easier to track and manage minor changes as part of a larger project.
• More advanced search features allow for filtering for just the information you need, allowing you to make changes quickly.

Get started with Wrike.

2. Freshservice.

Best for Ease of Use.

Freshservice can modernize how your business handles changes with its intuitive interface and mobile app.

This makes it easy for businesses to manage changes on the go, which is essential in today’s fast-paced world.

With Freshservice, businesses can take a proactive approach to change management by automating tasks and setting up rules to keep everyone on track.

Providing a unified service management solution, Freshservice is the perfect tool for businesses that need to streamline their change management process.

With a single platform that can integrate your business’s various services, Freshservice can save you time and money.

No longer does change management have to be a tedious and manual process.

They also offer 24/7 customer support to help you with any issues.

Key Features:

• Fast time-to-value means that you can get up and running quickly with Freshservice, so you can start managing changes more effectively immediately.
• Minimizing downtime helps you avoid disruptions to your business by controlling changes.
• Increased agent efficiency ensures that your team can work more efficiently and manage changes more effectively.
• Employee productivity helps you get the most out of your team by ensuring they can focus on their work rather than being bogged down by change management.
• Enterprise service management provides a single platform for all of your business’ services so that you can manage them more effectively.

User Experience:

Getting a broad overview of your support tickets in various stages of the change process helps you identify potentially problematic areas before they cause disruptions.

You can also quickly see critical information, such as performance trends and scorecards, to help you make informed decisions.

This all adds up when improving your change management process.

Pricing:

Freshservice offers the following prices:

• Starter: $19 /agent/month, billed annually
• Growth: $49 /agent/month, billed annually
• Pro: $89 /agent/month, billed annually
• Enterprise: $109 /agent/month, billed annually

What I Like/Dislike About Freshservice

Like:

• The platform offers user-friendly tools with an excellent interface for both the business user and the IT professional.
• A high-quality support team ensures you get the right help when needed.

Dislike:

• Their mobile application is quite tricky to use, which can make managing changes on the go more complicated than it needs to be.

Product Updates:

• Knowledge Base 2.0 allows better formatting, full-screen mode, and table views.
• Alert management will enable you to avoid potential problems by setting up notifications for specific events.

Get started with Freshservice.

3. Viima.

Best for Crowdsourcing Change.

Viima is excellent for organizations that value innovation as part of their change management process.

With Viima, businesses can crowdsource ideas from employees, customers, and partners.

This ensures that your business is always at the forefront of innovation and will be ready for any changes that may come your way.

After you gather ideas from all the people that matter, you can prioritize the ideas that will have the most significant impact on your business so that you can implement them quickly and effectively.

Key Features:

• Boards make it flexible and ensure that you can create custom boards to fit your specific needs and manage your ideas more effectively.
• Model your processes to create a change management process tailored to your business needs.
• Engage the right people to ensure that you get input from the people who matter, allowing you to have critical information to make the best decisions for your business.
• A flexible evaluation system allows you to evaluate ideas based on multiple criteria.
• Automated idea scoring ensures that you can quickly identify and implement the most promising ideas rapidly and effectively.
• Powerful visualization tools allow you to see all the ideas generated in one place to identify the ones that will significantly impact your business quickly.

User Experience:

Gathering data is a crucial function of any change management process, and Viima makes it easy to do just that.

See which ideas have the most backing while quickly getting an overview of all the ideas that have been generated.

Pricing:

Viima offers these pricing plans:

• Basic: $0
• Premium: $6 /user/month
• Unlimited: $1999 /month

What I Like/Dislike About Viima

Like:

• You can generally maintain transparent and accessible concepts for your organization.
• Collecting suggestions from employees is easier than ever before.

Dislike:

• In “Impact Assessment,” customer experience can be improved when it comes to having better analysis tools.

Product Updates:

• Archiving & retention are now part of the package, so you can keep your ideas organized and accessible for as long as you need them.

4. WalkMe.

Best for Identifying Sticking Points.

WalkMe helps companies ensure that change is not only implemented quickly and efficiently but that the right employees also adopt it.

Identifying sticking points across the employee journey and then providing guidance to employees so they can overcome these challenges is a crucial function of WalkMe.

This allows companies to accelerate the rate at which they can implement change and realize its benefits.

By looking directly at visibility into software usage and what the key people are doing in their day-to-day operations, WalkMe can give employees the help they need exactly when they need it.

This platform allows workflows to be customized based on the right users and their specific data.

As a business owner, you can be sure that you provide the most relevant and helpful guidance to employees.

Key Features:

• Take a user-first approach to software adoption, so it’s all about the users and their needs.
• Driving business outcomes across industries ensures you always get the most out of your software.
• An engaged community of DAP Professionals means you can get help and advice from people who know what they’re doing.
• A thriving ecosystem of partners and experts means you can always find someone to help you with your software needs.

User Experience:

A graphical user interface allows you to set up apps, funnels, users, and much more in a way that is easy to understand and use.

Comparing data points in both an aggregate and an individual way is valuable when understanding how your company uses operational software.

Pricing:

WalkMe offers two packages based on either the employee experience or the customer experience.

You’ll have a get a quote for these plans.

What I Like/Dislike About WalkMe

Like:

• Proactive user support gives employees the help they need at the correct times.
• Workflows can be created in a simple and easy-to-understand graphical user interface.

Dislike:

• Expanding the ability of the WalkMe builder would result in various other ways to create value in an organization.

Product Updates:

• UI Intelligence now allows for actionable insights regarding engagements with the software.

5. Gensuite.

Best for Safety and Compliance.

Gensuite offers the right safety features when creating change management programs.

It excels in providing a complete solution for critical safety and compliance initiatives.

With the ability to manage risks and hazards, Gensuite provides an excellent tool for creating a safe and compliant workplace.

Gensuite is also very user-friendly, so the software is easy to use.

If you want to anticipate future threats before they happen, and take proactive steps to mitigate them, then Gensuite is the tool for you.

With its cloud-based solution, you’ll always be one step ahead of the game regarding safety and compliance.

Key Features:

• Android and Apple apps ensure that you can always stay on top of your safety and compliance initiatives while you’re on the go.
• Deploy the right solutions in as little as 4-6 weeks, allowing you to get on track in a matter of weeks.
• Unlimited user licenses mean you can have as many people using the software as you need without worrying about extra costs.
• A configurable and customizable solution allows you to tailor the software to your specific needs so that it’s always working the way you want it to.
• The in-built Tableau Business Intelligence Tool means you can always track your progress and see how you’re doing.
• Dedicated Customer Support – 24×7, 365 days – so you can always get help when needed.

User Experience:

The site status report is a convenient feature that allows you to see the compliance status of your workplace at a glance.

Tracking progress and performance over time is also valuable in understanding your company’s progress.

Pricing:

You’ll have to go through the free change management tool trial or request a demo to get pricing information.

What I Like/Dislike About Gensuite

Like:

• Gensuite’s capacity to combine data from various sources means that you can always get an accurate picture of your company’s compliance status.

Dislike:

• Product support is not always as responsive as it could be.

Product Updates:

• The Compliance Calendar now features an action plan module that allows you to track and manage your compliance initiatives as they are acted on.

6. Engage Your Team.

Best for Change Awareness.

Engage Your Team helps you verify that your team is all on the same page regarding change management.

This software makes getting everyone on board with your plans easy and ensures everyone is aware of the changes.

Whether you want to see which leadership profiles are being used most often or ensure that everyone is receiving the same training, Engage Your Team can help.

Current and future objectives are sorted by the various industries, allowing you to track progress as it happens.

Their automated strategy report allows businesses to monitor KPIs, review goals, and make changes on the fly.

Key Features:

• Various availability of assessments means that everyone can find the right assessment for their needs.
• Online strategy reports allow businesses to monitor KPIs, review goals, and make changes on the fly.
• Implementation/ROI ensures you always get the most out of your investment.
• Being a growth-specific solution means you can tailor the software to your specific needs.
• Their product matrix allows you to see which products are most popular and which ones are least used.

Pricing:

Engage Your Team offers these plans:

• Business: $35/participant
• Enterprise: $20/participant
• HR/Placement: Call their team for pricing information.

7. Whatfix.

Best for Scaling Change.

Whatfix focuses on scaling, optimizing, and deploying digital transformations.

This software supports organizations as they adopt new technologies and change how they work.

Whatfix’s software also provides guidance and support to employees using new applications so everyone can be productive from the start.

Get higher software engagement through customized nudges that show up at the right time and in the right place.

Valuing seamless adoption, Whatfix also offers an intelligent content management system that makes it easy to keep your digital adoption content up-to-date.

You can also use this platform to enhance customers’ understanding of your product and help them get the most out of your software.

Key Features:

• Accelerate employee onboarding to make it both faster and ensures a more profound understanding
• Boost employee productivity by providing the correct information at the right time
• Reduce overhead costs associated with training and support that come from deploying new software
• Increase engagement and loyalty by ensuring that employees can use your software to its fullest potential
• Boost user adoption by providing a platform that allows employees to get the help they need – when they need it

Pricing

You can get a quote from their team for pricing information.

What Are Change Management Tools?

Change management software are tools that help businesses plan, implement, and track changes.

These types of software are designed to help businesses manage both small and large-scale changes to ensure that all changes are made smoothly and efficiently.

Change management tools can help businesses with various tasks, including creating change management plans, assigning tasks to team members, tracking progress, and more.

There are various change management tools on the market, so choosing the right one for your business is essential.

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) provides specific practices related to IT service management (ITSM) tools.

This covers the use of tools to manage change.

Change Management Vs. Project Management Tools

While change management and project management systems help businesses plan and track changes, there are some critical differences between the two.

Change management software is designed specifically for managing changes, while project management software provides a more general solution to the day-to-day operations of a business.

Project management software is typically more comprehensive than change management software, with features that can help businesses manage tasks, resources, timelines, and more.

Change management software is typically more focused on making changes and can help businesses plan, track, and implement such changes more effectively.

Key Features of Change Management Systems

Having the ability to plan and track changes is essential for any business.

Still, a few other key features can make a specific change management system even more valuable compared to other industry tools.

Here are some key features to look for in a change management system.

Release Management

The right change management tool will have release management features to help businesses plan, test, and implement changes.

Having release management processes integrated within your change management system can help ensure that changes are made smoothly and efficiently.

Whether new systems are introduced, or changes are made to existing ones, release management processes can help ensure that changes are made safely and without disruptions.

Organizational Change

One of the key processes that IT service management needs to consider is organizational change.

Interacting and accommodating stakeholders as they need to be onboarded during the change duration is critical for a successful outcome.

The right tool should provide templates and best practices for organizational change so that you can avoid common pitfalls and disruptions.

Organizational change management is a big topic, and the features on offer by the chosen tool should be able to support your needs.

Asset Management

A successful change often requires the need to update or modify assets.

A sound change management system will have asset management features that can help businesses track and manage assets throughout the change process.

Asset management features can help businesses track which assets need to be updated, when they need to be updated, and who is responsible for correcting them.

Remedy Change Management

An impact analysis that can predict the risks and repercussions of a change is essential for any business.

Seeing how a change will impact other business areas can help businesses make more informed decisions about which changes to make and how to make them.

In addition, remedies have to be considered if something goes wrong along the way.

This is where remedy change management comes in.

Task Management

Business processes related to tasks that include approvals and sign-offs will always be needed when making changes.

Having interactive templates and real-time dashboards can ensure that the right people are always kept in the loop and that tasks are completed on time.

The end-user needs to understand the task management processes in place, and items such as Gantt charts and Kanban boards can help.

Documented Change Control Processes

One of the critical change processes of any business is documenting the change control processes.

This is a great way to get buy-in from everyone affected by changes and ensure these stakeholders are on the same page.

From issuing a change request to implementing the changes, documenting everything can help ensure that the process is followed correctly and that no steps are missed.

Decision-Making Notifications

A change model that works as it should means being agile and proactive regarding decision-making.

With every IT change, a notification should be sent out to the relevant stakeholders so they can be aware of what’s happening and give their input if necessary.

While this will depend on the type of change being made, having notifications in place can help ensure that everyone is on the same page and that the changes are completed smoothly.

Walkthroughs

Being able to guide users through the changes being made is essential to help these people understand what is happening – and why.

Before a rollout goes live, it’s often a good idea to do a few walkthroughs with users to get a feel for the new system and how it works.

This allows bottlenecks to be identified and dealt with before they cause any significant problems.

In addition, the right training programs can ensure that users are up to speed on the changes that have been made and how to use the new system effectively.

Self-Service Features

The lifecycle of a change can be long and complicated, so having self-service features in place can help make the process a lot smoother.

With this feature, the right metrics and checklists can ensure that changes are made correctly.

This is also an excellent feature for various teams (including DevOps) to check that processes are moving smoothly.

Various methodologies ensure that changes are made correctly, and having self-service solutions can help with that.

The ADKAR methodology

ADKAR is an acronym for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement.

The idea behind ADKAR is that every individual must go through these five stages to adapt to a change successfully.

Here’s a quick review of these various stages:

1. Awareness: The first step is to create awareness of the need for change. Individuals must be made aware of what is happening and what issues this might be causing.
2. Desire: The second step is to generate a willingness to change. Individuals must want to change for themselves, not just because someone else wants them to.
3. Knowledge: The third step is to provide knowledge about how to change. Individuals must know what they need to do and how to do it.
4. Ability: The fourth step is to build the capacity to change. Individuals must have the skills and resources necessary to make the change.
5. Reinforcement: The fifth and final step is to reinforce the change. Individuals must be given support and motivation to maintain the change over time.

ADKAR is a popular framework because it is simple and easy to understand.

It can be used in any type of organization, large or small.

Wrap Up.

Successful change management is essential for any business that wants to stay ahead of the competition.

Effective change management in a business starts with getting employee engagement and buy-in and (might) finish when everything is working correctly with the new mode of operation.

That said, change is always an ongoing process.

To ensure that change management initiatives are successful, it’s essential to have the right tools and processes in place.

Have you ever used a change management tool?

If so, which one did you use, and how did it help your business?

Let me know in the comments below.

Further reading on AdamEnfroy.com: The best inventory management tools can help your business keep track of its stock, whether it’s physical or digital products.

Coupled with change management, inventory management can help streamline your business operations and keep things running smoothly – even during periods of change.

Moreover, here’s a post that discusses the best resource management software that one should use to keep track of its stock.

With resources being a vital part of any business, it’s essential to have a system that can ensure their efficient use.