10 Best Change Management Tools & Software For 2023

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Change management tools offer structure for the often chaotic process of change in our teams, businesses, and organizations. But change is steeped in ambiguity—how do you know what tools you even need?

This review will help you evaluate the best change control software for managing change, as well as ITIL change management software (helps align IT’s needs through major organizational transitions).

Organizational change management can be tricky. After all, there’s no single suite of tools to navigate every type of company change. That makes change management software reviews challenging, as you often cannot compare them across the board. Different types of change management tools need to be addressed differently.

As a technical project manager or change manager, you may be charged with aspects of software change management as your organization adopts new technology or builds solutions for clients who are transitioning to new systems.

As well, for non-technical project managers, you may effectuate change by introducing a new tool or process to your team’s workflow or updating your company’s standards for customer development. Change is a huge part of your daily work, and you’ll work best when you can quickly organize and maintain your process.

In this post, I’ll go over the change management tools that best support each need, as well as explain what change management process flow is and how IT change management software can help you navigate the change process.

I also answer some FAQs about change tracking software below, which includes a brief breakdown of software change management for different types of projects (employee onboarding versus new software introduction, etc.).

Below you’ll find an overview of each of the 10 best change management software, with screenshots, feature overviews, and pricing.

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Change Management Tools Comparison Criteria

What do I look for when I select the best change management software? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:

1. User Interface (UI): Is it clean and attractive?
2. Usability: Is it easy to learn and master? Does the company offer good tech support, user support, tutorials, and training?
3. Key Features: Here are some of the key features I look for in change management tools:
   • Flowcharts & Process Maps: Some way to visualize what the change process and roadmap will look like and flag key milestones. Find a round-up of dedicated flowchart software here.
   • ADKAR Analysis: Some way to communicate awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement of the change process.
   • Reinforcement of Behavior: Some way to encourage and monitor team behaviors associated with solidifying the oncoming elements of the change.
   • Elevation of Change Cheerleaders: Some way to make the voices heard of those advocating and role modeling the change expectations.
   • Learning Management & Skill Building: Some way to develop necessary new skills to accommodate changing workflows or environments.
4. Integrations: Is it easy to connect with other tools? Any pre-built integrations?
5. Value for $: How appropriate is the price for the features, capabilities, and use case? Is pricing clear, transparent and flexible?

The 10 Best Change Management Tools Overviews

Adopting new software? New business model? New training program? Change can be daunting, but you don’t have to attack it unprepared. Onboarding, customer success, employee engagement—these are just a few of the areas of change I’ve isolated for coverage here.

Here are my top change management tool suggestions to get your change management journey jumpstarted.

1

Jira Service Management

Best for its risk assessment engine

Previously known as Jira Service Desk, Jira Service Management is a complete IT service management (ITSM) solution designed for DevOps, IT operations, and support teams of all sizes.

Apart from incident management, Jira Service Management also empowers IT operations teams through its change management tools and software. Users can reference change requests for complete context regarding the change, the personnel or teams, as well as the related work involved. The change requests view allows users to acquire valuable information from their CI/CD tool, name required approvers, share the risk score with stakeholders, and list all affected devices.

The change management software also comes with an advanced risk assessment engine. It employs automation technology to provide risk scores on every change. This means the user can easily determine whether or not a specific change has low, medium, or high risk associated with it. If the risk score is low, for instance, the system can be configured to auto-approve the request and deploy the change. If the risk score is high, on the other hand, the right personnel will then be automatically notified for further examination and approval.

Jira Service Management’s change management tools and software also allow users to assess dependencies as well as the potential impact of a change through the Insights module.

Jira Service Management is free for up to three agents. For a limited-time offer, the Standard plan is free for up to 10 agents for one year.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.

4 90

7-day free trial

From $21/agent/month

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2

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Best for visualizing change management with the visual workflow builder

ServiceDesk Plus is a complete IT Service Management (ITSM) suite with built-in IT Asset Management (ITAM) and Configuration Management Database (CMDB) capabilities to help assess risks and plan change implementation. The tool's PinkVerify-certified IT change management module allows IT teams to implement changes with minimal risk by designing change processes on a visual workflow designer.

With custom change roles, types, statuses, and templates, as well as the ability to designate a Change Advisory Board (CAB), IT teams can design change implementation processes that cater to their business needs. Other key features include the ability to log and track changes resulting from incidents and problems and to get input and approvals on change plans from CAB members.

Users can also configure automated workflows and notifications to improve visibility and communication for IT and business stakeholders using the visual workflow builder, as well as publish announcements about changes to communicate any planned downtime to end-users.

Pricing for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus starts at $12/per user/month for the standard plan. See further pricing plans on their pricing page.

30 Days Free Trial

$58 / technician / month

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3

Wrike

Best for team collaboration solutions

Wrike is a powerful change management tool trusted by 20,000+ organizations around the world and is suitable for any size team. Wrike’s change management tools help teams adjust by creating a single digital information hub that enables managers to track changing training programs and engagement.

Wrike allows employees to make systematic adjustments within the platform, rather than wasting time mastering several different tools, thanks to over 400+ integrations. Wrike is highly customizable to your change management needs, with project management features like one-click Gantt charts, Kanban boards, and business continuity templates that will keep your organization running smoothly.

Wrike is easy-to-learn and easy-to-use without in-person training. Your team will find they can navigate quickly between dashboards, calendars, reports, notifications, and messages, ensuring they have a solid grasp of their workflow as you’re implementing change. Wrike also has a dedicated help center with interactive training, videos, a ‘getting started’ guide, and a community.

Wrike offers over 400 pre-built native integrations with the most popular and useful applications, including Microsoft, Google, Dropbox, Salesforce, and Marketo. Wrike’s integrations are updated regularly, ensuring you’ll be able to introduce new technology to your team in a seamless fashion.

Start free with Wrike, no matter how big your team is. Or, try a free 14-day trial of Wrike’s more advanced features and customization. Paid plans start at $9.80/user/month.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.

4.2 2544

Freemium version available

From $9.80/user/month

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4

Whatfix

Best change management tool for adopting new software in an organization

Whatfix lets you design real-time interactive guides with zero codings required. Engage users through contextual widgets (self-help widget, tasklist widget, and smart tips static overlays), as well as guided pop-ups. Context-aware information provides users with the most useful updates immediately and provides in-app training in user preferred formats (from video to PDF and more).

Whatfix can accommodate those with disabilities by providing them with accessible technology that complies with section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act. This means they are an essential tool for accessibility-inclusive workplaces across the board.

CRM integration was a bit spotty and could use some revamping, particularly in compiling and reporting issues. The app can seem somewhat “single-minded” in how users are expected to complete a task, whereas larger web app projects might need a bit more flexibility (ie. broader branching workflow paths, et cetera).

Overall this is a really great tool if you're onboarding your employees to a new software, although it can be adapted for other use cases as well.

Whatfix has a custom pricing model and offers a free trial.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.

4.6 194

Free Trial

Pricing Upon Request

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5

WalkMe

Best change management platform for managing both customer and employee change

WalkMe’s guidance tools help to prevent errors, encourage desired behaviors and foster goal completion through custom desktop notifications, easy Help Desk access, visibility and insights into digital behavior, a self-paced onboarding list, and more. By simplifying back-office functions, WalkMe aids enterprise resource planning during any software onboarding.

Setting up walkthroughs was a bit of a time commitment, which would not have been as much of a problem if WalkMe software updates didn’t often require manually re-test said walkthrough processes post-update.

They offer guidance tools and onboarding for popular software like Salesforce, Workday, Jira, NetSuite, Talentsoft and more, so any company who already uses any of their pre-listed programs would benefit in particular from these apps offerings.

WalkMe starts at $7500/year. They also offer custom pricing within a large range based on many factors and have a free demo available.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.

4.5 129

Free demo

From $2-3000/annually

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6

Viima

Best free change management tool for small companies

This collaboration-first change management platform lets you gather ideas from your employees, customers, and other stakeholders; refine and develop ideas together with your team; analyze your innovation process to find and eliminate bottlenecks; and more.

Viima is great for small businesses due to the low point of cost and minimal barriers to entry. They provide many services for free for a limited number of users and also have Apple and Android apps to help scattered teams stay connected.

Reporting visualization and exportation of data could be improved to be more functional, dynamic and flexible. Because the software is light on features, adding integrations for project management tools could go a long way to making it a more well-rounded application.

Viima starts free for up to 50 users and then is $3/user/month.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.

4.9 11

Free for up to 50 users

From $3/user/month

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7

ManageEngine Service Desk Plus

Best change management software for enterprises

ManageEngine Service Desk Plus is a change management solution with ITIL-ready workflow and process management features for incident and problem management. With its robust ITIL processes, Service Desk Plus helps users automate IT service management operations and improve service delivery. As an integrated desktop central and mobile device management solution, it provides comprehensive control over all assets from a single console.

ManageEngine’s change management module helps businesses streamline your processes by providing a central repository for all changes. It includes workflow capabilities to automate the review and approval processes. Users can associate predefined change templates with preconfigured workflows, enabling them to trigger a change upon submission instantly, without having to manually create a new change request each time. ManageEngine helps users define a set of steps that need to be taken whenever a change is made and assigns responsibility for each step to specific individuals or groups, ensuring that all changes are properly documented and tested before being implemented and that any potential problems are identified and resolved before they cause disruptions. Moreover, it also helps ensure that changes are made in a consistent and coordinated manner.

It includes several built-in reports that give visibility into the change processes. These reports can be used to identify potential bottlenecks or areas for improvement. Additionally, the module integrates with the asset management module to give users complete visibility into how changes will impact your IT assets. ManageEngine’s post-implementation review feature allows users to collect feedback from customers after they've received support. This feedback can be used to improve support processes, identify areas for training, and ensure that customers are satisfied with the service they've received.

Pricing for ManageEngine Service Desk Plus is available upon request.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.

4.2 201

30-day free trial

Pricing upon request

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8

eSM Software

Best change management software for nonprofits (special pricing)

ESM has three elements to its software offerings: Balanced Scorecard Software (for top-down strategy), Employee Review Software and Strategy Consulting Services. ESM takes a big picture approach to navigate change by breaking information down into goals, interconnections, initiatives, KPIs and more.

ESM’s “big picture” mind mapping of company change and strategy seems a perfect fit for large scale corporations who don’t have many reliable touchpoints with staff across departments. However, in today’s digital age, ESM’s interconnectivity emphasis would also work well for smaller teams who work online or remotely, where a unified vision will ensure that even a separated team is advancing on the same goals.

More financial planning options, like profit and loss statements, would be hugely beneficial to their “big picture” approach to strategy. Furthermore, the ability to view multiple strategy maps, rather than switching between them in a drop-down menu, would be a time saver. Their paid plan is also quite pricey compared to other options available.

ESM starts at $800/month for unlimited users but has a free version of the software as well.

From $800/month

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9

The Change Shop

Best change management toolkit for survey-based insights

The Change Shop is a mobile-friendly cloud-based application for navigating change commitment plans, resistance forecasting, and many other tools that will help your team handle a shift in process or workload. Their app focuses on collaborative feedback, surveys and data collecting, and numerous report styles to evaluate your team’s readiness and capability for change and to make suggestions accordingly.

This platform would work best for change management involving disparate teams or groups where constant collaborative feedback is a must. Their Change Simulator will be helpful to onboard anyone who may be nervous about the shift or getting hung-up on the “What-ifs”.

While The Change Shop boasts a wide variety of tools, it would benefit from supplemental systems for compliance management and training management. As a relatively new software in the change management space, having launched in 2018, there is always the possibility that more features come in future updates.

The Change Shop starts at $29/month for up to 2500 users and has a free demo.

Free demo

From $29/month

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10

AppLearn

Best digital change management tool for complex organizational change

Since its launch in 2001, AppLearn (and later their digital adoption system ADOPT), have been implementing HR systems for organizations in need of complex, large-scale change such as HCM, CRM, and ERP transformation project.

They have software tutorials pre-integrated into their system rather than having users build their own. Anyone who uses Salesforce, Oracle HCM Cloud, Workday, Cornerstone, Lumesse, CoreHR and anything else listed specifically on their site will benefit from their platform.

The software could benefit from compliance management tools to ensure that users are following through with the training and getting the most out of the resources presented. Or, surveys and feedback could be implemented—anything to make it a little less “hands-off” for management staff that might be wary about completion rates.

AppLearn offers custom pricing plans and has a free demo.

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The Best Change Management Tools Summary

	Tool	Free Option	Price
1	Jira Service Management Best for its risk assessment engine	7-day free trial	From $21/agent/month	Visit Website
2	ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Best for visualizing change management with the visual workflow builder	30 Days Free Trial	$58 / technician / month	Visit Website
3	Wrike Best for team collaboration solutions	Freemium version available	From $9.80/user/month	Visit Website
4	Whatfix Best change management tool for adopting new software in an organization	Free Trial	Pricing Upon Request	Visit Website
5	WalkMe Best change management platform for managing both customer and employee change	Free demo	From $2-3000/annually	Visit Website
6	Viima Best free change management tool for small companies	Free for up to 50 users	From $3/user/month	Visit Website
7	ManageEngine Service Desk Plus Best change management software for enterprises	30-day free trial	Pricing upon request	Visit Website
8	eSM Software Best change management software for nonprofits (special pricing)	Not available	From $800/month	Visit Website
9	The Change Shop Best change management toolkit for survey-based insights	Free demo	From $29/month	Visit Website
10	AppLearn Best digital change management tool for complex organizational change	Not available		Visit Website

ITIL Change Management Tools

These change management tools are specifically for IT service management teams. These are the tools you want if you’re looking for software engineering change management tools or solutions to manage change in DevOps or compliance-driven software processes.

1. Sunview Software – best ITIL change management tool for DevOps
2. BMC – best database change management software (but also has tons of features for software change management)
3. Freshservice – best software change management tool for SMB

Tools For Managing Ideas

Maybe you don’t have a “single” needed change and instead, want to set your team up for constant collaborative innovation. You want to create a space where people can bounce ideas around and get real-time feedback. These tools can help you do that.

AppLearn tracks how users engage with your smart page elements and where said users come from.

1. Qmarkets – A social software solution to engage employees and encourage cross-department thinking to submit innovative ideas as a part of an organized campaign or stand-alone suggestion. Qmarkets offers quote-based pricing and a free demo.
2. Ideascale – Create digital “Communities” in order to crowdsource ideas, vote on suggestions, connect similar ideas together through predictive text AI, and offer points- and badges as incentivization for participants. Ideascale starts at $4,999/year and offers a free license version.
3. Brightidea – Crowdsource on a company-wide scale with idea submission pages attached to suggested tags, in order to group similar projects – then track funding and implementation within a Kanban dashboard. Brightidea offers customized quotes and has a free demo.

Onboarding Tools

Bringing on new customers and/or users can be stressful and time-consuming for both you and the end-user. If your webpage or app has frequent updates, complex navigation, or CTAs that require an explanation that won’t fit on a site button, onboarding tools might be able to help. Onboarding tools help alleviate the barriers to entry of jumping into new UX and can turn visitors into longtime customers by fringing the FAQ to them.

Create, design, customize, target, and publish flows, tooltips, and modals with Appcues.

1. Appcues – Announce changes and introduce users to new additions to your product with feature call-outs and point-and-click walkthroughs and then monitor the impact of your onboarding system through various available analytics. Appcues starts at $649/month for 3 users and offers a free demo.
2. Enboarder – Customized welcome messages for new employees, onboarding checklists and equipment requests, star-based ratings for training services, and more. Enboarder allows you to adapt employee journeys based on data and feedback. They have custom pricing models available upon request and offer a free demo. 
3. Intercom – Employ chatbots to funnel interested parties towards your service, targeted messages to onboard and activate customers, and provide personalized help at scale with a collaborative inbox, automation, and self-service support. Intercom starts at $87/month and offers a free 14-day trial.
4. Qstream – Software for ongoing staff training with features to identify skill gaps and track engagement based on end-user interaction. Various performance and ROI analytics can help you cut things that aren’t working. Qstream starts at $50/user/month and offers a free demo.

Tools For Customer Success Management

It’s hard to excel in any business if you don’t have a solid customer service strategy that can incorporate areas of change like complaints and mediation, growing or shifting consumer base, and marketing outreach projects. These tools can help you navigate many of the above concerns and more.

Planhat brings your customer data together from different sources to display in a single dashboard.

1. Planhat – A Saas that helps manage customer service initiatives by integrating multiple platforms (like Salesforce and Zendesk) with features for customer overviews, onboarding and revenue management. Planhat starts at $500/month (plus $1/additional user/month) and offers a free demo.
2. Gainsight – Capture every customer interaction in a robust database, access reporting to aid calls-to-action, and leverage both one-on-one conversations and personalized, automated emails. Gainsight starts at $500/month and offers a 14-day free trial of any subscription tier. They also offer a free version of the app, limited to one product and up to 500 emails per month.
3. Natero – Compiles customer emails, chats, meetings, support tickets, billing history, and product usage, identify at-risk customers, prep for upcoming renewals, and monitor customer health scores through custom KPIs, CSM scores, support tickets, NPS, and more. Natero offers customized quotes and offers a free demo.
4. CustomerSuccesBox – Monitor account health, set up customer onboarding tools, and segment accounts by type or need to better customize your CSM approach for each. Provides milestones, customizable alerts and campaign feedback. CustomerSuccessBox starts at $499/month and offers a free demo.

Employee Onboarding Software

Team growth, turnover, contractors, promotions, interns or co-op students…there are so many reasons you might need to automate parts of your training regimen to take the stress off of both management and trainees. Use these tools to integrate new hires with minimal downtime so that they can hit the ground running and immediately feel like part of the team.

Talmundo offers ways to help automate HR administration and employee onboarding.

1. Talmundo – Get new hires integrated into company workflow with custom roadmaps, mobile and PC options for engagement, and a feedback system for new recruits.
2. KiSSFLOW –   Automated workflows, case management, fluid forms, visual workflow, and reports and analytics are just some of the features you will have access to.
3. Workday – One cloud ERP system for finance, HR, and planning with machine learning capabilities that helps identify risks.
4. Docebo – Centralize organize courses, distribute and manage online and instructor-led training, track certifications and measure results with dashboards and custom analytics.

Employee Engagement Tools

Don’t let routine and complacency define your team. Help people come together, collaborate, create, discover, bond, develop and process new ideas through tools designed to boost employee engagement.

OfficeAccord lets employees connect about day-to-day concerns while analyzing interactions.

1. OfficeAccord – Automated alerts sent to targeted employee groups, community management for everything from company events to ride share opportunities, and monitor important dates like birthdays and start date anniversaries. OfficeAccord starts at $500/month for up to 500 users and offers a free demo.
2. Qualtrics – XM Platforms used to collect, understand, and take action on experience data; reports and analytics suggest which products and services to build-out. Qualtrics starts at $1500/year and offers a free trial as well as a free version with limited features.
3. TINYpulse – Real-time employee feedback with employee surveys, tools for onboarding and engagement, and exit interview capabilities. TINYpulse starts at $5/month/user and offers a free trial.
4. Honestly – Employee pulse surveys on nine metrics of engagement, engagement reports, and real-time dashboard to highlight KPIs. Honestly starts at $4/user/month and offers a free demo and/or free trial.
5. Officevibe – Employees can share anonymous feedback and managers receive visual weekly reports that identify the issues specific to your workplace. Officevibe starts at $4/user/month and offers a free version.

Change Management Application FAQ

What Are The Types Of Change Management?

Types of change management include:

• idea management
• onboarding new staff or partners
• customer success navigation
• transformational or transitional change (acquisitions, mergers, re-brands)
• developmental changes (employee engagement initiatives, procedural changes)
• IT implementation management

What Are The Steps In Change Management?

This varies from group to group, but common steps in change management include:

1. Finding an area that needs improvement;
2. Developing a plan for improvement;
3. Researching the proper tools for change development;
4. Identifying who will be affected;
5. Implementing training processes;
6. Trying a beta or soft-launch;
7. Collecting feedback;
8. Initiating a hard launch.

What Is A Change Management Plan?

A change management plan is a step-by-step breakdown of how you intend to alleviate the strains of introducing a change initiative into the workplace. It involves anticipating pressure points and strategizing how to navigate them before they become a problem. Change management plans often need robust communication systems, training programs, and some sort of success/failure feedback loop.

What Are Change Management Tools?

Change management tools are anything that can be used to alleviate tensions that arise during a shift in process, staff or software. Change management tools might be needed for collecting feedback, implementing plans, structuring training programs and more.

What Are The Types Of Change Management Software?

Change management comes in many shapes and sizes, depending on what’s changing. There is change management software for:

• Software (SW change management), IT roll-outs and upgrades
• Training and onboarding
• Feedback, polling and analysis of new tools and processes
• Change planning and running what-if scenarios to calculate change impact

What Is The Difference Between Change Management And Change Control?

Change management often refers to how change affects the people within an organization and may highlight communication, training and feedback in order to lessen disruption to service and ROI. Change control is a more technical element, whereby the services being changed are documented, planned, launched, and assessed (usually handled by IT).

What’s In Your Change Management Systems?

You probably have dozens or hundreds of things to consider as you implement something new and transition away from the old. Change management tools can make leading change less daunting for yourself and for your team.

What software, tools or skills do you find the most handy for navigating big or small company changes? Share your ideas in the comments below.

More change management advice: check out my podcast episode where PM Alexa Alfonso talks about how to manage process change.

And for regular updates on how-to guides, podcasts, and digital project management articles, subscribe to The DPM Newsletter. See you there!

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