Next comes the details. Once the external reasons for change have been communicated, CIOs should begin communicating directly with target business units, including both small groups and individuals. These internal communications are a potent weapon to overcome denial, or the belief that "no matter what happens, I won't have to change". A word to the wise: face-to-face conversations and presentations are much better than e-mail for discussions on tricky subjects. It's amazing how e-mails can be misunderstood - and distributed - to the benefit of the rumour mill but the detriment of the change plan.

The struggles of testing - scepticism and disbelief - occur as the design for change takes form. Anxiety is high during these struggles because people are learning the personal implications of change one piece at a time. Most communications at this stage are at the unit, small group and personal levels.

Communicate analysis and design issues in the change team; communicate decisions to the targets of change. In both cases emphasize feedback mechanisms, such as group forums for issue discussion, public e-mail drops or private meetings, and act on feedback quickly. In particular, make sure that those affected by change see clearly that their feedback is considered carefully, that feedback has an effect on the design for change.

The organization is ready to move on when most people have accepted the need for change and can describe why change is necessary.

The final struggles - hope and hard work - mark a turning point. Change is designed, and initial targets prioritized. The organization is increasingly oriented to making change work, as opposed to making it go away. Training intensifies. Signs of personal commitment to change become clear and widespread.

Public communications during these final stages are about priorities, milestones met and the results of those milestones, and what teams need to do to be ready for implementation. Private communications are about change's increasing effect on individuals.

The signs of success in these final stages are: individuals being involved throughout target areas in the change initiative, and success in learning and applying training to new processes, roles and responsibilities.

Reshape enterprise culture to sustain change benefits. Even when change is succeeding, the natural temptation is often to go back to a period of normality, back when stability was paramount. Unfortunately, this is to miss a major opportunity to make the change stick. Make only superficial changes and things will backslide rapidly.

How can this be prevented? One of the hardest things to change is values. Yet this is the most important. Values are about what people believe and consider important. The trouble with values is that they are invisible - they live inside peoples' heads. Fortunately, they betray themselves in peoples' behaviours, and behaviours are what you can watch people doing.

It's natural enough to focus on changing behaviours when making change. But it's values that make the change stick. It's values that drive behaviour, so unless values change, behaviour will sooner or later revert to what it used to be.

Changes in behaviour prove that values have changed. Leaders model the values and beliefs that set the tone for everyone else. What leaders do and pay attention to sends the clearest messages of all.

To change values you must first recognize what they are. One of an organization's most important values is how it defines success: as growth, profits, share price, market share, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, service to the community or a host of other measures. Enterprises where change sticks know how to redefine what success looks like. They encourage people to behave in a way that makes them successful, and over time workers become accustomed to the new way things are done.

Find a home for the expertise. Most enterprises that develop change management expertise do so for a single project or program, and then allow the talent to disperse once the change program has ended. This is a pity. It is far more effective if CIOs support a permanent enterprise home for change expertise - a centre of excellence (COE) for change.

The natural home for the COE is the IS program management office (PMO). Even though few existing PMO staff will have explicit change management experience, the organizational structure and mandate provide the COE with a good base and infrastructure to work from. Adding business process and change experts to the PMO to create a change COE is a logical step.

An enterprise change project is an intense shared experience. It brings together people from all over the enterprise and forces them to trust and rely on each other to achieve something of critical importance. It changes the executive team's values, beliefs and behaviours. CIOs can take advantage of that change to contribute more strongly to the executive team.

CIOs who systematically focus on team, communications and culture can dramatically improve the enterprise's ability to handle change, improving the odds of success for their enterprises and themselves.

Andrew Rowsell-Jones is vice president and research director for Gartner's CIO Executive Programs