Nobody Added Them Up: The Hidden Cost of Change Saturation
Employee willingness to support change fell from 74% to 43% as planned changes quintupled. Why PMOs must track organizational absorption capacity.
You've seen the traffic light on a freeway on-ramp. It lets one car on at a time.
The cars aren't the problem. The highway only fits so many.
Work is the same. In 2016, companies put the average employee through two planned changes a year. By 2022, that number reached ten.
Nobody on the receiving end asked for those ten. Executives approved them one at a time, each with a solid business case.
The Cost of Change Saturation
Over those same years, Gartner found that the share of employees willing to support change fell from 74% to 43%.
More change pushed down. Less willingness to absorb it.
I've approved a go-live because its own plan looked fine. No one asked what else was hitting that same team that month.
Most PMOs track the budget. Very few track how much change the organization can actually absorb.
How many changes are landing on your busiest team right now?