Every view is a different lens of one dataset.
Project teams enter what is changing. Aspen holds the join between each change and the org chart, and every report below is that join read from a different side.
| Word | What it is in Aspen |
|---|---|
| Programme, workstream, project | The delivery hierarchy. Initiatives sit beside projects for business-as-usual change outside project funding, and behave exactly like a project would. |
| Change | A named thing that is changing, such as the rollout of a system. It's linked to a programme, workstream, project or initiative with optional dates and RAG status, and you can create dependencies on other changes if you have them. |
| Impact | One typed change impact, rated Low, Medium or High at part of the org tree. Flag it as an estimate for planning or confirm the impact and begin reporting. |
| Org tree | The tenant-wide org hierarchy is Aspen's representation of your organisation. The org unit, teams, sub-teams, roles are all represented and easy to edit. Roles and teams carry headcount used for reporting. |
| Planned activity | Comms, engagement, training, testing, go-live and embedding by default, owned by a project, initiative or change, and feeding the activity heatmap. Have another type of activity? Activity type is configurable if you need flexibility. |
| Change phase | Prepare, Manage and Sustain by default. But you can configure these phases per organisation to suit your needs. |
Rated where it lands, with a window and a history.
A change impact assessment in Aspen is a set of impacts connected to the team or role it lands on. Ten impact types ship by default, from processes and systems to job roles. You can curate the list and add your own.
- Estimate first
Every impact carries a flag. Early ratings are estimates; as the change firms up they are reassessed, and every reassessment is appended to the record rather than replacing it.
- Roll-up
Severity weighted by share of headcount. A High rated on a role of 2 in a group of 120 reads Low at group level, because that is what it is to the group.
- Stacking
Many impacts converging on one team combine by a mapping the organisation can configure. Four Mediums in one month on one team can be made to read High, if that is your rule.
- Inheritance
A rating on a group flows to its descendants, with a per-child override wherever one team's experience differs from its parent's.
Three lenses on the same records.
The change impact heatmap, the planned activity heatmap, the pressure view and the RAG dashboards are each available through a stakeholder lens (by team), a change lens (by change) and an enterprise lens (the whole portfolio). Monthly views by default, weekly to zoom in, quarterly to zoom out.
| Team | People | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finance | 120 | 2 from 2 impacts | 4 from 4 impacts | 4 from 4 impacts | 2 from 2 impacts | 1 from 1 impact | No impact |
| Payroll | 18 | 1 from 1 impact | 2 from 2 impacts | 3 from 3 impacts | 3 from 3 impacts | 1 from 1 impact | 1 from 1 impact |
| Customer service | 340 | No impact | 1 from 1 impact | 2 from 2 impacts | 3 from 3 impacts | 3 from 3 impacts | 2 from 2 impacts |
| Field operations | 610 | 1 from 1 impact | 1 from 1 impact | 2 from 2 impacts | 2 from 2 impacts | 3 from 3 impacts | 3 from 3 impacts |
| Legal | 14 | No impact | No impact | 1 from 1 impact | 1 from 1 impact | No impact | No impact |
| People and culture | 42 | 1 from 1 impact | 2 from 2 impacts | 2 from 2 impacts | 1 from 1 impact | 1 from 1 impact | No impact |
| Regional offices | 205 | No impact | 1 from 1 impact | 2 from 2 impacts | 2 from 2 impacts | 4 from 4 impacts | 4 from 4 impacts |
Pressure is projected impact load per team over time, computed from every impact window across every programme and initiative. It is a forward view: it shows the month in which three unrelated projects all land on Payroll, while there is still time to move one.
Sentiment recorded as it is, not as it derives.
Readiness is a dated snapshot per team and subject, where the subject is a change, a project, an initiative or a programme. A team can favour a change and dislike the project delivering it. Both are recorded. Neither is inferred from the other.
- Configurable labels
Sentiment labels are the organisation's own, each with a friendly reporting name, so a dashboard can say "Resistant (needs attention)" in the words your leadership already uses.
- Pulse surveys by link
Short, per-change surveys distributed by link. Respondents need no login. Owners distribute the link through whatever channel they already use; Aspen verifies the link was opened by the intended recipient and accepts the data.
- Anonymity that is structural
When a survey is private, who was invited is stored separately from what was answered, with no key joining them. Truly anonymous feedback when you need it.
- Minimum group of five
No sentiment aggregate renders for a group under five, so a small team's result cannot be read back to its members.
Training gaps are derived.
A training needs assessment is captured per affected group: the capability the change requires and the capability the group has today. The gap between them is computed, so it cannot drift from the two facts it is made of.
- Connected to activities
An assessment links to the training activities already on the planned activity calendar, so the gap and the plan to close it are read together.
- What it is not
Aspen does not integrate with a learning management system and does not track training completion or attendance. It records the need and the planned response.
Built to inform, not to alert people.
By default, stakeholders don't sign in to Aspen, but you can choose to let stakeholders access a curated reporting portal if you want to. Their roles will only ever be scoped to seeing 'public' reports or interactive dashboards you set up for them.
- Curated
The view is assembled from the stakeholder-facing descriptions, not from the analyst's working notes or the ratings.
- Confidential by default
Nothing is visible across the organisation unless a change manager deliberately publishes a single dashboard, and is warned before doing so.
- Getting the org tree in
The org hierarchy is loaded by CSV import from an HR extract today. Directory sync with providers such as Entra, Okta and Workday is on the roadmap. Have an extract? We can probably support it, just ask.
See it on your own org chart
The more you tell us, the better we can prepare your demo. If Aspen doesn't meet your needs, we'll let you know instead of wasting your time.