Change Management
Introduction:
Change management is a planned approach to integrating technological change. It includes formal processes for assessing the impact of the change on both the people it affects and the way they do their jobs. It also uses techniques to get users to accept a change caused by technology and to change their behavior to take advantage of new IT functionality (Goff, 2000).
The biggest challenge to executing change successfully isn't culture, strategy or systems, but getting people to change their behavior (Hoffman, 2002). For the most part, people embrace a change they control, and dislike being controlled, which explains why when you lead a change, you need an involvement plan. The second component of any change management plan is establishing this universal design principle: To the extent possible, project teams will design all changes to benefit those affected by the change (Lewis).
Enablers and Inhibitors to Successful Change Management:
According to Prosci’s study involving 288 organizations from 58 countries, the single greatest contributor to project success was effective and strong executive sponsorship.
The top-five contributors to success were:
Effective sponsorship
Buy-in from front-line managers and employees
Exceptional team
Continuous and targeted communication
Well planned and organized approach
(Prosci, 2003)
The top-five greatest change management obstacles were:
Employee and staff
resistance
Middle-management resistance
Poor executive sponsorship
Limited time, budget and resources
Corporate inertia and politics
(Prosci, 2003)
An organization’s capacity to change relies on several factors such as:
IT staff skills
to learn
IT knowledge management
IT organization structure flexibility
Project management
Financial management
Business process knowledge
IT operations management
IT clients
(Kocharekar, 2000)
Change management can be viewed from two perspectives – from those implementing the change and from the recipients of change. Many organizations learned the hard way through failed projects. They learned that change management is not something addressed after the fact. Change management must start at the beginning of the project and be integrated into all facets. Both perspectives of change management must be addressed: the managers and the employees (Prosci, 2003).
As an example of unsuccessful change management, consider FoxMeyer. FoxMeyer was a $5 billion company and the nation’s fourth largest distributor of pharmaceuticals. With the goal of using technology to increase productivity, they began the Delta III ERP project in 1993. However, they were forced to file for bankruptcy protection in 1996. The primary reason analyzed for the failure was that the users were not committed to the change; in particular there was a morale problem amongst the warehouse employees whose jobs were threatened due to the implementation of the system. The situation warranted a strong leadership role for handling the change, which was lacking.
However, awareness about the role that effective change management procedures play is growing. Research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) in Framingham, Mass., estimates that the U.S. market for change management services will exceed $6 billion by 2003 (Goff, 2000).