Managing Change
Change management is an important part of any organization if successful delivery of projects is to be attained. According to Meredith and Mantel (2009), change is a natural application that must be incorporated into project management. It is for this objective that many firms have been able to set up projects with an aim of implementing their overall goals for both strategic and tactical change. In several organizations, change management is a crucial strategic activity and more so when there is a project to be completed. Over the years, there have been studies that have attempted to examine the efficiency of change management strategies.
Majority of these studies have indicated that between 60-80% of all change management strategies end up in failure, or are not able to be completed in the scheduled budget and time. There are a lot of things that have to be incorporated in the project management in order to realize the objective of change and this includes time, money as well as the personnel. The prompting question that many organizations and project heads keep asking is the approach they will have to use in incorporating change management into the project (Fyson and Simons, 2003). Change management in such a project will therefore entail some models which have been used previously such as the steps taken by John Kotter in experimenting change within an organization.
Fostering Creative Teams
One aspect of change is that it is initiated so as to restore confidence in project management. For instance, the management may have taken a certain approach which was never successful and as a result, it turns out that there is need for change so that the project can achieve its main objective. This is the main reason why change is usually required. However, change requires an approach that does not destroy the already established channel of success. It is the way change is implemented within the project cycle that employees will have to adapt to. If there is no need for urgency in implementing the change strategy, many may think that there is no need to implement one strategy or the other. The need for urgency in project management will therefore take the form of the organization being in a position to establish a team that will lead the change process. It is only through the guidance of a team as noted by Leon (1999) that the organization will have to work together in unison towards realizing a common goal. It is however important that during the establishment of the team, there be professionals incorporated as well. The vision that will drive the change within the project is therefore directed by the team that has been formed.
The other purpose of the team other than leading the vision of change is to continue assuring the team that managing the project successfully will be one way of becoming successful in the long run. As soon as the team has come with the modalities of carrying out the change process, the management will take the initiative to relay the information to the concerned personnel such as employees and stakeholders so that they can also share in the idea of change. The team will need to take into account that change management may not be that easy as there will be various challenges to be encountered (Packard, 2013). One is based on the fact that employees may not readily welcome the idea of change management. The management and the change management team must reach a consensus on how the message will be delivered to the stakeholders and employees. It is lack of proper communication that will act as a major barrier between accepting and rejecting the change process in project management.
Resource Allocation
Change in project management needs an analysis of whether there are enough resources that will steer the change process. If there are no enough resources within the institution, there is need for a contingency plan to be drawn so that adequate numbers can be taken into consideration. The second way and which must always be manifested in the project management is the main reason why change was required in the first place. The management should clearly identify why there was need for change in the first place (Key-Young et al, 2008). The third step in project management as soon as determining the objective of change will be to analyze the impact on the triple constraints. The deployment strategy on the other hand may be part of the project phase which will require incorporating leadership, skills, and project as well as an effective structure which will lead to organizational change competency. This will then be followed by implementation steps that include building the project plan as well as creating a change management plan (Kuang et al, 2008). The five key components towards managing change may be categorized into leadership, project, skill, structure and process. For instance, leadership involves the art of getting everyone involved to own the project. The leadership will have to get everyone into being in a position to fulfill their various roles.
Bibliography
Fyson, R. & Simons, K. (2003) ‘Strategies for change: making Valuing People a reality’, British Journal of Learning Disabilities, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 153-158
Kuang, C. & Ho, T. (2008) Developing a process re-engineering-oriented organizational change exploratory simulation system (PROCESS), International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 46, Issue 16, p 4463-4482.
Kee-Young, K. & Hee-Woong, K. (2008) ‘Managing readiness in enterprise systems-driven organizational change’, Behaviour & Information Technology, vo. 27, no. 1, pp. 79-87
Leon, C. (1999) From Resistance to Commitment, Public Administration Quarterly. Vol. 23 Issue 2, pp. 204-222.
Meredith, J. R and mantel S.J. (2009) Project Management: A Managerial Approach
Packard, T. (2013) ‘Organizational Change: A Conceptual Framework to Advance the Evidence Base’, Journal Of Human Behavior In The Social Environment, vo. 23, no. 1, pp. 75-90
