Mediocre a fair assessment of the record of organisational change management in practice?

Transcription

1 Mediocre a fair assessment of the record of organisational change management in practice? Dr Richard Breese Senior Lecturer Sheffield Business School Sheffield Hallam University r.breese@shu.ac.uk and Coordinator for the SBS Change Management SIG

2 My Background Originally a Town Planner, then managed urban regeneration programmes in 1990 s and 2000 s Joined Association for Project Management (APM) in 2000, to help me with my work as a programme manager Doctorate in Business Administration, Sheffield Hallam University, Now Senior Lecturer, specialising in organisational change management 2

3 Outline of the session What is the evidence on the record of organisational change management? How do we contextualise what evidence there is? What is the scope of the concept of organisational change management and how do we break it down? What do we mean by success/failure

4 Change Management a flawed process? In the 1980 s, between 40-70% of new technology projects failed. In 2007, failure of the computerised baggage handling system contributed to the Terminal 5 fiasco at Heathrow Airport Michael Hammer, the founding father of Business Process Reengineering acknowledged in 1993 that perhaps 50 to 70% of organisations fail to achieve the dramatic results they intended (Hammer and Champey, 1993, P200) Source: Various studies quoted in Burnes (2009, P2-3) 4

5 The statistic that over 70% of IT projects are seen to fail to deliver the intended benefits is well known, both among members of the business community and the IT community itself It has often been observed when analysing IS/IT project failures that all of the ingredients for failure existed on Day One of the project, or even before it started! Source: Ward and Taylor (1996), quoted in Jenner (2009, P1 and 3) 5

6 70% Failure Statistic how firm is the evidence? Evaluation of five key sources, including Harvard Business Review articles (Hughes, 2011) the evidence was often anecdotal, ambiguous as to whether it constituted failure has tended to subsequently have been misquoted.

7 Arguments against inherent failure rates for organisational change programmes The ambiguities of change, in terms of the espoused and underlying reasons why changes are undertaken, the prevalence of unanticipated outcomes and the adaptation of change programmes over time The context dependent nature of change The scope for different interpretations of change outcomes and the vested interests behind evaluation The scope for different interpretations at different points in time after the change initiative has been undertaken The difficulty in measuring the impact of change, in terms of both qualitative outcomes and the problems in isolating the effects of specific change initiatives. Hughes (2011)

8 Contextualising research on organisational change management Different dimensions for contextualisation By type of change (labelled initiative or not?) By function(s) changed (IT, HR, Finance etc) Size of organisation Size of project By industrial sector By part of the world Whether the change involves capital or revenue expenditure, or both The sector of the organisation, whether private, public or third sector Single organisation or multiple organisations? Imposed or voluntary change? By the type of researcher, eg university, consultancy, individual By funder, eg research council, private sponsor, own resources

9 The approach to change Proactive Change Reactive Change Incremental Change Radical Change Surface change Transactional change Transformational change Deep change Planned change Emergent change Part of the organisation Whole organisation 9

10 Furthermore.. How do you measure success or failure? What are the criteria you would use to decide if a change initiative has succeeded or not? 1

11 Some criteria used by participants to judge success of IT Projects (adapted from Thomas and Fernandez, 2008) Criteria On-time On-budget Sponsor satisfaction Project team satisfaction Project management Technical Customer/user satisfaction Stakeholder satisfaction System quality System use Business continuity Met business objectives Delivery of benefits 11 Business

12 Are things getting better or worse? Report by the Standish Group in 2013 suggested that there has been some improvement over time in performance of IT projects, with a temporary dip in performance in Successful (on time, in budget and with required features/functions) Challenged (not meeting all of the three success criteria) Failed (not completed or never used) % 35% 32% 37% 39% 53% 46% 44% 42% 43% 18% 19% 24% 21% 18% Source : The Standish Group,

13 Factors behind success Factors of success (for small projects) Executive management support 20 User involvement 15 Optimization 15 Skilled resources 13 Project management expertise 12 Agile process 10 Clear business objectives 6 Emotional maturity 5 Execution 3 Tools and infrastructure 1 Points Standish Group, 2013 What do these factors mean in practice? Do they overlap? Do they get to the heart of the matter?

14 References BURNES, B. (2009) Managing Change, (5 th Ed), Harlow: FT Prentice Hall HUGHES, M. (2011) Do 70% of organisational change initiatives really fail? Journal of Change Management, Vol 11, No. 4, JENNER, S., 2009, Realising Benefits from Government ICT Investment a fool s errand?, Reading: Academic Publishing THE STANDISH GROUP (2013) The CHAOS Manifesto Think Big, Act Small, last accessed on 27 June, 2014, at THOMAS, G. and FERNANDEZ, W. (2008) Success in IT projects: A matter of definition? International Journal of Project Management, Vol 26, No. 7,