CHAPTER XX Action research & change management system in aviation. M.C. Leva 1, N. McDonald 1, P. Ulfvengren 2, S. Corrigan 1 1 Aerospace Psychology Research Group - School of Psychology Trinity College Dublin Ireland 2 KTH Industriell Teknik och Management Address SE-100 44 STOCKHOM (Sweden) levac@tcd.ie ABSTRACT The main objective of MASCA is to deliver a structure to manage the acquisition and retention of skills and knowledge for managing change across the air transport system. The project includes different stakeholders in a common operational system (airlines, airports, maintenance companies, etc.) in the common effort to identify critical areas to change the shared operational system to deliver a better service, especially in the area of performance management in safety. To meet the objectives within the Project it was decided to follow an action research framework that concerns the implementation and evaluation of change, as well as the analysis and measurement of operational parameters needed to identify, plan and implement a successful organizational change initiative like the one related to performance and risk. The present paper reports about its initial phases and of the research hypothesis followed in guiding its development. Keywords: aviation, management of change, action research 1 THE PROBLEM OF MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE AND CULTURE IN AVIATION Within the aviation industry the need for sustainable change is becoming more and more imperative. Change is in fact something being imposed on the industry from a number of sources (e.g., Regulations, increasing commercial pressure and the introduction of new technologies) and the need for change management skills and capability within organizations is required in order to meet these challenges.
The literature on organizational change demonstrates that, against different criteria and outcomes, only a minority of major change initiatives (typically between 30% and 50%) have a positive outcome (Dent and Powley, 2001, Kotter, 1995). Change is necessary, but it is risky. It is vital therefore that the reasons for organizational change are understood by those responsible for its enactment. Where change involves people in organizational processes it becomes primarily a human factors issue and involves complex, multidimensional solutions. This is made difficult by the fact that change often results in resistance by employees and this requires careful management in terms of hearts and minds. Organizational Culture has a dynamic role in maintaining system stability. Qualitative change in collective understanding may only come after a cumulative aggregation of many minor shifts in the way a social group make sense of their situation; the shift may then be rapid and volatile; this is why the importance of consolidating and embedding change is so often emphasized. It has also been observed that when management is distant or strategies are not clear employees do not share their competence, their knowledge and keep on working on the basis of what they already know without proposing new ideas, or directions. Instead, when management has a clear strategy and a way to communicate and pursue this strategy with all the employees, involving them towards a common sense of direction the possibilities of establishing an internal process of change for business improvement are greatly increased (Kotter 1996). As culture cannot be directly managed or controlled, attempts to do so often create an unofficial counter-culture (Kunda 1992). However culture can not be ignored and it is important to be able to focus on those aspects and phenomena that are relevant and upon which company have an influence such as goals, vision and values; the perception of the system and its functions, often called climate; subcultures differentiated by roles and boundaries; the quality of engagement between people and organization, including dimensions like trust or alienation. For a cultural measure to perform this function effectively it has to be grounded in a demonstrated relationship to the functioning of the system it represents. Culture can be seen as the active engagement of a collective in a process of change. The cultural analysis then can become part of the change process. A classic approach to cultural analysis is to seek to establish fundamental meanings and values. Here the aim is to construct a rich in-depth interpretation from a broad range of material. While this may not be particularly useful from a short-term perspective in managing change, it can be extremely valuable in developing a strategic view of some of the challenges that need to be faced in changing an organization in the long run. 1.1 The MASCA Project The main objective of MASCA is to deliver a structure to manage the acquisition and retention of skills and knowledge for managing change across the air transport system. The project includes different stakeholders in a common operational system (airlines, airports, maintenance companies, etc.) in the common effort to identify critical areas to change the shared operational system to deliver a
better service, especially in the area of performance management in safety. The management of safety needs to be integrated into the overall management process if safe out-comes are to be assured. Standard safety performance indicators for instance are necessary, but not sufficient. They need to be part of a greater process able to carry on the indications into possible improvements initiatives; therefore participating in a generic organizational capability for managing or implementing change. Starting from these premises MASCA is concentrating on extending this state of the art by developing a dedicated Change Management System that will facilitate change initiatives through greater transparency, mentoring and information support in a sustainable manner and enhancing the commitment of organizational stakeholders toward its success. This will also involve training and competence development for change management skills and providing stakeholders with a better understanding of the various other aspects of the aviation system that their work impacts on and impacts on them. Figure 1 illustrates the main elements of the Process of Change proposed in MASCA. It is organized around three dimensions strategy (direction and goals), process (functional system) and competence (making sense of the system). Interpolated in the diagram are some other dimensions that are important in the management of change: the role of internal and external change agents; the extent to which the organization can act in a coherent integrated way; and the use of data to track change and validate strategy. The central premise of the diagram is that change is a process, from diagnosis of needs to evaluation of outcome, which engages these different elements at every step of the way. 2 THE ACTION RESEARCH APPROACH IN MASCA Action research can be described as a methodical, interactive approach embracing problem identification, action, planning implementation, evaluation and reflection. The insight gained from the cycle feed into further continuous improvement cycles of further collaborative enquiries performed by reflective practitioners (Zuber-Skerritt, 1992). In this sense the approach followed in the current paper stem from the belief sustained by Torbert (2001) that Knowledge is always gained through action and for action. From this starting point, to question the validity of social knowledge is to question, not how to develop a reflective science about action, but how to develop genuinely well-informed action how to conduct an action science. In approaching the problem in MASCA the practitioners involved performed a forensic and in-depth insight into each of the industrial partners involved in the project regarding their current strategic and operational approaches so as to identify, understand and assess their needs in implementing and effectively evaluating change. The various visits of the members of the research team in the industrial partners involved: - Structured interviews and observations with key stakeholders - Documentation Analysis
- Introduction Focus Groups aimed at building an internal MASCA improvement team - Triggering ideas by providing examples of possible support tools in a MASCA Change Management System The structured interviews were used to perform a preliminary analysis of the industrial partners around three main areas that a change management system should be able to address: 1. Strategy. An insight the organization s relationship with its environment, the goals it has set of itself, and how those goals are also communicated and used with the member of the organization. In starting a change initiative the first element is the needs for change. This come from the awareness of the key strategic goals each of the companies are pursuing in order to meet the needs that current business and economic challenges are presenting. This is a vital motivational element and needs to be communicated thought-out the company. The management has to commit to a common agenda that deliver benefits also on field or task performance. Further this commitment should also translate in deeper understandings of recommendations for change, ensuring that they are not just quick-fixes and that they are not independent and applicable only to certain operating silos. It is also advisable to try and link up a new project with the current change initiatives that the company may already have in place to facilitate and ensure that overall, as well as local or departmental, strategic objectives are met. 2. Process. What are the minimal conditions for being able to purposefully change a functional system? It is necessary to know how that system works or functions as well as to be able to track what it is doing-understand its processes. The process model derived also needs to be sufficiently well defined and grounded in the operation to be meaningfully linked to real operational data measuring, concurrently, system inputs, activity and outputs. 3. Competence. Where change involves people in organisational processes it becomes primarily a human factors issue and involves complex, multidimensional solutions. This is made difficult by the fact that change often results in resistance by employees and this requires careful management in terms of hearts and minds. It is therefore necessary to address the following three aspects: - Participation, which consists in including end users in the project from the beginning until the end. It ensures taking into account their opinion and their wishes. Their knowledge of the trade is particularly useful for project managers who will be alerted if the project is going off track. - Communication will help all employees to understand the aim of the projects and the reasons why changes will happen. Well informed about project development, end users will have a better understanding of its importance for the company and of the impacts it will have on them. - Learning must ensure that end users have all the keys (theoretical and practical knowledge) to start successfully with a new system or within a new organisation. Facilitating knowledge transformation and transfer
throughout the organisation, organisational learning and organisational memory. Support staff in their efforts to improve performance providing the training, education and mentoring required by change and the delivery of the appropriate training to sustain new operational realities as well as the crucial skills for managing the change. Figure 1: Main elements of the Change Process in MASCA In the action research approach adopted within the project the main scope to be fulfilled was to identify an intervention that would actually be of use for the industrial partners. To be able to do so, which means identifying areas in need of improvement the researchers needed to start establishing as much as possible a relationship based on trust, their interaction with the workers in fact will change the way people think about the future and will create expectations. By pointing to certain issues the researcher in an organization will stir things up a little and it is only by trust that an organization and the individual in it may let you access weak spots that are normally left in the dark. The evidence suggests that the particular combination of internal and external change agents can be critical to the success of change initiatives (Altricher et al 2002). So it makes sense to ask: Where are the influences for change coming? Who are important actual or potential change agents in the organization? What external influences are there and how do they operate? These can include academic and research collaborations, industry networks and associations, industrial innovation districts, communities of practice. In what ways can these influences provide guidance for a change program? European collaborative projects provide the opportunity for a variety of types of collaboration that can stimulate innovation:
- Learning between operational companies - Innovative collaboration between companies along a business process (e.g. flight operations and maintenance) - University/ research institute collaboration with industrial partners for RTD development, action research, education and training. Operational organizations, unlike large design and manufacturing organizations do not have research and development departments thus collaborative research and development can provide an effective innovation process to compensate for this. However, for this to work, the collaboration has to deliver benefits to meet the short-term operational or organizational goals of the participating organizations, as well as the medium to long-term research goals of a project. This fits well within an action research framework that concerns the implementation and evaluation of change, as well as the analysis and measurement of operational parameters needed to identify, plan and implement a successful organizational change initiative like the one related to performance and risk. 2.1 The Research Assumptions for MASCA CMS. In defining the Research hypothesis to be tested in MASCA the main issue we wanted to tackle was to provide an evidence base that can justify acting (better than a pragmatic rule of thumb or an armchair academic analysis). Building on the aspects considered in the MASCA CMS some Axis of intervention were identified. In planning an intervention there are two aspects of the system that can be directly influenced the way the system works, and how people understand and make sense of it (see Figure 2). If both of these aspects are addressed in a congruent manner, then the performance of the new system (as a result of people s collective actions) can be measured; in time, collective experience with the new system will be embedded and consolidated in the collective understanding and values (the culture) of the organization. Figure 2: Main axes identified for intervention in MASCA
The research hypothesis that we are going to test in action therefore can be expressed in terms of the needs that a change initiative needs to address to work out. 1: The need for creating a common picture. This assumption is based on theories on involvement, participation and motivation as to meet a common problem of resistance to change or how it is done (Maurer 1996). Reasons for the lack of a common picture are different domain expertise and local objectives that in part may be explained by organizations working in silos and need to divide operations into result units with different accountabilities as part of a performance management system. An adequate level of understanding of a working operational system requires as a basis a functional knowledge of the relationships between inputs, tasks and activities and outputs in the actual practices. 2: The need for measuring performance not only at the sharp end (targets) but also in terms of antecedents. Change is often driven by a need to improve performance and the program may rely heavily on performance indicators to express targets and measure progress. Given the enormous power of performance management systems to distort the desired functionality of the system, it is important to understand the ways in which measurable behaviours of people or performance indicators are actually related to the underlying functionality of the system. There are two basic terms in a causal or probabilistic analysis of performance that are necessary to be considered antecedents and consequences. 3: The need for risk assessing an initiative before it starts. Linked to the previous assumption performance in a safety critical domain like aviation has also another element not to be overlooked: risk. Doing a risk assessment as part of a change initiative on the process lay out to achieve the goals will increase the capacity of the project to meet unexpected issues and make the change more effective (as well as being in conformity of the requirements of ICAO SMS and EASA guidelines. Further the capability of managing system risk opens up the possibility of managing the process in a more integrated way by making explicit the interdependencies between different organizational functions supplying and supporting the operation. 4: The need for feedback and reports on progress. This is based on theories on motivation and the need for incentives to get the required sense of achievement and ownership to make the change worthwhile. 5: The need for developing an agency between research and practice. This consideration is based on examples from research in innovation and industrial management. The need for both knowledge from research and practice is needed in successful change. However not enough applied successful research has been made applicable in practice and researchers will never gain enough domain knowledge from the outside. Many industries lack their own research departments.
3 INTERIM RESULTS AND EVALUATION As already said the main objective in MASCA is to develop and deploy a Change Management System based on assumptions from change management theory and the MASCA model. With respect to evaluation both the system developed and its effect on operational outcome needs to be assessed. The main stakeholders are the industrial partners and there interest in MASCA s overall contribution to outcome of change implementation. The other stakeholders are the researchers interested in validating research questions and evaluating how well the developed CMS also may meet the research objectives. Each partner can provide feedback and evaluate a specific subset of objectives formulated for each case study so that they can be verified and used for evaluation purposes. In the context of the action research approach the researcher are aiming at explicitly verifying the main hypothesis used as a bases of the interventions. Table 1 reports the strategy identified to test all of them. Some of those strategy have already been implemented in the form of a pre-masca survey used in the initial site visits. Table 1: Evaluation strategy identified for each research hypothesis Research Hypothesis There is a need for creating a common picture There is a need for measuring performance not only at the sharp end (targets) but also in terms of antecedents There is a need for risk assessing an initiative before it starts There is need for feedback and reports on progress There is a need for developing an agency between research and practice. Verification Method Masca survey results regarding commitment and understanding o the need for change at the pre-masca intervention compared to survey post MASCA intervention regarding the understanding and the sharing of the need for change and perceived usefulness of the initiative. Comparison of the As is situation for follow up initiatives and identification of corrective actions in a KPI driven system with the MASCA proposed intervention regarding performance management (based on antecedents and consequences identification) Actual benefits potential and effective delivered to the initiative through the use of a risk assessment at an early stage on the core aspects of an imitative such as effects on resources and allocated time. Survey performed on perceived usefulness of initiative and understanding of data management within the company pre- MASCA and after. Concrete results description. Evaluation of Agency support provided by Industrial partners
4 CONCLUSIONS AND NEXT STEPS The outcome of the initial phase lead to pave the way to the future direction of the action research being carried out in the project aimed at supporting the following areas: a) The role of Competitiveness, regulation and technology induced change in the aviation process: a system of systems perspective for a concrete intervention. The intervention chosen as a test bed is the introduction of Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) in a major European Airport. This entails the establishment of better communication connectivity within each organization (airline EFB and Datalink to ATM), the use of serious games to train people in a new system perspective. b) A model for Management of change: preparedness, assessment and training that foresee the use of Process Mapping Serious games and process assessment to prepare and assess possible major changes in a regional airline. This initiative also needs to have a link to the approaches proposed for Performance Management as the outcome of a good model and training for management of change as to be translated in terms of monitoring of performance. c) The importance of performance management for continuous improvement driven changes. The interventions to be used as test beds for this topic are going to be: (i) the introduction and use of Safety Performance Indicators in a Safety Management system as a way of identifying and driving improvements in a major airline. (ii) The introduction of a more holistic performance management approach in a small regional airport and its role for continuous and sustainable development. (iii) d) A Learning training framework to support the above initiatives - HF training for different aviation stakeholders - Serious games - Mentoring of Masca internal teams - A Master program on managing change in human systems. Previous experiences shows developing and sharing innovative ideas about people in complex systems, and even exchanging staff between the research group and an industrial company can transfer research-based knowledge into practice and by doing so stimulate process innovation and increase competitiveness (Ward et al 2010) we are hoping to increase the knowledge based previously acquired about management of Change and demonstrate it by finalizing more successful concrete interventions. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The above-mentioned research has received funding from the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement 266423 MASCA.
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