Question

Atlanta-based Southern Company, a leading utility provider in the southeast United States, is valued by its 4.4 million electricity customers for its excellent service, and it ranks as Fortunemagazine's “most admired” company in its industry. That means quality is important in everything the company does. When David Traynor, the company's business excellence manage, was charged with implementing a new enterprise change management (ECM) suite, ⁵⁵ he knew its key users, employees in the IT department, would scrutinize the new system and be very critical if anything didn't work exactly as it should.

The projected investment for the ECM was in the seven figures range, but the business case was straightforward. The justification was based on the savings in time and costs from reduced meetings and the ability to devote more attention to risky projects. The IT department was handling over 7,000 change requests a year, each of which required a time-consuming approval process no matter how small or routine it was. Each change request needed to be approved at one of the three hour-long review committee meetings that were held each week. Some frustrated employees were even starting to circumvent the approval process. Clearly, something had to be done. But even though the ECM suite had clear benefits, the IT department was not eager to work on a system that didn't promise to be very exciting. Further, installing the ECM suite promised to markedly change the way the IT folks performed their work. “They had to log all their changes, gain approval, take all these steps that they weren't being tasked with before,” said Traynor.

The department selected BMC’s Remedy software suite after spending 6 months designing the new process. Next came 10 months of customizing the systems and 7 months to build them. The first ECM phase was rolled out in August 2010. Surprisingly, the new system produced even more change requests than before—almost 3,000 additional ones each year. Traynor reasoned that before the ECM was switched on, a lot of changes must have been processed without any review. That was problematic given that about 8 of 10 requested projects have at least some level of risk, and 100% require resources to complete. Now the change advisory board meets monthly (rather than three times weekly) and deals only with emergency changes and high-risk changes that could affect critical sites or many users. Routine change requests are preapproved using standard formats.

Traynor hadn't spent much time getting buy in from the IT department during the first phase of the ECM project. He now believes he should have started the ECM communication and training effort much sooner in the first phase. The second phase of the implementation, the incident and problem management system, was done differently. Traynor appointed “ambassadors” from each IT unit as before, but this time they participated from the very first day of the second phase. Traynor encouraged them to talk with the IT employees in their unit so the employees were not playing catch-up as they had been in the first phase. Rather, the ambassadors were actively involved in designing system changes: “They've put their fingerprints on it… . We get a lot of mileage from [the ambassadors].” Traynor wants them to learn the ECM and play a major role in training and testing the system. He adds, “The hope is that [they] … become the go-to person after we go live.”

Discussion Questions

1. What type of development methodology appears to have been employed at Southern Company for the ECM project? Was this a good approach? Provide a rationale for your response.
2. Describe how Traynor could have applied Lewin's three-stage model of change in implementing the ECM. What would have been the advantages of applying Lewin's three-stage model?
3. Assess Southern’s ECM system on the four dimensions of project success. How successful do you think this project is?

Answer 1

(1)

We will be discussing the methodology approach Southern Company decided to use within their transition in the enterprise management ECM system and the if this approach was the best choice for the company to implement improvements with their system within their organization. The change of new system, both took a positive and negative approach through ought the company, and we to will be analyzing the pros and cons of the change within the company. In the beginning of the case study, Pearson and Saunders stated, “When David Traynor, business excellence manager at the company, was charged with implementing a new enterprise change management (ECM) site, he knew its key users, employees in the IT department, would scrutinize the new system and be very critical if anything didn’t work exactly as it should. This statement shows that before the change, Traynor knew that the company would be taking a huge risk financially and time-frame wise in this new transition to the ECM.

Problem: The project team and other stakeholders were not engaged in the ECM development and implementation because of lack of communication. Therefore, the process took additional work and delays. The new system generated MORE requests, due to lack of review. Traynor handled the first step internally without considering the employee’s feedback, which was the main cause for delays and complications

Before the ECM: The IT department was handling several requests that required attention and time; thus not being able to devote attention to risky projects. The approval process for operations was complicated and long.

The ECM implementation had three steps:

• 6 months designing
• 10 months customizing the systems
• 7 months build the ECM

Southern Company did not start the project with a Systems Development Life Cycle. After the first step, Traynor implemented prototyping, a process that included some of the project’s stakeholders to collaborate and participate in the implementation of the new program.

(2)

Advantages of Lewin’s three stage model:

1.Unfreeze: Create awareness of company problemsa. Change employee attitudes toward implementation of the new systemb. ECM, and making them part of the changing process

2.Changing: c. Transition process, which is supported with appropriate training to employeesd. Improves communication between departments

3.Refreshing: e. Reinforces and solidifies the new ISf.Force employees to adapt to the new system

(3)

The project looks to achieve success as a way of keeping to the schedule. The project had a protracted timeline, and there isn’t mention of serious or excessive schedule breach. The impact on customers within the 1st section of the ECM project was negative. The shoppers (IT department) weren't enclosed within the coming up with and style stage. This semiconductor diode to changes being unwelcome by the stakeholders. The second section looks to be greatly improved, making IT ambassadors WHO are going to be intimately concerned within the testing and coaching activities. Business success – at first, the response was to implement further amendment requests, compared to the previous system. Traynor created processes to assist concentrate on associates solely emergency or speculative changes. Routine changes might be approved through a regular format associated with an economical pre-approval method. The amendment board was able to decrease the need for holding three conferences per week all the way down to once a month. That’s a colossal improvement on time and resources. Prepare the long run – This was eminent as incontestable by the acceptance and potency incontestable when the first glitches were puzzled out. Going forward, it seems that the project stakeholders are going to be a lot of glad about the new system, notably since they're actively engaged within the style and development of the second stage. Students may need totally different views on this question. Encourage them to support their views with info from the text.

Here are the four dimensions regarding a project success:

• Impact on the customers: In the beginning of the project, the customer is not included into the designing and planning field. Thus, it led to a negative impact and all the designed are being denied by the stakeholders. But if we look at the second phase of the project that involves IT ambassadors who will look up the training and testing activity of the project.
• Resource Constraints: since the project has a long-time line, the project has to suffer resource constraints thus leads to delay in the delivery of the project to the project owners.
• Success: At the beginning, there was a need to modify lots of changes as compare to the previous version. Traynor created few processes which will help in focusing to mitigate the instantaneous risks. Moreover, change requests are approved through standard procedures and also had a pre-approval process. Moreover, meetings were held at a regular interval to discuss about the entire project.
• Thinking about the long-run: - the project was already a huge success and it is being accepted even tough the project undergoes certain crisis. The project owners and the stakeholders are more satisfied with the new development that is implemented in the project. Moreover, the owners themselves are more engaged towards the designing and development of the project.