Change Management Frameworks:
The Evidence in a Multinational Oil-company
GIJSBERT ANTON PETER SPIL Student number 1274198
C.H. Petersstraat 49A, 9715 CJ Groningen Phone: +31647394696
E-mail: g_spil@hotmail.com
First Master thesis supervisor: Dr. B. Emans
Second Master thesis supervisor: Dr. M.P. Mobach
Company supervisor: Energy company Change manager
Date of submitting: 3 December 2007 Version: Final Version
University of Groningen, Faculty of Management & Organization MSc BA Change Management, Master Thesis, 2006/2007
PREFACE
- Our Aspirations Are Our Possibilities - Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Samuel Johnson’s citation illustrates the way in which I stood in life. I have always set objectives to drive personal achievement in my life. However, during the last two years, I experienced that aspirations solely are not enough to drive anybody’s life. While they can form a significant part in fuelling discipline and motivation, there are other things even more helpful in attaining personal aspirations. The most important one is definitely the support from your relatives. I have experienced that during significant changes in life, these are the people that can get you back on track. Therefore, I would like to thank my parents, girlfriend, sister and friends for their relentless support during the difficult times I experienced.
This thesis marks the end of the study of the MSc BA of Change Management at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and I would like to present my efforts in this area of expertise under the title:
Various Critical Success Factors in Change Management Frameworks: The Evidence in a Multinational Oil-company
SUMMARY
The objective this research is to provide in-depth knowledge about the influence of critical success factors of two existing change management frameworks, the End-to-end (EE) and the A-to-B Methodology (AB), on the performance of change management in a safety project of Energy company.
In this study, various change management approaches are reviewed to produce statements on 15 different critical success factors in change management approaches. These statements are consequently used to analyse the two change management frameworks of Energy company.
The analysis of the two change management frameworks discovered five areas of critical success factors that are not adequately addressed. These are (1) the context of change, (2) awareness, dissatisfaction and urgency, (3) organizational readiness, (4) clear empowerment and (5) short-term wins.
This study takes a case-study approach to present a variety of instances that demonstrate the relation between the five identified areas and the performance of change management. The case-study shows that these instances did had a significant negative influence on the performance of change management in various ways. The lack of adequately addressing these critical success factors resulted in additional resistance, incomprehensiveness, and uncertainty among employees and significantly reduced the internal motivation and communications of the project team, responsible for implementation of the change. The case-study shows the importance of the fit between the cultural aspects and the taken change approach. Furthermore, it shows that an appropriate configuration of a pilot facilitates implementation of a change initiative. Also, it demonstrates that previous change initiatives that are not fully anchored can reduce the capacity to change.
TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ...2 SUMMARY...3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ...4
PART 1. PROBLEM STATEMENT ...6
1.1 INTRODUCTION...6
1.2 OVERVIEW STUDY...7
PART 2. CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS: A THEORETICAL OVERVIEW ...8
2.1 INTRODUCTION...8
2.2 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: LEADERSHIP...8
2.3 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: SPONSORSHIP...9
2.4 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: THE CONTEXT OF CHANGE...10
2.5 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: AWARENESS, DISSATISFACTION & URGENCY...11
2.6 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: CLEAR VISION & RATIONALE...11
2.7 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: BUILDING CONSENSUS...12
2.8 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: COMMUNICATION...13
2.9 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: ORGANIZATIONAL READINESS...14
2.10 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: PLANNING THE CHANGE...14
2.11 CRITICAL SUCCESSFACTOR: RESOURCES FOR DELIVERY...15
2.12 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: CLEAR EMPOWERMENT...16
2.13 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: CHANGE MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE & DELIVERY...16
2.14 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: SHORT-TERM WINS...17
2.15 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: METRICS, MONITORING & CONTROL...17
2.16 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR: CONSOLIDATION...18
2.17 CONCLUSION...19
PART 3. ENERGY COMPANY’S CHANGE MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORKS...20
3.1 INTRODUCTION...20
3.2 EE & AB...20
3.3 END-TO-END – CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS...21
3.4 A-TO-B METHODOLOGY – CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS...30
3.5 CONCLUSION...39
PART 4. RESEARCH DESIGN & METHODOLOGY...41
4.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE...41
4.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS...41
4.3 CASE-STUDY RESEARCH...42
4.4 VALIDITY & RELIABILITY...43
PART 5. CASE-STUDY: THE ABCD PROJECT ...45
5.1 ABCD BACKGROUND...45
5.2 ABCD - FIVE AREAS OF CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS...48
5.2.1 Area 1: The context of change ...48
5.2.2 Area 2: Awareness, Dissatisfaction & Urgency ...54
5.2.3 Area 3: Organizational readiness...57
5.2.4 Area 4: Clear empowerment...59
5.2.5 Area 5: Short-term wins...62
5.3 CONCLUSION...63
PART 6. CONCLUSION ...67
6.2 THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS...68
6.3 RECOMMENDATIONS ENERGY COMPANY...69
6.4 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH...69
6.5 LIMITATIONS...70
LITERATURE...71
EMPIRICAL SOURCES ...73
DATA SOURCES ABCD, EE & AB ...73
PART 1. PROBLEM STATEMENT
1.1 Introduction
This study is performed at the Business Improvements Team of Energy company, headed under the division Finding & Making. The Business Improvements Team, previously known as WATERmark, was set up to deliver ERP solutions to assets, including the a gas plant. After five years of delivering ERP solutions in the regions, the overall ERP infrastructure was implemented and WATERmarks’ main task diERPpeared. In their search for a new identity, the department is currently changing its core competence from ERP solutions to business improvement in the widest sense. They are positioning themselves to increase transparency and ensure efficient implementation of projects throughout the upstream1 business. Senior management indicated that new areas of project management expertise need to be developed to support this ambition. Change management was identified as one of these areas. The senior council of the energy company argued that it is crucial to perform change management effectively, due to the sheer cost that is involved by not doing so. This is in line with the view of the North Sea asset leader (responsible for all platforms, wells and pipeline in North Sea) who states: ‘In project management the change management aspect is often overlooked and most efforts are dedicated to the processes, systems and solutions internal to a project’. Moreover, a business improvement consultant surveyed over 300 employees and found that effective change management accounts for approximately 50% to reach successful implementation and sustainability of a project.
Currently, the department has various change management frameworks to their disposition to improve the application of change management in the business. One change management framework was recently purchased from an external company and another was developed as a significant area of an existing (downstream) project management methodology.
Nevertheless, senior management and several external consultants from the Business Improvement Team acknowledged that both change management frameworks were
1
enormous in content, difficult to interpret and until now never fully tested for their performance. At the time of this research, a major (upstream) change project, the ABCD (from here on ABCD) was in existence, which focused on the delivery of demonstrable technical integrity and associated safety of upstream assets. The pilot took place at a Gas Plant in Bloomingdale. It was the first project in the upstream business that used both change management frameworks. The objective of the pilot was to prove its benefits and provide insights on what is needed to roll-out the pilot as a global standard to all assets. The objective of this study is to analyze the critical success factors of the two change management frameworks and determine their influence on the change management performance in this major safety pilot.
1.2 Overview study
PART 2. CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS: A THEORETICAL OVERVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This theoretical overview uses the 15 CSF’s of the integrated change management model of Leppitt (2006) to review various change management approaches2. The objective of this review is to produce statements about CSF’s, which together form an instrument to analyze the performance of change management frameworks. In this section, every paragraph contains a short summary of relevant literature and one or more statements are offered. See Table 1 for an overview of these CSF’s.
Table 1: An overview of critical success factors
Based on Leppitt, N. 2006A.
2.2 Critical Success Factor: Leadership
Trompenaars and Woolliams (2003) put forward that in a change intervention a diagnosis should take place which is focused on leadership competences. Furthermore, they argue that leaders need to develop the right attributes, which were found to make the change happen. There are various leadership competences identified to be important during change interventions. Ulrich (1998) identifies that the way a leader leads change is a key success factor for change. First, a leader should own and champion the change and publicly commit himself to make the change happen. Secondly, a leader should bring together the necessary resources to sustain it. Furthermore, investment of personal time and attention to the change initiative is required. This in line with Nadler (1982), who argues that during change there is a clear need to increase leader visibility, by actions and
2Not all the CSF’s are touched upon by the change management approaches and are therefore not all
change management approaches are included when a certain critical success factor is described in this section.
1 Leadership 9 Planning the change
2 Sponsorship 10 Resources for delivery
3 The context of change 11 Clear empowerment
4 Awareness, Dissatisfaction & Urgency 12 Change management structures & Delivery 5 Clear vision & rationale 13 Short-term wins
6 Building consensus 14 Metrics, Monitoring and Control
7 Communication 15 Consolidation
words. This demonstrates confidence and consistency and enables a reduction of possible perceptions of "drift" or lack of leadership. Leppitt (2006) states that leaders should provide a direction for change and are accountable. In addition, Jick (1991) argues that a strong leader during change is essential, especially having a leader in place that guides, drives and inspires the change. Leaders should be able to create a vision, bring it to their employees and create an organizational structure that awards those that embrace the vision. Based on the insights above, the critical success factor leadership in a change management approach should incorporate:
1A) A diagnosis of leadership with an emphasis on competences & skills, behavioral matters, power and/or authority
1B) An approach to develop required leadership competences & skills, behavior, and accountability
2.3 Critical Success Factor: Sponsorship
Mento et. al. (2002) present that in order to maintain such a sponsor, they need to be informed regularly about the process of the change. This is in line with Nadler (1982) who indicates that sponsors require information about change in progress to enable them to develop consensus and a set of relationships that can facilitate quick reactions and decisions when needed. Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor of sponsorship in a change management framework should incorporate:
2A) A diagnosis of commitment, access to resources, and criticalness of sponsors 2B) An approach to acquire sponsorship
2C) An approach for sponsorship management
2.4 Critical Success Factor: The context of change
Leppitt (2006B) shows the importance of a clear context by identification of the major external and internal factors that affect the vision and strategy of the organization. Nadler & Tushman (1997) argue that external factors, like market developments and legislation have an influence on the way an organization operates. Various authors show that changes in the external factors can lead to changes in structures, systems and strategies and consequently need to be adequately dealt with (Project Management Institute (PMI), 2004; Kanter, 2002; Nadler & Tushman, 1997; Nadler, 1982). Therefore, the external drivers of change need to be diagnosed accurately. In addition, a variety of studies present the requirement to analyse the difference between the current state of the internal environment and the envisioned future, emphasizing organizational culture, structure, systems and strategy (Trompenaars & Woolliams, 2003; Mento et. al., 2002). Beer, Eisenstat and Spector (1990) put forward that such analysis should be based on a joint diagnosis of the context. Jick (1991) argues that a project team needs to know how the organization functions, including its strengths and weaknesses, and how the change will affect the organization. In addition, Warner Burke (1994) argues that an analysis of the context should be emphasizing the kind of readiness for change, the kind of resources available, and the potential leverage (power) to the change.
Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor setting the context for change in a change management framework should incorporate:
2.5 Critical Success Factor: Awareness, Dissatisfaction & Urgency The PMI (2004) presents that projects should start with the diagnosis of a business issue and the development of a high level definition focused on the reasons for change. Various authors (Leppitt, 2006A; Cameron & Green, 2004; Kotter, 2002) argue that the reasons for change need to be created, a sense of urgency need to be established and consequently communicated to stakeholders of the project to facilitate effective change. Wolman and Hayward (2002) argue that the vision about the change should contain the future state but also an indication of the importance of the employees in reaching this state. This aligns with the arguments of Kanter (2002) and Siegal et. al. (1996), who present that the prevailing wisdom needs to be challenged and dissatisfaction created with the current state to bring change. Jick (1991) puts forward that a sense of urgency among employees is important to tie an organization to change and Camall (1990) shows that there is a need to develop internal pressure for change to increase the sense of urgency in an organization. Kotter (2002) indicates that this can be done by creating a crisis by involving and exposing people to issues or problems.
Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor awareness, dissatisfaction & urgency in a change management framework should incorporate:
4A) A diagnosis of issues or problems causing the need for change
4B) An approach to develop awareness, dissatisfaction with current state and a sense of urgency among stakeholders
2.6 Critical Success Factor: Clear vision & rationale
change. This can be done by developing a graphical representation of the future state, together with members of the organization (Cameron & Green, 2004). Kanter (2002) argues for an aspiration, not a vision that should be developed. An aspiration should be compelling enough to overcome sources of resistance to change. Nadler and Tushman (1997) argue that a general view of the future needs to be operationalized in measurable objectives, putting in place specific goals that need to be reached to enable the desired future. The PMI (2004) shows that a vision should be captured in the project charter to formally mark those areas in an organization which are affected.
Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor clear vision & rationale in a change management framework should incorporate:
5A) An approach to develop a clear vision or definition of change 5B) An approach to make the vision measurable
5C) An approach for communicating the vision
2.7 Critical Success Factor: Building consensus
Leppitt (2006A) argues for the need to create consensus for change at all levels, including leadership and cross-functions. Various authors (Cameron & Green, 2004; Kotter, 1996) present that a guiding coalition should have members that have enough positional power, expertise, credibility and proven leaders. The PMI (2004) recommends that a project team should hold the positions, skills and competencies that the project demands. In addition, Ulrich (1998) presents that change agents should know who needs to be committed to the change, how a coalition of support is build and the ability to get the support needed for change. Therefore, a diagnosis should be in place to analyze the presents of these requirements.
(read: feel responsible for) the change. Nadler (1982) presents that special informal and formal rewards for senior management can foster collaboration.
Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor building consensus in a change management framework should incorporate:
6A) A diagnose of change coalition on power, expertise, credibility and reputation 6B) An approach for building a change coalition
2.8 Critical Success Factor: Communication
The PMI (2004) argues that for effective communication first the information and communication needs of stakeholders need to be determined. Secondly, information of the project should be provided in a timely manner. Finally, performance reporting and information to resolve issues of stakeholders facilitate the implementation of a project. Kotter (2002) argues that communication should be simple and based on feelings of people, like anxieties or fears. Mento et. al. (2002) argue that from the start of change, communication should be in place in a constant and strategic fashion to facilitate acceptance among the recipients. Cameron and Green (2004) present that it is important to communicate and engage people in change as this provides direction and sets expectations of those affected. Jick (1991) argues that in some cases, involvement, communication and disclosure can lower resistance to change. Nadler (1982) points out that regular and effective two-way flow communication including feedback mechanisms focused on how the recipients perceive and deal with change is important. Warner Burke (1994) argues that communicating starts with feeding back the initial diagnosis to those levels of management affected by the change to assure that these are involved and collaboration is established.
Kotter (2002) argues that the usage of uncluttered communication channels and new technologies are all helpful in creating buy-in of stakeholders. Paton and McCalman (2004) put forward several communication elements should be considered. The message needs to be customized to the target audience and communicated with the right tone. Furthermore, a consistent message should be brought and feedback captured to ensure penetration
7A) A diagnose of information needs and issues of stakeholders
7B) A design for scheduling, structuring the content and process of communication
2.9 Critical Success Factor: Organizational readiness
Various authors (Mento et. al., 2002; Wolman & Hayward, 2002) identified the need to evaluate the organizational climate for change. They found that understanding of the organization and its environment facilitates effective implementation, especially when it analyses how the organization has dealt with previous changes (organizational history of change). Nadler and Tushman (1997) argue that it is essential to analyze the formal organization, such as structures, processes and systems and informal organization (culture), like values, beliefs and unwritten guidelines to understand the organizational (change) history. This information can be used as an input for the redesign of the organization that best meets the strategic objectives. Jick (1991) states that it is important to analyze the organization for forces for and against the change, arguing that change will not occur when the forces resisting change are stronger than those driving it.
Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor organizational readiness in a change management framework should incorporate:
8A) A diagnosis of organizational readiness emphasizing the organizational history of change and forces of change
8B) An approach to address the issues identified by the diagnosis of history of change and forces of change
2.10 Critical Success Factor: Planning the change
activities are dealt with during the planning phase, namely dealing with iterative planning and the formation of the project team. The project team draws out the project on macro level, and is broken down to surface the details. In this lower level plan, the schedule, cost and required resources are identified. In addition, in the planning process there is a need to involve people from all areas of the organization. Beer et. al. (1990) present that the planning of change should be in the hands of those who will change, to become committed to learning the new way of working and acquire the necessary new skills and attitudes. The PMI (2004) puts forward various elements in planning a project. The scope needs to be understanded and specific criteria of the end product need to be documented. The plan needs to be broken down in manageable pieces, activities must be performed, project status needs to be measured and monitored and project risks analysed.
Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor planning the change in a change management framework should incorporate:
9A) An approach for detailed planning, executing and directing change by a project team
2.11 Critical Success Factor: Resources for delivery
Leppitt (2006A) argues that key roles and responsibilities need to be identified and the best human resources, either from internal of external sources need to be allocated. Mento et. al. (2002) argue that there is a need to develop and choose a change team. They argue that a change team has the capability to lead the change in the most efficient way and should be assembled with the appropriate skills set. This is in line with Kotter (2002), who argues that a guiding team needs to be in place that has the skills, connections, and reputation to provide the change leadership. Ulrich (1998) presents that the right members of the organization need to be involved in the change and need to be mobilized for commitment. The PMI (2004) puts forward that project members for a project can be internal and external sources and are normally included by of basis of availability, ability, experience, interests and costs.
Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor resources for delivery in a change management framework should incorporate:
10A) A diagnose of skills, connections and reputation of project members
2.12 Critical Success Factor: Clear empowerment
Kanter (2002) argues that the ownership of the change needs to be transferred to a project team. It is important to allow the team to develop their own identity, a sense of membership and protection which enables change. Cameron and Green (2004) put forward that the empowerment of others, especially those involved in the creation of the vision need to be trusted with key tasks in the change. Kotter (2002) indicates that empowered action of a project team is required for change. It is important to deal with those obstacles that block empowered action. There are several elements that support empowerment. Change champions or people with change experience need to be included, reward systems need to be implemented, feedback of targets of change captured and disempowering managers refitted.
Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor clear empowerment in a change management framework should incorporate:
11A) A design to empower the project team
2.13 Critical Success Factor: Change management structure & delivery
efforts are required in parallel with the management of the human side. Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor change management structure and delivery in a change management framework should incorporate:
12A) A change management structure that combines hard approaches focusing on design of new structures, systems and procedures and soft approaches emphasizing rewards and training
2.14 Critical Success Factor: Short-term wins
Various authors (Leppitt 2006A; Nadler, 1982) put forward that opportunities to make short-term wins or incremental steps toward the end goal need to be identified. Mento et. al. (2002) argue that the creation of small short-term wins is essential for motivation. These should be planned and visible and employees that are involved for reaching these wins have to be recognized for their efforts. Kotter (2002) shows that short-term wins can validate the vision, provide emotional uplift, builds faith in the change effort among stakeholders and takes power away from cynics. Kanter (2002) argues that it worthwhile to recognize, reward and celebrate meaningful accomplishments. Cameron and Green (2004) indicate that a leader should notice improvement and energize project members and consequently reward and share successes. Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor short-term wins in a change management framework should incorporate:
13A) An approach for designing short-term wins with a focus on visibility, unambiguous and meaningfulness
2.15 Critical Success Factor: Metrics, monitoring & control
argue that measurement should be done on various levels, measuring individual, team and organizational performance. Warner Burke (1994) argues that the final assessment of obtained objectives can be done in various modes that range from clients saying that they are pleased to systematic researches. The PMI (2004) recommends that each project should contain ways for managing quality by having quality standards in place, applications of quality activities and monitor specific project results for quality compliance.
Based on the review presented above, the critical success factor metrics, monitoring and control in a change management framework should incorporate:
14A) An approach for control or monitoring the project 14B) An approach for measuring the results of the project 14C) An approach for ensuring quality of the project
2.16 Critical Success Factor: Consolidation
15A) An approach for capturing knowledge and learning’s of a project 15B) An approach to institutionalise the change into the organization
2.17 Conclusion
PART 3. ENERGY COMPANY’S CHANGE MANAGEMENT
FRAMEWORKS
3.1 Introduction
In this section, two change management frameworks, an assessment of EE and AB on the statements produced in theoretical overview of the CSF’s takes place. The objective of this section is to provide an overview of how both change management frameworks address these statements. The degree of adherence to each statement by the change management framework is given a label, being low, medium or high in correspondence. Table 2 provides an overview of this categorization.
Table 2: Overview of categorization variables
Low - No or very weak indication is provided of the CSF
Medium - The CSF is dealt with by pointing out that is functional and some advice or guidelines are provided
High - A template or tool is provided of this CSF
In this way, those statements that are not addressed adequately can be distilled (low) and become the focus of the case-study presented in part five.
3.2 EE & AB
The EE focuses on business change projects and builds on previously applied methods for project management within Energy company. It provides a standardized approach in which deliverables are set according to project type defined by size and emphasis (EE website, 2007). AB captures principles and elements of change management and is a change management framework that can be applied on all sorts of projects (source: AB, 2007).
3.3 End-to-end – Critical Success Factors
This paragraph is structured as follows. For all CSF’s, the statements of the theoretical review are shortly repeated. This is followed by an explanation of how the change management framework address these CSF’s.
Critical Success Factor: Leadership
The theoretical overview puts forward that the CSF of leadership should contain a diagnosis of a leadership features (competence & skills, behavioral matters and power & authority) and an approach to develop required leadership, like competences & skills, behavior and accountability.
In the EE the concept of leadership receives a great deal of attention. The EE presents a stakeholder inventory tool (source: EE) to provide a picture of the stakeholder environment. The focus is on the leaders and sponsors of the project, as they are perceived as the most influential members of the organization. The tool is designed to discover the characteristics of these leaders, including commitment, level of possible impact, concerns and issues, the present mindset and support requirements. The stakeholder tool provides the basis for the leadership engagement strategy (source: EE). The goal is to design a pragmatic leadership engagement strategy that ensures the ownership and commitment of key change leaders in the project. While being highly comparable with the stakeholder tool, it focuses on identification of key business leaders features (behaviors, skills and competences) and provides a strategy to reach a pre-formulated vision on the required features. In parallel, a method for developing an awareness session (source: EE) is provided. In addition, the EE provides a change management development program for leaders. (source: EE). This provides an approach for diagnosis and creation of the required values, behaviors, skills and competencies of leadership during a change initiative.
It can be concluded that the EE provides two tools for identifying and diagnosing leadership: the stakeholder tool and the leadership engagement strategy. The second is also focused on developing commitment and ownership. In addition, EE provides a strategy for creating required leadership features and awareness. It can be concluded that the EE is in congruence with the statements identified in the leadership CSF.
The theoretical overview presents that a change management framework should contain a diagnosis of sponsorship (commitment, access to resources and criticalness) and an approach to acquire and manage sponsorship.
The EE perceives leadership and sponsorship as interrelated concepts. Sponsors are perceived as key leaders who are supporters or advocates for the change. The EE provides an assessment of the relationship with the sponsor. In addition, an advice is supplied project team for sponsorship management and behavior during the change. This is done by contracts on the elements in table 3.
Table 3: Key sponsorship elements during change
x x
x x
x x
x x
x x
source: EE, Leadership Engagement Strategy
These document key responsibilities of the sponsor. Furthermore, a tool (source: EE) is provided that identifies ongoing support needs of leaders to sustain the change.
The EE lacks a way for diagnosing the sponsorship. Also, no approach for acquiring sponsors is presented by the EE. However, sponsorship management is dealt with by contracts. In overall, the EE does not emphasize sponsorship to a large extent.
Critical Success Factor: The context of change
The theoretical overview shows that a change management framework should include a way of market developments, legislation, organizational culture and internal systems. The EE presents an environmental scan (source: EE) that can be used to analyze strategic context and key business drivers for projects. It assesses the drivers and context of change, leverage points, the marketplace requirements, legislation, business and organization imperatives. The EE supplies a way to capture these elements into a business case that has the purpose of defining a high-level statement about the context of change (source: EE).
change. The EE lacks advice or tools for diagnosing the organizational culture or other internal systems.
Critical Success Factor: Awareness, Dissatisfaction & Urgency
The theoretical overview indicates that a change management framework should supply a diagnosis of the issues or problems that cause change and an approach to develop awareness, dissatisfaction with the current state and increase the sense of urgency among stakeholders.
The environmental scan also diagnoses the issues and problems that force the organization to change. Below an overview can be found of elements that are captured:
What’s happening or changing that is vitally important in our market, to our customers and in our company
Our problem or concern with our current situation
How market conditions have led to performance standards that we can no longer meet
Why we are unable to meet the new performance requirements The cost of inaction, the cost of doing nothing
What we could potentially gain if we act
How we will address any negative impacts of change on employees
source: EE
In conclusion, the EE does provide a guideline on how to diagnose the issues or problems and provides medium correspondence with the diagnostic statement. In spite of this, the EE does not provide any indication, advice or tool to develop awareness, dissatisfaction with the current state and increasing the sense of urgency.
Critical Success Factor: Clear vision & rationale
The theoretical overview presents that a change management framework should provide an approach to develop a vision or definition of change, a way to make the vision measurable and to communicate it.
expectations that need to be understood and agreed upon with the project sponsor. In the project charter, provides a template focusing on project (context), project objectives, key requirements and characteristics, scope and deliverables, an identification of required costs and time (schedule). In addition, the EE provides a tool for assessing the impact of the project on the organization (source: EE) in terms of required resources and capacity to change.
In overall, the EE provides an approach for developing a vision. In addition, it supplies detailed templates making the vision measurable. However, it lacks an approach for communicating the vision throughout the organization.
Critical Success Factor: Building consensus
The theoretical overview shows that a change management framework should provide a diagnosis of the change coalition (power, expertise, credibility, and reputation) and an approach to building this coalition.
The EE diagnosis the change coalition by the stakeholder tool (source: EE) and it presents an approach for developing a change coalition. (source: EE, Stakeholder Engagement Plan). It focuses on:
Enlisting the most competent supporters as leaders Deputising the influential supporters as champions Mobilising supporters to gather intelligence
Involving supporters early, as change agents or early adopters Fuelling supporters’ loyalty with early, personal wins
Rewarding learning, even if it arises from failure
Also, the EE provides to develop crucial members of a change coalition, like change agents. The change agent training (source: EE) focuses on identifying and develop people in the business that lead change efforts and support the rest of the business staff during the change process. EE provides them with education about changes, and provides them with change agent skills. Consensus among these agents is build by:
Assigning them to work on an implementation team in another location prior to the start of the implementation at their location.
Including them as project team members working on the design, as subject matter experts/process experts
Including them as project team members in testing or pilot activities.
source: EE
The EE supplies stakeholder analysis tool, which allows a project team to get a more detailed insight on the characteristics of the change coalition. In addition, the EE provides an approach to build a coalition of change and therefore addresses the statements fully.
Critical Success Factor: Communication
The theoretical overview indicates that a change management framework should provide a method for diagnosing information needs and issues of stakeholders, a design for scheduling, structuring the content and process of communication.
The EE supplies a (source: EE) communications strategy and plan, in which the project team is forced to fill in a communications template. This provides an approach for planning information storage, distribution lists, and principle of communication. An overview of communication guidelines is presented in table 4.
Table 4: Overview of communication guidelines
x x x x x x x x x x x x
EE, Business Communications Plan; Business Communications Strategy
The EE ensures the quality of communications by a testing tool. In addition, a more general communications plan (EE) is provided on organizational level. In here, a menu of communications vehicles is put forward that for effective creation of commitment.
The EE emphasizes the content, form and process of communication and therefore satisfies the design element of the CSF. However, a diagnosis of the information needs and issues of stakeholder is not dealt with adequately.
The theoretical overview presents that a change management framework should entail a diagnosis of organizational readiness and an approach for addressing the issues identifies by it.
The EE provides an organizational readiness test for analyzing the readiness of members of the organization (source: EE). The organizational readiness test emphases on the willingness to change and the mindset about change in general.
The EE provides a diagnosis of the organizational readiness. However, the EE provides no approach for addressing the history of change and forces of change.
Critical Success Factor: Planning the change
The theoretical overview shows that a change management framework should take into account an approach for detailed planning, executing and directing the change.
EE provides a very extensive approach for planning the change. The business change plan addresses the following factors:
Organisation redesign
Impact assessment (including Human Resource issues and consultation plans) Communications strategy and plan
source: EE
Critical Success Factor: Resources for delivery
The change management framework should contain a way for diagnosing the skills, connections and reputation of project members and an approach for acquiring the right project member.
EE provides a sourcing plan with the objective (source: EE) to determine the project resource needs, from both internal and third parties and to agree accountabilities and availability. The usage of third parties is guided by the usage of an "Offshoreability tool. In addition, a management-staffing plan is provided, emphasizing roles, responsibilities and formal relations. EE provides an approach for training, team building by a tool for analyzing the training needs and for developing a training plan.
In overall, the EE provides various tools and templates to diagnose the required features of project member and ensure that the right project members are attracted to the project team and is highly in line with the statements about the CSF.
Critical Success Factor: Clear empowerment
The theoretical overview shows that a change management framework should contain a design to empower the change team.
The EE provides a checklist on effectiveness of the change team with emphasis the goal clarity, participation level, consultation level, decision-making level, roles and responsibilities of project members. The EE offers no approach to empower the change team and therefore not addresses the statement about clear empowerment adequately.
Critical Success Factor: Change management structures & delivery
The change management framework should entail a change management structure that integrates hard (implementation structures, organizational design) and soft approaches like rewards and training.
impacted by the change. It provides insights on the competency gaps and consequent training needs. In addition, an approach for staff planning in the new organization is offered, focused on rewards of employees and budgets for departments during the change. The EE is provides a change structure that interweaves hard and soft elements. By having an approach in place, that focuses on organizational design issues and human development in the form of training it is in congruence with the CSF statement.
Critical Success Factor: Short-term wins
The change management framework should entail a way for diagnosing possibilities for short-term wind and an approach for developing these (visibility, unambiguous and meaningfulness).
The EE shows that after the change has been implemented, there is a need to declare and celebrate what has been achieved (source: EE). It puts forward that heroes should be made of those that contributed and the contributions of participants need to be recognized. This allows an organization to have a psychological pause and acknowledge that the organization is now operating in its new state to provide an energy boost to sustain progress and ongoing contribution.
The EE provides no emphasis on short-term wins, but only on wins after the change is fully implemented. It provides guidelines about how these can be designed and is therefore not in line with the statements about the CSF.
Critical Success Factor: Metrics, Monitoring and Control
The change management framework should contain an approach for controlling and monitoring the project, measuring the results and ensuring quality.
The EE presents a very extensive approach for controlling, monitoring the project, measuring results and ensuring quality and is therefore fully in line with the statements about the CSF.
Critical Success Factor: Consolidation
The change management approach should capture knowledge and learning’s of the project and has an approach to institutionalize the change.
EE indicates that a knowledge sharing process should be started so that the business units and operations can leverage learning’s and experience gained in other locations. (source: EE) and use experts in the business that can provide local support. The implementation field guide presents a way to capture learning’s for completed implementations and incorporate them in future plans and enables monitoring progress and track achievement of project objectives and realization of benefits.
Conclusion Critical Success Factors - EE
The analysis of the EE provides insights on level of correspondence with the statements provided by the theoretical review of CSF’s. In table 5, those statements3 that are not adequately addressed are presented.
Table 5: Overview of not adequately addressed CSF’s in EE
Critical Success Factor EE
2B Sponsorship
An approach to acquire sponsorship Low
3A The context of change
A diagnosis of organizational culture and internal systems Low
4B Awareness, Dissatisfaction & Urgency
An approach to developing awareness of change and provide dissatisfaction with current state and increasing a sense of urgency among stakeholders
Low
5C Clear vision & rational
An approach for communicating the vision Low
8B Organizational readiness
An approach to address the issues identified by the diagnosis of history of change and forces of change
Low
11A Clear empowerment
A design to empower the project team Low
13A Short-term wins
An approach to developing short-term wins with a focus on visibility, unambiguous and meaningfulness
Low
3.4 A-to-B Methodology – Critical Success Factors Critical Success Factor: Leadership
A change management framework should contain a diagnosis of a leadership features (competence & skills, behavioral matters and power and authority) and an approach to develop required leadership, like competences & skills, behavior and accountability. AB indicates that substantial levels of commitment are critical from the senior manager who has the organizational power to authorize and legitimate the change (source: AB). It shows that the most effective leaders of change have discovered that real change is accelerated when what they say, do and reinforce are aligned.
3 Only the CSF’s that are not adequately addressed by the EE are put in table 5, as these are further
This shows that AB does not deal explicitly with leadership and is therefore not in line with the statements provided by the theoretical review.
Critical Success Factor: Sponsorship
The theoretical overview presents that a change management framework should contain a diagnosis of sponsorship (commitment, access to resources and criticalness) and an approach to acquire and manage sponsorship.
AB provides a sponsorship assessment (source: AB) which pinpoints the right behaviors of sponsors. It presents 30 different behaviors that signify the level of commitment for change. Three levels of commitment are identified: Expressed, modeled and reinforced. In table 6, an overview of these levels of commitment and associated behaviors are presented.
Table 6: Levels of commitment & associated behaviors
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
source: AB, Sponsor Assessment
AB identifies various strategies that deal with weak sponsorship (source: AB). In the education strategy, the sponsor is made aware of underperforming behavior and these behaviors are linked to the sponsor performance management structure (goals, objectives, and bonus). In the strategy focused sponsorship replacement, tactics for securing the right sponsorship are provided, either by searching a higher-level sponsor, building a coalition of sponsors or by implementing the change in another place of the organization were the sponsorship is superior.
performance on a regular basis (source: AB). Also, frequent and regular communication to the sponsors is useful.
In conclusion, AB provides a very extensive assessment tool for diagnosing the attributes of sponsorship and deals with acquiring and management of sponsorship. Therefore, AB is fully in line with the sponsorship CSF put forward in the theoretical overview.
Critical Success Factor: The context of change
The theoretical overview shows that a change management framework should include a diagnosis of market developments, legislation, organizational culture and internal systems. AB provides a template were the project outline can be filled in (source: AB). This shortly deals with the environment, emphasizing (external and internal) drivers of change. Furthermore, it provides a list of questions focused on the internal systems of an organization.
AB deals with the context for change in a superficial way. Neither advice nor approach for diagnosing the environment is shown. AB is therefore not in line with the statement as presented in the theoretical overview and does not adequately address setting the context for change.
Critical Success Factor: Awareness, Dissatisfaction & Urgency
The theoretical review shows that change management framework should entail a structure for diagnosing the issues or problems of change and an approach to develop awareness of change, dissatisfaction with the current state and increase the sense of urgency.
AB shows no method for increasing the sense of urgency among organizational members and is consequently not in line with the necessity to include a diagnosis of the issues or problems nor an approach addressing awareness, dissatisfaction and urgency.
Critical Success Factor: Clear vision & rationale
The theoretical overview presents that a change management framework should provide an approach to develop a vision, a way to make the vision measurable and to communicate it.
description of the present and desired state, and measures of success. In addition, AB provides a strategy for improving the way that the vision is articulated (source: AB). This is done by emphasizing the objectives, rationale, duration of the project, the language and Frame of Reference (FOR) of the receiver. Also, an emphasis is put on the cost of not changing and the external drivers for change. Furthermore, the communication should be brought with personal commitment and provide direction for additional information. In short, AB offers an approach to develop a vision and communicate it to members of the organization. However, it does not provide a way for making the vision measurable and is therefore not fully in line with the statements about communicating in of theoretical review.
Critical Success Factor: Building consensus
A change management framework should provide a method for diagnosing members of a coalition (power, expertise, credibility, and reputation) and an approach to build a coalition for the change.
AB provides a model for analysis the guiding coalition (source: AB). AB identifies three different members of an organization in a guiding coalition: Champions, agents and sponsors.
AB provides information about where the champions, sponsors, agents and sponsors should be situated during change for three organization types: The hierarchical organization, staff organization, and matrix organization. AB provides guidelines for the sponsors in the guiding coalition. They should establish and communicate the business case, participate in determine goals, allocate resources, concentrate their energy on their direct reports, align and apply the reward and recognition systems, and monitor progress constantly. AB provides a sponsorship assessment (source: AB) to analyze the various features that a sponsor should display in order to increase the probability on implementation success. For agents, AB provides an approach to build agent capacity (source: AB) (see planning the change CSF for more information).
development of change agents and sponsors. AB is therefore fully in line with the statements presented in the theoretical review.
Critical Success Factor: Communication
The theoretical overview indicates that a change management framework should provide a method for diagnosing information needs and issues of stakeholders, a design for scheduling, structuring the content and process of communication.
AB provides a model for creating a communication plan and a communication audit to diagnose the content and process of the communications (source: AB). In the communication plan, three phases of communication are identified: Unfreezing, transition state and refreezing communication. A different emphasis of content and process is put forward for these phases. A shortened overview is provided in Table 7.
Table 7: Overview of phases & associated content & process
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
source: AB, Communications Audit
The communication audit provides an assessment of the content and process of communication during projects. The first phase analyses the effectiveness of organizational implementation initiation. In the transition state, the audit measures the effectiveness of the delivery of the project to the system. For the last state, it provides an instrument to identify opportunities to maximize communication and accelerate the implementation. In addition, AB offers a matrix of communication vehicles and characteristics.
communication. Therefore, AB is not fully in line with the statements of the theoretical review.
Critical Success Factor: Organizational readiness
The theoretical overview presents that a change management framework should entail a diagnosis of organizational readiness and an approach for addressing the issues identified by it.
AB provides two models for analyzing organizational readiness. First, an analysis of previous implementation barriers and lessons learned is put forward (source: AB). Secondly, an analysis of employee change readiness and potential sources of resistance is offered (source: AB, see Table 8.)
Table 8: Change readiness assessment
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
* not all elements are included source: AB
There are various resources that have to be taken into account, from managerial resources to rewards resources.
In short, AB incorporates an assessment of organizational readiness emphasizing organizational implementation barriers. Also, a diagnostic tool is provided to analyze the forces of change. The emphasis of AB lies on the diagnostic part of organizational readiness, but an approach for dealing with the information gained from the various tools is not offered. Therefore, it is not addressing the statements provided in the theoretical review.
Critical Success Factor: Planning the change
The theoretical overview shows that a change management framework should take into account an approach for detailed planning, executing and directing the change.
AB offers an approach to plan the change, using four different phases: Plan, pre-implementation, implement and monitor (source: AB). It provides a very extensive planning schedule for implementing the change, but does not provide detailed guidance of directing and executing the change.
In conclusion, AB does provide a very extensive way of scheduling the various phases of change. However, the directing and executing of the change itself is not addressed in an in-depth manner.
Critical Success Factor: Resources for delivery
A change management framework should contain a way for diagnosing the skills, connections and reputation of project members and an approach for acquiring the right project members.
AB puts forward an assessment tool for analyzing the skills of change agents (source: AB). An overview of elements that are assessed is provided in Table 9.
Table 9: Assessment elements of a change agent
x x
Source: AB
Therefore, AB provides a good way for diagnosing the various features needed from project members required in a change initiative. However, it does not provide a way to acquire these project members in the context of the organization.
Critical Success Factor: Clear empowerment
The change management framework should contain a design to empower the change team.
In AB, no indication or tool is provided that deals with clear empowerment and is therefore not in line with the statements provided in the theoretical overview
Critical Success Factor: Change management structures & delivery
The change management framework should entail a change management structure that integrates hard (implementation structures, organizational design) and soft approaches like rewards and training.
AB presents itself as a change management framework with a great emphasis on managing the human side of change. This is reflected in the way the change management framework is set up. Various elements including training, managing resistance, and rewards are taken into account (source: AB). However, it provides no elements of (re)design the organization or changing communication structures.
Critical Success Factor: Short-term wins
The change management framework should entail a way for diagnosing possibilities for short-term win events and an approach for developing these events (visibility,
unambiguous and meaningfulness).
AB does not provide any indication of incorporating short-term wins into the change and is therefore not in line with the abovementioned statement.
Critical Success Factor: Metrics, Monitoring and Control
The change management framework should contain an approach for controlling and monitoring the project, measuring the results and ensuring quality.
AB emphasizes that the communication efforts are monitored by assessing them for each separate state (source: AB). In addition, AB provides a general approach for controlling the change by providing a way to plan and act during the change (AB). In AB, there is a great focus on controlling the activities, which involve the management of the soft areas of change, like the communication (source: AB). In addition, a general approach for monitoring is provided, but it does not take into account the measurement of results or ensures the quality during a change effort.
Critical Success Factor: Consolidation
The theoretical review presents that a change management framework should capture knowledge and learning’s of the project and have an approach to institutionalize the change.
AB offers no integrated way of consolidating or institutionalizing change. It does offer a design to finally refreeze the change by means of communication efforts (source: AB)
Conclusion Critical Success Factors AB
Table 10: Overview of not adequately addressed CSF’s in AB
Critical Success Factor AB
1A/B Leadership
A diagnosis of leadership with an emphasis on competences & skills, behavioral matters, power and/or authority
Low
An approach to develop required leadership competences & skills, behavior, and accountability
Low
3A/B The context of change
A diagnosis of market developments & legislation Low A diagnosis of organizational culture and internal systems Low
4A/B Awareness, Dissatisfaction & Urgency
A diagnosis of issues or problems causing the need for change Low An approach to develop awareness, dissatisfaction with current
state and sense of urgency among stakeholders
Low
5B Clear vision & rational
An approach to make the vision measurable Low
7A Communication
A diagnose of information needs and issues of stakeholders Low
8B Organizational readiness
An approach to address the issues identified by the diagnosis of history of change and forces of change
Low
11A Clear empowerment
A design to empower the project team Low
12A Change management structure & delivery
An change management structure that combine hard approaches focusing on design of new structures, systems and procedures and soft approaches emphasising rewards and training
Low
13A Short-term wins
An approach to developing short-term wins with a focus on visibility, unambiguous & meaningfulness
Low
14C Metrics, Monitoring & Control
An approach for ensuring quality of the project Low
15A/B Consolidation
An approach for capturing the created knowledge and learning’s of a project
Low An approach to institutionalise the change into the organization Low
3.5 Conclusion
Table 11: Overview of not adequately addressed CSF’s in AB & EE
Critical Success Factor AB EE
3B The context of change
A diagnosis of on organizational culture and the internal systems Low Low
4B Awareness, Dissatisfaction & Urgency
An approach to develop awareness, dissatisfaction with current state and a sense of urgency of stakeholders
Low Low
8B Organizational readiness
An approach to address the issues identified by the diagnosis of history of change and forces of change
Low Low
11A Clear empowerment
A design to empower the project team Low Low
13A Short-term wins
An approach to designing short-term wins with a focus on visibility, unambiguous & meaningfulness
Low Low
The tables above shows that in five different areas both change management frameworks do not adequately address the CSF. This means that the change management frameworks do not address approximately one-third of the CSF’s. The above table does not indicate that all other CSF’s are adequately addressed, but only that these are covered by one or two change management frameworks.
PART 4. RESEARCH DESIGN & METHODOLOGY
In part two, various statements were produced that should be addressed in a change management framework to ensure performance of change management in projects. In part three, Energy company’s change management frameworks were analyzed for their congruence with these statements and five areas were identified that were not adequately addressed. In this paragraph, the research design and methodology of this study is presented.
4.1 Research objective
The purpose of this research is to provide in-depth knowledge about the influence of five not adequately addressed CSF’s of two change management frameworks on the performance of change management in a project of a multinational oil-company.
4.2 Research questions
To address this objective, the following research question is formulated.
How does the lack of incorporating various areas of CSF’s in Energy company’s change management frameworks influence the performance of change management?
The following questions are created to answer this research question. These sub-questions are based on the theoretical overview of CSF’s and the results of the change management frameworks analysis.
Area 1: The context of change:
1A) To what extent did the lack of diagnosing the organizational culture and the internal systems in the change management frameworks influence the performance of change management in the project?
1B) In what way did the lack of diagnosing the organizational culture and the internal systems in the change management frameworks influence the performance of change management in the project?
Area 2: Awareness, Dissatisfaction & Urgency:
2A) To what extent did the lack of addressing the awareness of change, dissatisfaction of the current state and the sense of urgency in the change management frameworks influence the performance of change management in the project?
Area 3: Organizational readiness:
3A) To what extent did the lack of addressing the history and forces of change in the change management frameworks influence the performance of change management in the project?
3B) In what way did the lack of addressing the history and forces of change in the change management frameworks influence the performance of change management in the project?
Area 4: Clear empowerment:
4A) To what extent did the lack of addressing clear empowerment of the project team in the change management frameworks influence the performance of change management in the project?
4B) In what way did the lack of addressing clear empowerment of the project team in the change management frameworks influence the performance of change management in the project?
Area 5: Short-term wins:
5A) To what extent did the lack of designing short-term wins and addressing the features of these in the change management frameworks influence the performance of change management in the project?
5B) In what way did the lack of designing short-term wins and addressing the features of these in the change management frameworks influence the performance of change management in the project?
4.3 Case-study research
The analysis of Energy company’s change management frameworks provides the basis for the case-study analysis. The research of the two change management framework provides an overview of those CSF’s adequately addressed (score is high), fairly addressed (score is medium) and not addressed (score is low). As both change management frameworks are applied in the project (case-study), those that are not adequately addressed have the highest probability to negatively affect the performance of change management. Therefore, those areas of CSF’s that are not addressed (read emphasized) entailing a score of low- low, are researched in the case-study (see table 12 for criteria).
Table 12: Overview of criteria for case-study analysis
EE
HIGH MEDIUM LOW
AB HIGH No No No
MEDIUM No No No
