Question

This week focuses on the creation of an implementation plan and associated change management. Think of an example where change was attempted but failed. Using the concepts presented in this week’s readings, discuss what contributed to the failure and what might have been done to prevent it.

Answer 1

Recently, our management introduced a new application on which business activities were to be performed. While the management did talk to us about the benefits of the new applications - it was speedy and more efficient, however, it failed to provide more than basic training. While some of the employees became at ease with the basic training provided, some of the employees were not very proficient and hence suffered the loss of efficiency and productivity for the next 3 months. The management ultimately had to decide to roll back the new application and revert to the old application to ensure that the productivity of the workforce doesn't get affected much.

The main cause of the failure in this scenarios is the management's inability to understand that not all employees have same set of skills and abilities. While some were quick learners, others required time and patience and a more intensive training program to adapt to the new application. Instead of putting all the employees in the same category and providing the same training, the management should have evaluated the epformnce of the staff after the training was completed to understand the problem. This could have helped it in reducing the impact of the change on the performance to a large extent.