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Change models Essay Scenario Planning: Supplementing Traditional Strategic Planning It is clear the rate of change in todays work environments has been aggravating with more emphasis nowadays on smaller teams, incremental and rapid delivery, faster payback, and frequent project status reporting. This acceleration has instigated uncertainty that forced organisations to start supporting their strategic planning with a longer term perspective of planning called scenario planning or scenario thinking/analysis. Scenario Read More A Simple Method to Split a WordPress Post into Multiple Pages One of the most effective ways to increase the number of page views and decrease the bounce rate of your site is by splitting your long posts into several pages. In the first part of the article, you will learn in 2 steps how to split a post in WordPress using the codex function wp_link_pages() and the tag. In the second Read More Boosting Your WordPress Sites Performance By Enabling GZIP Compression Ever heard of GZIP? It is a simple software application that compresses/decompresses files based on an algorithm named DEFLATE. It works by finding similar strings in a text file and replacing them temporarily to make the overall file size smaller which would drastically improve the performance of your website. The algorithm perfectly works with CSS and HTML filetypes which typically Read More Improving Quality of Project Estimation It is clear that estimating a project is important for the project manager to determine how long the project would take, to figure out how much the project would cost, to decide whether the project is worth doing, to measure variances against the baseline plan, and to take corrective actions. However some project managers nowadays tend to put minimum effort Read More Avoiding Common Pitfalls of High Performance Project Teams Previously in one of my earlier articles, I discussed the key qualities required for a project manager to be effective in building a high performance project team. Believe it or not, though high performance project teams can produce incredible outcomes, there still remain some serious pitfalls that project managers need to be aware of in order not to fall victims Read More Contract Management Must-Knows For Project Managers Contract management constitutes a major component of a project procurement system. Most work done nowadays on projects involves dealing with contracts or has a contractual nature. Although some companies have purchasing departments that specialize in procurement, one of the basic knowledge and skills of a project manager is to be able to read and manage contracts. This post basically discusses Read More Understanding And Managing Your Boss The idea of â€Å"managing your boss† may sound quite unusual for some managers, considering the widespread adoption of the traditional top down management  approach in most organizations. Even though talented and aggressive managers nowadays carefully control and administer their subordinates, services, and products, they might reveal, on the other hand, a passive stand with their bosses (Gabarro and Kotter 1993). Read More Changes in Project Management Processes Between PMBOK 4 And PMBOK 5 This post presents a tabulated summary of diff erences in the names, inputs, tools, and outputs of project management processes between PMBOK 4 and PMBOK 5. Note that terms in Red which exist in PMBOK 4 have been removed or replaced in PMBOK 5, terms in Blue have been newly added into PMBOK 5, and terms in Black have not Read More Critical Analysis of Porters Five Forces Model Information Technology (IT) Industry In order to appropriately formulate their corporate strategies and distinctively compete in the market, organizations are in a need for a framework that would help them in understanding industry structure and in overcoming rivalry. This essay aims at discussing, analyzing, and criticizing Porter’s Five Forces model using a wide variety of academic literature. The first part introduces the model, discusses Read More Key Qualities For An Effective Project Manager This post describes key qualities needed for an effective project manager. It discusses the differences between leading and managing a project, explains the importance of managing stakeholders, describes how to gain influence by reciprocity, stresses on the significance of leading by example and managing by wandering around (MBWA), explores how to deal with the contradictory nature of work, and finally Read More 12345678910 Home ; Change Management ; Change Management Diagnostic Models – Case Study â€Å"Jamie’s Food Revolution† Change Management Diagnostic Models – Case Study â€Å"Jamie’s Food Revolution† April 14th, 2012 Leave a comment Go to comments This essay presents three different diagnostic models that serve as a change management guidance for organizations by helping them in considering what factors are important for this change and how these factors are interrelated together (Nadler and Tushman 1980). The main purpose of these models is to help in reducing the complexity of the change situation by identifying what change variables require attention by the organization, what sequence of activities to adopt in dealing with the change situation, and how the various organizational properties are interconnected (Ian Palmer 2009). The essay compares and contrasts Burke-Litwin, Six-Box Weisbord, and Congruence models, pinpoints their strengths and weaknesses, and then applies one of these models to the case study â€Å"Jamie’s Food Revolution†. The first organizational and causal model to be discussed is the Burke-Litwin model. The strength of this model lies on the fact that it consists of twelve key variables, at three different organizational levels (external environment, leadership, strategy, and culture at the total system level; structure, management practices, systems and climate at the group or work unit level; and tasks, motivation, needs, and values at the individual level)(Burke and Litwin 1992). The variables on the top have a stronger influence on systems than the bottom variables (Leadersphere 2008). The model is based on an open systems principle whereby it considers the external environment as an input and the organization performance as output with a bidirectional feedback between them (Jackie Alexander Di 2002). What makes this model unique is that it houses almost all of the variables considered in the 7-S, Six-Box Weisbord and Congruence models (Burke and Litwin 1992) and it also stresses on the point that changes can lead to transformational organization-wide (leadership, strategy, and mission) as well as internal transactional (management, structure, system, individual needs, tasks) dynamics which altogether affect individual and organization performance (Jackie Alexander Di 2002). Burke and Jackson (1991) demonstrated the scenario of a successful merge between two companies, SmithKline and Beecham, which concentrated on establishing a unique culture with a loose-tight behavioral leadership, and on adopting a customized Burke-Litwin model to increase its performance. This model however may impose some complexity in its usage. Dana (2004), in her study to apply this model to a quality management system, has limited her research to specific variables for this model because of the big amount of information required to be gathered on each variable. Also, a quantitative study done by Jackie Alexander Di (2002) on the model’s variables failed to reveal the hidden communication variable, which shows that this model may not foresee all organizational problems. The second model to be discussed is the one developed by David Nadler and Michael Tushman, the Congruence model. Like the Burke-Litwin model, the pragmatic Congruence model is based on the open system’s principle (input environment, transformation, output)(Nadler 1982) and deals with the organization as a whole dynamic and social system where the purpose lies in realizing the state of congruence among the various subparts or components of the organization (Nadler and Tushman 1980). The measure of organizational effectiveness depends on the total degree of congruence as a normative approach to ensure fit among these components (Hatton and Raymond 1994). Nevertheless adopting this model is dynamic (should be changed with time) and poses a lot of challenges including the management of political dynamics, the anxiety created by the change, and the control of the transition state (Nadler and Tushman 1989). Additionally, it requires special care to ensure appropriate fit between strategy and environmental conditions, as well as among the four organizational components (work, people, formal structures and process, and informal structures and processes). Burke ; Litwin (1992) state that the number of items to be matched for congruence is great and the Congruence model fails to provide a mechanism for determining which of these items are important and what level of congruence yields desirable results. For further help, several studies have presented major efforts to discuss strategies to attain the maximum congruence. Hatton and Raymond (1994) concluded with several postulates that describe how congruence can be achieved by interrelating together specific dimensions of these key variables (environment, strategy, technology, task, structure, and individual). Also, Nadler and Tushman (1989), in their view of organizations as political systems, posit that there is no general way for dealing with change. They stressed that managers should understand these political dynamics of change by diagnosing the organization’s strengths and weaknesses, developing a clear vision, creating energy within teams, and possessing active leadership, thus achieving the congruence between strategy and environmental conditions, as well as among the four organizational components.