cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

The applicationsAt the last minute we had to call in some consultants to work through thereadiness checklist with the various regional teams. This cost us quite a bit ofextra money that we had not budgeted for.I don’t think I have ever met such silent resistance. Until then, the regionaloffices had been allowed to report financial information in their own way. Tothem, the requirement to use the new system seemed very intrusive, and of nopractical value. I guess we had only really seen and explained the advantagesfrom a central point of view. If I did the same process again, I would take moretime to go through the ‘What’s in it for them?’ angle.Financial projects manager, IT companySTRATEGY AND ITIt used to be that managers could delegate IT decisions to the organization’sresident computer experts and they would simply go away and decide howto design and build a solution. But now, the decisions being made can affectthe whole business in terms of service and product possibilities, smoothrunning of day-to-day operations and opportunities for sharing information.Is it sensible to leave these decisions up to technical experts who do notalways have a full understanding of the organization’s vision and purpose?Companies can and frequently do end up with a range of incompatiblesystems that may never achieve an optimum configuration. This can takeyears to sort out. Or even worse, a significant component system may beunable to fulfil management’s long-term plans for organizational change,which may necessitate being able to segment data in different ways.But there is a problem with senior management getting closer to the ITdecision-making process. Davenport (1994) says, ‘General managers…usually don’t know much about computers. They may like the idea ofusing information technology strategically… But they seldom know howto translate their wishes into specific IT investments.’ How can this situationbe managed?IT strategic gridFirst, it is important to decide what sort of contribution IT makes to theorganization’s strategy. This enables the senior management team to284