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 NEW RULES
FOR A NEW AGE
As we were writing this chapter, we noticed an interesting
article in the Harvard Business Review entitled ‘IT doesn’t
matter’ (Carr, 2003). The writer suggested that IT is an infrastructure
technology, rather than a leading ... [full story]
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CHANGING
THE INFORMATION CULTURE
One of the difficulties with implementing new IT systems is
getting people to use them in the manner intended. There are many horror stories
of expensive IT investments that are never fully incorporated into daily
organizational life.
Does ... [full story]
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County planning office case study
The county planning department was overstretched and ‘in
crisis’. Plans were stacking up, and a three-month delay was the normal
experience of those submitting plans for approval. This was starting to become
untenable, as people in ... [full story]
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Combination
approach: PROGRESS methodology
The PROGRESS methodology for process improvement is also
offered by Mumford and Beekman (1994), and brings together the principles of
socio-technical design and the technology focus and efficiency emphasis of BPR
(see Figure 8.5). Key to this ... [full story]
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Socio-technical
design
The principles of socio-technical design are concerned with
getting a balance between:
the strategic vision of the organization;
the technology and the tasks needed to provide the product
or service;
the needs of the staff.
This school of thought stems from a systems ... [full story]
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BPR
BPR is one of the best known approaches to achieving
IT-based change in organizations. It was first set out in a book by Hammer and
Champy in 1993, entitled Reengineering the Corporation: A manifesto for
business revolution, and was received ... [full story]
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ACHIEVING
PROCESS CHANGE
IT-based change is about process change. It involves people
doing different things in different ways with different inputs and different
outputs. New or improved IT systems are brought in to either increase efficiency
or to allow innovation to ... [full story]
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The collaborative
role
In this case problem solving is a joint undertaking.
Consultants working in this mode apply their special skills to help clients
solve problems; they don’t solve problems for the client. The consultant and
client work to become interdependent. ... [full story]
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The pair of hands
role
Here the client sees the consultant as an extra pair of
hands. The client retains full control. The consultant is expected to apply
specialized knowledge to implement action plans towards achievement of goals
defined by the ... [full story]
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The expert
role
The consultant is the expert. The client has fully delegated
the authority to plan and implement changes to the consultant. Decisions on how
to proceed are made by the consultant on the basis of his or her expert ... [full story]
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THE NEED
FOR IT CHANGE MANAGERS
The days of the highly specialized in-house technical IT expert or
‘geek’ are probably numbered. Many IT solutions are off-the-shelf, and the teams
of analysts and developers which used to occupy in-house IT departments are ... [full story]
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THE ROLE
OF IT MANAGEMENT
IT management skills are critical to an organization’s
ability to incorporate the technologies that are ‘out there’ and use them to
best advantage. However, IT staff are often
left out of the core decision-making processes and ... [full story]
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Developing
guiding principles
How do senior managers ensure that IT investment decisions
are in line with the organization’s long-term strategy? The answer may be to
develop a set of guiding principles which govern IT investment decisions.
The ‘principles’ approach to IT is ... [full story]
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IT strategic
grid
First, it is important to decide what sort of contribution
IT makes to the organization’s strategy. This enables the senior management team
to gauge how much and what sort of attention the development and running of IT
systems ... [full story]
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STRATEGY
AND IT
It used to be that managers could delegate IT decisions to the
organization’s resident computer experts and they would simply go away and
decide how to design and build a solution. But now, the decisions being made can ... [full story]
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IT-based process change
OVERVIEW
IT has become a significant part of every person’s working
life. According to US economic analysis figures, companies are now spending an
average of 30 per cent of their capital expenditures on information technology
compared with 5 per ... [full story]
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Case study
description
This third case study illustrates the challenges and
opportunities offered by creating an employer brand. The organization in this
case study is a highly successful and dynamic global spirits and wine business
which has grown steadily through merger ... [full story]
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Summary of key
points arising from case study
Start from the business strategy. An employer brand only has
meaning when it is presented in the context of an overarching company
strategy.
Lead change from within the business to enhance success. In
the ... [full story]
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Getting started
The whole change started with a comprehensive strategy
review and the generation of a programme plan with specific projects covering
areas such as brand development, systems development, business lead generation
and defining the customer experience. This was kick started ... [full story]
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Case study
description
The case study concerns a financial services organization
that undertook a strategic review and decided that it needed to reinvigorate the
brand. With the previous case study we focused on gaining internal alignment to
the organizational service. This ... [full story]
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Summary of key
points arising from case study
It is important to create a sense of urgency and momentum
when a major cultural change is required. In this case study, the senior
management team made a strong start, and put in ... [full story]
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Extending the council’s capacity for community and
partnership working
Increasingly the role for all staff required greater
community engagement and partnership working. Although this was demanding both
on workload and skills it also offered greater learning, and interestingly for
some was ... [full story]
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More effective ways of working
There were many ways to improve council working, from making
meetings more productive and less time-consuming, through to mastering the
complexities of matrix management and having
effective information management systems. With the complexity of the council’s ... [full story]
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Moving to a more consistent performance and enabling
culture
There was wide recognition that the council was improving
its ability to manage performance, but many wished to see greater consistency
and general improvement. This meant a need to establish realistic targets ... [full story]
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A visible and congruent leadership and management
style
At all levels, but notably at middle and front line, there
were requests for clearer, bolder and consistent leadership. This was seen as
particularly being the challenge for political leaders and senior officers ... [full story]
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Clarity and impact of core values and direction setting on
service delivery
Everyone had accepted the council’s core values, but that
was perhaps because they were commonsensical and there was nothing in them that
anyone could contest. However there was scope ... [full story]
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Continually increasing customer and citizen focus
The passion to deliver the best possible service to both
external and internal customers, colleagues and partners was variable, with many
parts of the organization moving forward, but at an uneven pace. The various
self-inspection ... [full story]
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Case study
description
A large local authority was not functioning as efficiently
or as effectively as it wanted. It was not being fully responsive to the needs
of its citizens or its various communities of interest. We conducted an
organizational analysis ... [full story]
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Summary of key
points arising from the case study
Even if employees sense the need to change, and want to
change, this is not always enough. In this case study, people were asking for a
clear sense of direction. A clear ... [full story]
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CASE
STUDY ONE: ALIGNING THE ORGANIZATION
This case study sets out our analysis and recommendations for an
organization facing major strategic and cultural change. Some of these
recommendations were taken up, and some withered on the vine, but the process of ... [full story]
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Insist on
collective ownership of the changes
One common trap is to make the HR department the owners of
cultural change, while the CEO and the senior management team own the changes in
business strategy. This type of functional decomposition of ... [full story]
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Create a
community of focused and flexible leaders
On the one hand many people want clear, confident and
focused leadership during periods of change; on the other hand people also want
leaders who will reflect upon what is happening ‘on the ... [full story]
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Sections
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