The New Business Constant: Change

Organizations should anticipate the need to update their information and business processes in this dynamic business environment. Change in a broad sense is a planned or unplanned response to pressures and forces. The need to change is now the norm. With change comes the challenge of change management.
Managing change cannot be trivialized and must be considered while defining, developing, executing, and evaluating new ways of doing things. Change management is a long and tedious process. Although many changes can be planned and anticipated, often change brings unanticipated, even unintended, impacts and implications. Changes in political systems, economies, technology, and societal preference over the past 10 years have provided ample evidence of our dynamic world. As science fiction writer Isaac Asimov once explained:

It's easier to foresee the automobile than the traffic jam, the atom bomb than nuclear stalemate, the birth control pill than women's liberation. Put another way, the march of technology is inexorable and, to some extent, predictable. But the resulting corporate organizational and managerial ramifications are much harder to imagine.

Some individuals or oraganizations proceed with a change until the people involved with the change resist it. The problem with this reactive posture is that by the time the negative reaction is exhibited, it is typically too late to do anything about it. Those who develop and implement innovative business solutions should understand the impact of change on human behavior and principles for managing change.

Types of Organizational Change

Organizational change can be classified according to its scope and depth.

• Developmental change is the improvement of an existing system. If for some reason the current system does not measure up to its expectations, organizations make fine tuning-type changes to bring it in line with expectations.
• Transitional change is the implementation of a known new state. Current ways of doing things are replaced with a new process. The key here is that the old system is replaced with a new system and the new system is developed prior to implementation. This type of change typically involves several steps, such as design, development, pilot tests, and phased-in operations.
• Transformational change is the emergence of a new state. It is a radical change where you essentially trash what exists for something new, but what is new is not yet known. The new state becomes known over time as the organization reconceptualizes its mission, culture, critical success factors, form, and leadership.

Determining the type of organization change required is critical. Both the depth and complexity of implementation grow as you move from developmental, to transitional, to transformational change. Most information systems changes would be classified as developmental or transitional changes. Because of reporting requirements and management's constant need for information, rarely can an organization discard its current information systems and let a new system emerge out of the chaotic death of the old system.

Some important questions to ask when determining the type of change best suited for an organization include:

1. How far do we want to go? Is this too far or not far enough?
2. What type of result do we want: short term or long term?
3. How much change can the organization absorb in one change and cumulatively?
4. Can the changes contemplated be presented positively? If not, why?
5. What happens if we don't change?

Business Solutions, Change, and the Solution Professional, Accounting, Information Technology, And Business Solutions, by Holannder, Denna, and Cherrington, McGraw Hill