BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Business Management

Business Management

Introduction

Managing change is increasingly relevant for all industries and companies, and many observers predict that change will only continue to increase (Kotter, 1996; Pendlebury et al., 1998). However, companies are often unable to manage change well, and success rates as low as 20-30 per cent have been quoted (Strebel, 1998; McCune, 1999). A successful change project demands competent change management. This involves not only a charismatic project manager but also alignment of purpose of everyone involved with the overall change initiative (Kotter, 1996). This alignment needs to be both internal within the project team, and external between the project and the rest of the organisation. According to Molden and Symes (1999), if teams consist of individuals aligned with one another, and if they are aligned with the goals of the organisation, then their fullest potential can be deployed. Alignment allows the maximum energy and effectiveness to flow into achieving the desired outcomes. Problems caused by misalignment include: confusion; waste of time, money and opportunity; diminished productivity; de-motivation of individuals and teams; internal conflicts and power struggles and ultimately project failure. Misalignment results in time and energy spent doubting, conspiring, guessing or gossiping when that same energy could be deployed in moving an organisation forward. The literature on change management and project management has been well populated with topics related to aspects of alignment. For example, creating a guiding coalition, communicating a change vision, and changing the underlying systems or structures that undermine the change vision (Kotter, 1996); stressing the importance of involving the employees affected by a change in the change process (Axelrod, 2000; Carnall, 1999) ensuring there is participation and communication (Spiker, 1995). We believe that combining these principles with organisational alignment models such as Molden and Symes' (1999) Universal Alignment Model, and Labovitz and Rosansky's (1997) model, will provide a useful model to guide managers faced with establishing and maintaining project alignment. This paper combines literature review with the findings from two industrial case studies to develop a model for establishing and maintaining alignment of purpose for business change initiatives. The model can be used by means of a prescriptive checklist intended to help project leaders increase their chances of success in implementing change.

Research Methodology

There are two strands to our research: a synthesis of the literature across the diverse fields of change leadership, project management, and organisational alignment; and a parallel analysis of two industrial case studies. The two case studies were of projects aimed at significant changes in a company's business processes. Projects A and B ran at the same time in the same group of companies, and were therefore, subject to the same approval criteria and executive oversight. However, Project A was a failure, while Project B was a success. Using the analysis of these cases, and a synthesis of the literature, we developed a Project Alignment Model, which is presented in this paper. Rather than treat the literature and the cases separately, we combine both in a discussion of the aspects of ...