Other Types of Management

6.1 Information Management—Discussion Guide

Performance Indicator: Discuss the nature of information management

Slide 1 THINK ABOUT IT

Have you ever had a big decision to make?

• Could you make these decisions without knowing how much you’ll have to pay or what benefits you’ll receive?

• Even small decisions require you to have a certain amount of information first.

• Businesses face the same challenges when they have decisions to make.

• For this reason, information management is a vital part of any company’s success.

KEY CONCEPTS

Slide #2 Information management is the process of accessing, processing, maintaining, evaluating, and disseminating knowledge, facts, or data for the purpose of assisting business decision-making.

• A business’s overall information management program collects internal and external data, stores them, processes them into information, and presents them in a useful format.

• If something holds value for the organization, it is considered information and must be managed. This could include policies and procedures, payroll, personnel files, inventory, tax returns, and employee schedules.

Discussion #1: Ask students to share examples of information management they may perform in their daily lives.

Slide #3 Managing information appropriately is essential for business success. Here are several ways that information management helps business.

• It supports decision-making.

• It saves time and money.

• It helps businesses help serve customers more efficiently and effectively.

• It helps businesses maintain organizational consistency and credibility.

• It helps businesses comply with laws and regulations.

• It preserves organizational identity and history.

• It maintains continuity in case of a disaster.

Slide #4 All information that is retrieved through a company’s information management program should be retrievable, accurate, accessible to all the right people, up to date, complete, and useable.

• The following principles should be followed to make information management effective:

  • Set up information management consistently and follow organizational information management practices.

    • Managers must put policies and practices in place and make sure that employees are following them correctly.

  • Prioritize information management needs according to business needs.

    • The most pressing needs should be addressed first. If a business needs a program for inventory over an internal email system, the inventory program should be prioritized.

  • Integrate information management throughout the entire organization.

    • Departments should be able to communicate with each other easily and share information as needed.

  • Assign responsibility for information management.

    • Everyone in the organization is responsible for doing her/his part.

    • When employees follow procedures correctly each time, information management is a much easier task.

Slide #5 There are a number of challenges that come with maintaining information management for a business.

• Information management is misunderstood.

  • Many people don’t really understand what it is or what roles they should play in their companies’ information management programs.

• Information overload is a risk.

  • It is often hard for workers to distinguish between what information is important and what is not. This can waste a lot of time and resources.

• No cookie-cutter approach

  • What works for one company will not necessarily work for another.

• Varied expectations

  • It may be challenging for the information management department to meet individual needs and integrate a consistent program throughout the organization.

• Constant evolution

  • Companies can’t sit back and assume their current programs will continue to fit the bill. They must stay alert to information management needs and trends and be willing to adjust accordingly.

Slide #6 Managing information is not a risk-free endeavor for businesses. Risks involved with information management include:

• Being unprepared to face audits or lawsuits

• Dealing with privacy and security issues

  • These issues can include handling trade secrets or proprietary knowledge.

• Being unprepared for a disaster

• Going over on time for a budget

• Facing technology issues

Discussion #2: Ask students if they can think of examples of information management risks and how they would try to handle those risks.

Slide #7 As the business world changes and evolves, so does information management. Certain trends affect the way companies must approach this important task.

• Increased compliance law and regulations

  • Now more than ever, the government is cracking down on corporate dishonesty.

  • Companies must adhere to an increased number of compliance laws and regulations, and an appropriate information management program is a big part of that.

• Increased competition

  • Often, the business that reaches customers in the most effective and efficient way wins.

  • A good information management program is crucial for a business to serve customers efficiently.

• Increased number of electronic documents

  • The vast majority of companies’ information is electronic rather than physical.

• Increased distribution of workforce

  • Many employees no longer have permanent offices. Instead, they work from home or the road.

• Increased use of outsourcing

  • Many companies now outsource certain tasks, such as payroll and customer support.

  • Outsourcing saves money, but it can create more work for those in charge of information management.

  • Companies must make sure that outsourced information gets where it needs to be and that it remains secure.

6.2 Knowledge Management—Discussion Guide

Slide 1 THINK ABOUT IT

Think about all of the things that you didn’t learn in the classroom.

• Maybe your dad took you rock climbing and taught you everything he knows.

• Your sister showed you how to knit.

• You learned to play guitar through trial and error on your own.

• These are examples of knowledge.

• Knowledge is as important in the business world as it is in your personal life.

KEY CONCEPTS

Slide #2 To define knowledge, you must first understand data and information.

• Data are raw facts and figures.

• They are unorganized and meaningless until someone or something processes them into a useful form.

• On its own, data don’t mean anything. Information is data in useful form.

  • It is identifiable, distributable, and manageable.

• Knowledge is the intangible combination of human experiences, insights, and intuitions (“gut feelings”) that provide structure for interpreting and reacting to the world around you.

  • To put it simply, knowledge is not information—it is understanding how to use information.

• Explicit knowledge is knowledge that can be easily communicated to others or readily captured and stored in some type of document or database.

• Tacit knowledge is knowledge an individual possesses that is difficult to transfer to others either verbally or in writing.

  • Tacit knowledge is gained through some sort of experience. In the context of the business world, tacit knowledge often requires hands-on training.

Discussion #1: Ask students to share examples of explicit or tacit knowledge they may have experienced or come across in school. How about in their daily lives?

Slide #3 Knowledge management is the process of creating, collecting, sharing, identifying, organizing, and using knowledge and knowledge sources for the benefit of the organization or business.

• Information management is the process of accessing, processing, maintaining, evaluating, and disseminating information for the purpose of assisting business decision-making.

  • Information management does not involve the creation and sharing of knowledge as knowledge management does.

• Information management could be carried out by software programs and databases with little human interaction or involvement.

• Knowledge management requires human contribution and communication.

Slide #4 Organizing and managing knowledge helps a company’s top managers gain important insights into the value and weaknesses of organizational knowledge, the efficiency and effectiveness of the business’s internal processes, and changes and developments in the market.

• Benefits to business owners

  • A business owner or administrator might decide to implement knowledge management for the following reasons:

    • To ensure that the knowledge within their organization is available for use and not wasted

    • To create and contribute new knowledge for organizational use

    • To promote an organizational culture for learning and sharing

    • To provide opportunities for growth, improvement, and expansion

    • To efficiently use knowledge to become more innovative and competitive

    • To become more collaborative

• Benefits to customers

  • With successful knowledge management strategies, employees can help customers by being better able to identify and satisfy customer needs, answer customer questions, solve customer problems, and provide customers with the best, most up-to-date knowledge about the company’s goods and services.

• Benefits to employees

  • Knowledge management also helps employees.

    • It makes their jobs easier by allowing them to access valuable knowledge that helps them fulfill their work tasks and serve customers efficiently.

    • It also helps make employees more satisfied and productive.

    • Knowledge management activities should be incorporated into employees’ everyday job duties.

    • Contributing and retrieving knowledge should be simple tasks for employees.

Slide #5 Here is how businesses can successfully implement knowledge management.

• Selecting a knowledge leader or manager

  • Every organization needs to designate someone to supervise its knowledge management efforts.

  • This knowledge leader will be responsible for overseeing the knowledge team and knowledge bases, and s/he will make sure that organizational knowledge is shared effectively.

• Creating a knowledge team

  • A good knowledge team consists of people from a wide cross-section of organizational departments.

  • The knowledge team uses its skills and expertise to assist the knowledge leader in implementing an organization-wide system of knowledge management.

• Developing knowledge bases

  • The logical place to store knowledge is a computer database—or a group of databases—that can easily be managed and updated.

  • An organization’s knowledge bases might include expertise, business processes, market developments, customer feedback, and customer profiles.

• Sharing information in meetings

  • These can be either in person or over video conference.

Slide #6 Sometimes, knowledge management can be challenging.

• Below are some of the challenges businesses face while maintaining their knowledge management programs:

  • An organizational culture that does not value knowledge sharing

  • An organizational culture that is resistant to change

  • An inability of top managers to recognize the long-term benefits of knowledge management

  • A lack of time and resources to devote to knowledge management

  • Too much focus on organizing knowledge and not enough on creating/gathering knowledge

  • An unwillingness from employees to share their knowledge with others

Discussion #2: Are there other challenges students can think of for maintaining knowledge management?

Slide #7 Companies that successfully manage knowledge can enjoy other benefits.

• Those benefits include:

  • Faster problem-solving

  • Reduced costs

  • Greater efficiency and productivity

  • Improved products and services

  • Improved customer service

  • Increased customer satisfaction and retention

  • Increased employee satisfaction and retention

  • Greater ability to adapt quickly to market changes

Slide #8 Knowledge management is of growing interest to modern organizations due to a number of influencing factors.

• Information overload

  • Information overload creates a sort of chaos in which knowledge can become lost.

  • Organizations that recognize the value of knowledge want to manage it properly so that it doesn’t go to waste.

• Specialization

  • Jobs are becoming more and more specialized.

  • This means that an employee may focus on and become proficient in a very narrow field of expertise.

  • If a worker is a specialist in just one area, s/he will likely encounter situations in which s/he needs to access the knowledge of other workers within the organization.

• Turnover

  • Modern employees spend less time in one job position (or at one company) before moving to another than they used to.

  • A successful knowledge management system can be an organization’s best hope for bridging the gap between outgoing and incoming employees.

• Globalization and competition

  • Effective organizational knowledge can give businesses the edge they need to survive in a hyper-competitive global economy.

• Innovation

  • Businesses need to offer products that customers need and want, which includes creating new and better products over time.

• Enhanced value

  • Companies can use knowledge management to enhance their current and existing products.

  • If customers come to a business for a certain reason, that can guide services for customers provided by the business.

Project Management

Slide 1 THINK ABOUT IT

Projects are important in the business world.

• Many products that are now familiar to you were once just “projects.”

• Think about your favorite book(s), a new TV show, or your phone.

• Think even bigger—an Olympic site or an amusement park.

• At one point, all of these things were simply ideas or “works in progress.”

KEY CONCEPTS

Slide #2 A project is a short-term undertaking that creates a unique good or service.

• Each project generates a specific deliverable, or quantifiable result.

• This deliverable may be anything—a new product, an improved product, or a new process for creating goods or services.

• There are three main elements to a project: resources (everything needed to complete the project), a schedule (the time frame in which a project must be done), and the outcome (the result the project was created to deliver).

• A project is not the same as business operations, or the day-to-day activities needed for continued business functioning.

• Projects can create long-term results, but by definition, a project is still a short-term endeavor.

• Business operations are permanent.

• Likewise, a project has a definite beginning and a definite end.

• Business operations are ongoing and are meant to keep the business functioning on a day-to-day basis.

• There are several types of projects:

  • Derivative projects enhance, add to, or extend existing projects.

  • Platform projects are a major departure from existing projects.

  • Breakthrough projects are risky business endeavors that use entirely new technology.

  • R&D projects take on new visions or pursuits for a business.

Discussion #1: Ask students to share examples of projects based on the definition above. Can they think of examples in their everyday life?

Slide #3 Project management includes skills, tools, and processes used to plan, execute, and control the elements of a project.

• The goal of project management is to ensure the efficient, effective completion of a project with respect to quality, schedule, and budget.

• Each project needs a project manager, the person responsible for overseeing the project from beginning to end.

  • S/He defines and controls the project’s scope, or what the project will and will not do.

• The project manager also communicates with stakeholders, people who may have interest or investment in an outcome of a project.

• The project manager also allocates project resources and manages the project budget.

• Other responsibilities include identifying and planning for risks and potential changes and ensuring the quality of the project’s deliverable.

Slide #4 Businesses may enjoy many benefits of effective project management.

• These benefits include the ability to:

  • Make more profitable decisions.

  • Evaluate a project’s feasibility.

  • Accomplish goals within a specified time frame.

  • Implement greater quality control.

  • Emphasize teamwork.

  • Communicate effectively with project participants.

  • Improve customer satisfaction.

  • Adapt and be flexible.

  • Become more efficient.

Slide #5 Businesses also face challenges in implementing project management.

• These challenges include:

  • An unqualified project manager

  • Poorly defined project goals

  • Inaccurate estimates of needed resources

  • Difficulty of assessing risk

  • Lack of human resources

  • Poor communication

  • Disagreements among team members and stakeholders

  • Difficulty monitoring project changes

  • Scope creep, a problem where the scope of a project gets bigger and bigger

• Though each project is different, they are all constrained by three common factors—scope, time, and budget.

  • Scope refers to what the project’s deliverable includes and—more importantly—does not include.

  • Time refers to the project’s schedule and deadline.

  • Budget refers to the cost of the resources required for accomplishing the project’s goals.

• Project managers often visualize these three constraining factors as a triangle with equal sides.

  • If any one of the factors changes, the other two will be affected as well.

  • If a project’s scope expands, its time frame and budget will likely need to expand, too.

  • Or, if a project’s time frame or budget decreases, its scope may need to become more limited.

  • In the center of the triangle is the concept of quality, which is affected by all three factors.

Slide #6 There are five stages of project management: initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing.

• In the initiating stage, the project starts as an idea.

  • Managers convene to discuss if the idea is feasible or worth exploring.

  • If it is feasible, a statement of work is created.

  • The statement of work is a document that includes a short overview of the project, a definition of the project’s scope, a description of the project’s potential risks, a list of the project’s deliverables, and a list of the project’s stakeholders.

  • A project manager will then be named, and the project begins.

• In the planning stage, a work breakdown structure (WBS) is created.

  • The WBS details the breakdown of the project’s work into manageable parts, and outlines criteria for determining the successful completion of these parts.

  • The project manager will set benchmarks and roles for all group members and establish the channels of communication.

• In the executing stage, the work on the project is carried out.

  • Project managers will assemble a team and acquire resources, complete required tasks, and guide the team as they complete work.

• In the monitoring/controlling stage, the project manager is watching the project progress and keeping it on task.

  • This stage happens at the same time as the executing stage.

• The closing stage is when the project’s work has been completed.

  • A lessons-learned document should be created to note what went well, but also what did not work.

  • It will be kept for future reference to inform future projects.

  • The closing stage is also time to celebrate and recognize the hard work that was completed.

Discussion #2: Ask students to give examples of their own projects outside of school that they worked on. How did they make a plan? How did they execute that plan? Did anyone help them while carrying out the plan?

Slide #7 As with almost all business processes, project management depends on the use of technology to be effective and efficient.

• Projects commonly require the use of standard business technology such as email, video chatting, and intranet.

• In addition, in recent years, hundreds of comprehensive project management software options have become available.

• This software includes tools for every aspect of a project, from scheduling to budget to risk.

  • Examples include Wrike, Asana, Microsoft Project, and Basecamp.

  • These tools make it easy for project teams to collaborate and communicate digitally, saving time and costs.

Risk Management—Discussion Guide

Slide 1 THINK ABOUT IT

Few things in business are certain.

• Consumer preferences, weather conditions, employee productivity, and many other factors that impact business can change almost overnight.

• To survive in this environment of unknowns, businesses must identify and face these possibilities and problems—these risks—head on.

• By doing so, a business can lessen risk’s harmful effects and better achieve organizational goals.

KEY CONCEPTS

Slide #2 Risk is the possibility of loss (failure) or gain (success) inherent in conducting business.

• All business risks are either pure or speculative.

• A pure risk brings the possibility of loss or no loss, but no gain.

• A speculative risk, on the other hand, brings the possibility of loss, no change,
  or gain.

• Organizations look to risk management to lessen or eliminate the impact of pure risks and to reduce the losses and increase the gains resulting from speculative risks.

• As a business activity, risk management involves the planning, controlling, preventing, and limiting of business losses, as well as enhancing possibilities
  for gain.

• Risk management doesn’t involve avoiding all risk; instead, it involves taking calculated risks that have the lowest possibility of loss and the highest possibility of gain.

• Risk management helps a business be proactive, not reactive, in facing risk, and it reduces uncertainty about the future.

• By reducing business losses, risk management also helps control costs, protect the business’s assets, and encourage the long-term survival and success of the firm.

Discussion #1: Ask students to share examples of when they have managed risk in their own lives. Are there times they declined to do something because of risk? What about something they accomplished, despite risk?

Slide #3 Risks are often categorized as hazard, financial, operational, or strategic risks.

• Hazard risks

  • Hazard risks are potential events or situations that can cause injury or harm to people, the property, or the environment.

  • Most pure risks fall into this category, since hazard risks have the potential to cause business losses, but not gains.

  • These kinds of risk can include tornadoes, earthquakes, fires, cybercrimes, and product recalls.

• Financial risks

  • Financial risks are possible events or situations that directly impact a company’s cash flow.

  • External financial risks that can have such an impact include inflation, interest rate increases, and credit downgrades, while inaccurate financial data, improper budgeting practices, and inadequate accounting processes are internal risks that could hurt the business’s bottom line.

• Operational risks

  • Operational risks make up a broad category of risks that are the result of employee actions, core processes, and daily business activities.

  • Some of these risks involve disagreements and/or problems with human resources, labor relations, suppliers, channel members, and company management.

  • Regardless of the amount of time that company executives devote to succession planning, for example, there is always some operational
    risk involved.

  • Other operational risks include poor product development, unreliable manufacturing equipment, and product shortages.

  • Another common operational risk, insufficient information management, can result in poor-quality data and information which, in turn, can lead to poor decision-making and a failure to achieve company goals.

• Strategic risks

  • Strategic risks typically have significant impact on the firm and have the potential to affect the execution of an organization’s long-term plans.

  • Many strategic risks involve damage to the company’s reputation as a result of brand erosion, fraud, negative publicity, threats posed by new competitors and/or new competing products, and technological innovations that make certain products obsolete.

  • Regulatory and political issues such as compliance requirements, employee protection laws, and environmental concerns can also result in strategic risks for the firm.

  • Finally, strategic risk arises from product demand increasing or decreasing due to changing customer wants.

Slide #4 Risk management critics have voiced a number of concerns over the years.

• First of all, these individuals claim that it is often difficult to determine who within a company is responsible for risk management efforts, and as a result, many risks are overlooked.

  • Also, because risk is constantly in flux, critics complain that any risk management plan that a business might create is potentially out of date as soon as it is developed.

  • These individuals also point out that risk management seems to focus on what could go wrong in every situation, rather than concentrating on how to make things go right.

  • Finally, risk management costs money that these critics believe could be better spent elsewhere on more profitable activities.

• Risk management supporters say risk management creates risk-aware cultures, not risk-averse ones.

  • They say it is worth investing in because it helps better align strategy and performance—maximizing profits and minimizing losses.

Slide #5 There are four basic risk management processes that every business should implement: risk identification, risk measurement, risk response, and risk monitoring control.

• Risk identification

  • Risk identification is the process that involves recognizing risks that could impact a business’s objectives and activities.

  • Risk management focuses on retroactive risks, which have occurred in the past, as well as prospective risks, which have not happened before but could occur in the future.

    • Retroactive risks are fairly easy to identify, and they are more common than prospective risks.

    • Things like incident logs, audit reports, customer complaints,
      staff surveys, and professional journals can help determine retroactive risks.

    • Prospective risks are a bit more difficult for businesses to identify because these risks have not happened yet.

    • If a business has not experienced a particular risk in the past,
      how will it know what new risks it may face in the future?

• Risk measurement

  • This is a risk management process that involves determining the potential severity of different risks.

  • Risk has two dimensions: impact and probability.

    • Probability is the likelihood that an event will occur.

    • The probability of a risk occurring is always somewhere between zero and 100%.

    • Impact, on the other hand, is the effect or influence of an event and can vary in terms of time, cost, and effects on health, human life, etc.

    • It is the combination of impact and probability that creates a risk’s severity.

  • A risk impact/probability chart can be used to measure potential risks.

    • The probability that a risk will occur is represented on one axis of the chart, and the potential impact of the risk is represented on the other.

• Risk response

  • Risk response is a risk management process that involves selecting the most effective ways to handle different risks.

  • Avoidance

    • A risk response strategy that involves choosing not to do something that is considered risky

  • Transference

    • A risk response strategy that involves moving the impact of risk to someone or something else

  • Mitigation

    • A risk response strategy that involves reducing or controlling the impact of a risk if it occurs

  • Acceptance

    • A risk response strategy that involves accepting a risk’s consequences because the potential payoff is higher than the losses

• Risk monitoring and controlling

  • This risk management process involves determining the effectiveness of current risk-response strategies and tools, tracking existing risks, monitoring new risks, and developing responses and workarounds for previously unidentified risks.

Slide #6 Enterprise risk management takes a bird’s-eye view of risk management.

• The goal of enterprise risk management is to evaluate any potential risk a business could face.

• These risks could either benefit or harm the business.

• The purpose is to understand how any and all risk can affect a business.

• Enterprise risk management is different from standard risk management because the plan is developed and managed by the business’s management, not just a designated risk manager.

• In other words, it is a top-down approach.

• The risks identified in the plan are constantly monitored to establish if the benefits or dangers to the business have changed.

Discussion #2: Ask students if they can give examples of positives to an enterprise risk management system. What about negatives?

Innovation, Learning, and Change—

Slide 1 THINK ABOUT IT

Think about the Wright Brothers.

• They didn’t just learn how to fly a plane overnight.

• It took them about four years to have their first successful flight.

• It took them a lot of learning and experimentation to finally create a machine that could fly.

• Just like the Wright Brothers, you’ll see below how learning and knowledge can lead to
  new innovation.

KEY CONCEPTS

Slide #1 Knowledge is the intangible combination of human experiences, insights, and intuitions that provide structure for interpreting and reacting to the world around you.

• It is accumulated over time and can be difficult to measure. It is something every person possesses.

• Learning is the accumulation of knowledge.

  • It is a continuous process.

• Think of knowledge as something that can be possessed by a person.

  • Learning is then the way someone can add to those possessions.

  • Learning adds to knowledge.

Discussion #1: Ask students to share examples of things they might have become knowledgeable about over time. Is it a hobby? A game they like to play? A sport?

Slide #2 Organizations need to change for a variety of reasons.

• Change is the ability to transform or make different to alter the form, nature, content, or future course of something.

• An organization might need to change because their environment is changing.

  • Customers might want a different product or service.

  • There could be new regulations from the government, or maybe challenging economic times.

  • The business landscape could also change, either because some businesses close, or because of acquisitions.

  • There could simply be new technology that leads to new possibilities.

  • Businesses and organizations need to be able to adapt to all of these possibilities.

Slide #3 Change in the workplace can be difficult, but it can be done responsibly.

• A lot of responsible change management includes communication.

  • Allowing employees to provide feedback before a big business decision is made could be one way to responsibly make a change.

• Often, however, it’s not that simple.

• Change can be stressful and make employees feel nervous about their jobs, especially during a merger or acquisition.

• Management should be honest and transparent about changes as they happen.

  • Stress can be higher in the workplace during large changes.

  • That could lead to employees being less engaged in their work, and possibly missing time from the workplace.

  • This could also lead to increased employee turnover, which would affect the knowledge pool of an organization, and could affect the learning and growth of other employees.

• Trust, the ability to rely on the character, integrity, or truthfulness of something or someone else, is a big part of managing change.

• If employees trust their business and managers, employee morale is generally higher.

• Change can also be a good thing. It can mean that a business is growing and adapting to the modern world, which is also always changing.

Slide #4 Because learning is a constant process, businesses that embrace expanding learning and storing knowledge have the tools to be successful at innovation.

• Innovation is the creation or discovery of something new, such as a new product, strategy, or process.

• Innovation can be as simple as improving existing products or streamlining communications between departments in a business.

  • It could also be something like this: one employee can share what s/he is learning as s/he works with her/his coworkers, which can lead to the development of best practices and entirely new ideas.

• Businesses can facilitate learning and expanding knowledge by giving resources for professional development.

• Employees can then bring back what they learned to their business and apply those new skills to current business practices.

• Or, a business could set aside time for employees to share their work or processes with each other to encourage innovation.

  • Being innovative also means having to accept failures, as not all ideas will work out the way they are planned.

Slide #5 Innovation through learning can help businesses better help their customers.

• That alone can lead to a better working environment.

• It can also lead to better problem-solving, flexibility, profits, competition, creativity, more knowledge, better morale, and higher productivity.

Change Management—Discussion Guide

Slide 1 THINK ABOUT IT

Imagine moving to a new city.

• You would probably research things about your destination, like where you may want to live, or what you may want to do for fun once you move.

• You would definitely look at every aspect of what living in that new city might be like before you invested in moving there, right?

• This process of learning is similar to what businesses might go through when trying to make changes inside their own organizations.

KEY CONCEPTS

Slide #2 Change management is the plan or strategy that a business or organization uses to put changes into place.

• The purpose of change management is to make the changes as least disruptive to regular business as possible, while doing it in an efficient and effective manner.

• Change management helps businesses have a strategy when trying to put a change into place.

  • It opens up communication between employees and management.

• Effective change management is useful for organizations because it can help management put in place a consistent strategy for each change made within an organization.

Discussion #1: Ask students to share examples of when they had to make a big change in their life. What did they do to prepare for it? Why did they make those preparations?

Slide #3 There are many benefits to change management.

• Better communication

  • Change management encourages managers to share information on changes with employees.

  • It also allows for employees to provide feedback.

• Increased productivity

  • Employees feel more engaged if they are informed. Providing details eliminates confusion and stress.

• Better planning

  • Organizations can plan better if they have a strategy in place for how to implement change.

  • It can also help reduce costs.

• Better customer relations

  • The more controlled and effectively managed a change is, the better it is for customers, who are coming to an organization for a good or service.

• Reduced risk

  • The more planning is done during a change, the better off an organization will be to implement it successfully.

Slide #4 There are different considerations that need to be applied to individuals and the organization in a change management plan.

• Individuals are the employees working inside the organization, and the organization is made up of all the employees of a business.

• Individual employees can be severely affected by changes within an organization.

  • An employee’s responsibilities may be changed, or maybe s/he will be working with new people.

  • The change could also lead to layoffs.

• A change management plan can be successful if managers consider how individuals may react to a plan and work with those individuals to lessen their concerns.

  • Communication and employee involvement in decision-making are ways to make employees more comfortable with a change.

  • It is also helpful to give employees time for learning new responsibilities and developing new routines for those responsibilities.

• Organizational change management considers the whole organization during the change management process.

  • Communication of changes needs to be carried through the entire organization.

  • Changes could mean introducing new strategies, products, or skills and technology to employees’ work.

  • This type of change could mean restructuring departments.

  • In individual or organizational changes, plans need to be in place before any changes are made.

  • This will help ensure changes can be made successfully.

Slide #5

• Enterprise change management is a form of change management that embraces an entire culture of change within an organization.

  • The goal is to make organizations comfortable in making changes with the belief that it will make the organizations more competitive and efficient in the long run.

  • This is accomplished by encouraging all levels of employees—from executives to entry-level workers—to embrace change.

Slide #6 Prosci, an organization that specializes in change management, developed the ADKAR from implementing successful change management.

• ADKAR stands for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement.

  • In order for a change to be managed and implemented successfully, management must be aware of the need for the change; possess a desire to make the change, knowledge of how to make the change, and the ability to make the change; and reinforce the change once it occurs.

• The ADKAR framework is split into three phases.

  • The first phase includes awareness and desire.

    • In the first phase, managers/administrators identify the need for the change and determine if there is support for that change.

  • The second phase is the transition phase.

    • This is where knowledge is gathered on how to effectively carry out the identified change, as well as developing the ability and skills to put that knowledge into practice in day-to-day business operations.

  • The third phase is the future phase and involves the reinforcement of the skills, processes, and work required for and resulting from the new change.

    • The goal of the reinforcement step is to sustain those skills and knowledge for the long term.