Managing Systems Change

The course unit offers a balanced (non deterministic) view about the human and organisational consequences of designing and implementing Information Technology Systems into contemporary public and private sector organisations in a global context.

1. Introduce the relationship between broad conceptual design of information systems, project team organisation, organisational and task analysis, and early evaluation of system consequences at both the organisational and individual level.

2. Introduce the user and organisational issues associated with developing information technology strategies and implementing change using a framework for evaluating systems against the human and organisational criteria for success.

3. Examine the broader context of organisational change to include generic change programmes, such as business process re-engineering and total quality management, as well as useful change facilitating techniques such as competitive benchmarking and balanced scorecard approaches.

1. Describe the human and organisational change issues associated with different design methods available for the creation of systems to be implemented within organisations.

2. Demonstrate an understanding of how to manage the process of stakeholder participation to win active support for systems change.

3. Describe methods for identifying and measuring the potential benefits of change to different stakeholder groups, as well as specifying systems to meet these opportunities.

4. Describe different approaches to designing both organisational structure and individual jobs in the context of change techniques such as business process re engineering, competitive benchmarking, and total quality management.

5. Contrast and describe different methods and controls for effective implementation of systems taking into account human, technical, and security factors.

Variants in system design methods; Traditional Systems Life Cycle; Structured Design methods ; Participative Design approaches; Local Technician Developed Systems; End User Development Systems.

User impact of different design approaches. General structure and policies for information technology management in organisations. Centralisation versus decentralisation of system development. End user support.

The structure of the design team: The customer-contractor relationship. Design by experts versus end user development. Policies for individual project management.

Effective teamwork. The context of leadership. Agenda for implementing change. Corporate culture and managing corporate politics. Blocks to problem solving and change.

Impact Analysis: Assessing the consequences of socio-technical options. Stakeholder mapping.

Principles for developing user requirements. Use of prototyping. User evaluation of systems. The conduct of evaluation studies. Managerial skills for effective organisational change: Diagnosing change, managing transitions; the coping cycle. Balanced scorecard approach.

Criteria for human acceptability and organisational requirements for systems. Managing major change: Business Process Re-engineering and impact on job design.

Forms of work organisation: Job rotation; job enlargement; job enrichment; autonomous work groups and empowerment. Incremental change: Role of competitive benchmarking. Total quality management programmes.

Human and organisational aspects of implementation: Organisational structures for implementation. Implementation strategies and the impact on user adaptation and learning. Training and user support. Risk analysis and security.

By written examination. The pass mark is 40%. Time allowed 3 hours. The question paper will contain: Section A – a mini case study with several compulsory questions for 50% of the total marks for the paper. Section B – requiring two questions to be attempted from four. These two questions will be for the remaining 50% of the marks.

The course is divided into five more or less equal sections. If students are offered the recommended 36 hours of formal tuition over, say, 10 weeks, then one would expect to spend about two weeks on each section. A typical module length is 12 weeks so this would leave a further two sessions, one for revision, and one for case study work/reading etc.

The focus and philosophy of this module is on change management of Information System projects and, thus the wider context of organistional culture and politics should be emphasised. It is NOT the intention of this module to emphasise, for example, "laundry lists" of stages in the systems analysis life cycle etc.

The idea here is to introduce the concept of an information system and the impact that the design and operation of the system has on organisational performance and behaviour. Chapter 1 in Laudon introduces the management, technology and organisational dimensions of information systems. Laudon Chapter 11 explains why building new systems is a process of organisational change with the ultimate aim of adding value through effective information systems support of its business plan. The core activities in the system development process are also introduced.

The Ken Eason text, chapter 3, introduces design methods from the point of view of degree of end user involvement, and chapter 11 introduces the context of policy making for information technology strategy, such as centralisation versus decentralisation, and responsibility roles for individual projects.

This section takes a further look at the different options for stakeholder involvement in the system- building process. Ken Eason, chapter 5, examines alternative design team structures and their organisational implications. Chapter 12 in Laudon takes an in-depth look at managing and supporting end-user development, prototyping and the implications, advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing. In chapter 13 of Laudon, aspects of software quality assurance, are covered as well as new approaches for promoting information systems quality. In chapter 5 of Carnall, blocks to problem solving and change are discussed, and this is followed up by consideration of change leadership issues in chapter 7.

The ethical, social, and political issues raised by information systems are well covered in Laudon chapter 5, with the more "hard core" (quantitative ) techniques for measuring the business value of information systems covered in chapter 11. Development of user requirements from a socio-technical perspective is covered in Eason chapter 6, with the conduct of user evaluation studies well covered in chapter 10. Diagnosing the need for change, and the nature of the individuals response to change programmes are covered in Cannall, chapters 9 and 10 respectively.

4. Design of User Tasks and Organisational Requirements

Chapter 11 in Laudon again provides a useful source of lecturing material relating to the establishment of organisational information requirements, and the risks and rewards that accompany organisational change. Radical change methods such as Business-Process-Reengineering are also covered here. Eason augments this with chapter 7 providing a socio-technical perspective on job design options, and different forms of work organisation. A sharper man-machine interface design focus is provided in chapter 8. Chaptcr 2 in Carnall also provides a coverage of different organisational structures, with chapter 4 looking at the nature of what constitutes a "learning organisation".

Laudon chapter 14, provided a focus on reasons for information system success and failure, as well as controlling risk factors in system implementation. Chapter 17 focuses on the role of controls in safeguarding information systems, as well as aspects of auditing information systems. These two chapters should provide the core content for this section. Tutors wishing to augment this may draw on Carnall chapter 11 where there is some discussion on cycles of change and Eason chapter 9 wl1ere different implementation strategies (such as Parallel Running and Phased Introduction) are discussed.

For maximum clarity Learning Outcomes as listed relate to same number Syllabus Content section. The table below indicates chapters in mandatory text(s) relating to sections of syllabus content as outlined in the tutors guidance note above.