Change Practices and Tools

As discussed, the growing complexity and changing nature of the organisation environment prompted organisations to seek more analytical and practical methods for managing change (Cao & McHugh 2005; Ginsberg 1988; Rahimifard & Weston 2007). Subsequently, there has been an evolution of organisation change practices aimed toward change control (Burnes 2004a; Cao & McHugh 2005; Ginsberg 1988). For example, Cao and McHugh (2005) adopted a systemic and multiple methods approach to organisation change. They focused on three organisational constructs; process, function and structure (incorporating authority lines, regulatory and resource controls), and culture, power and politics. Their approach consisted of managing objective (hard), and subjective (soft) factors (Cao & McHugh 2005). For instance, business process reengineering (BPR) and Total Quality Management (TQM) were considered appropriate for managing process change, while contingency and transaction cost economics were deemed suitable for managing organisation function and structure (Cao & McHugh 2005). The subjective factors - culture, power and politics - were dealt with using (unspecified) cultural and political change methods (Cao & McHugh 2005).

QMS, TQM, and Six Sigma, were programs implemented to control organisation compliance through universal best practices (Buchanan et al. 2005; Fredendall & Hill 2001). As discussed, the majority of these programs were considered too generic to be wholly effective (Buchanan et al. 2005; Fredendall & Hill 2001). A major weakness was the inability of these practices to accommodate an organisation’s operational uniqueness (Buchanan et al. 2005). Burch’s (1992) view was that these frameworks targeted process improvement rather than organisation change. Change programs were criticised because they were generally implemented with little understanding of the organisation environment and its operations (Cao & McHugh 2005). Carter (2008) suggested that communication, and training should be included in the organisation change assessment.

Communication was an important factor in ‘live’ and ‘mechanistic’ systems (Wiener 1961), and its relevance to the organisation has been firmly established (Emery & Trist 1965). Weiner’s work on cybernetics influenced a range of theoretical domains; natural and social sciences, organisation theory, and technology theory. Communication was seen as an essential component of organisation activity (Huber 1984; Simon 1997), with change communication viewed as a vital and fundamental organisation practice (Coulson -Thomas 2008; Levasseur 2001). The strategic placement of change agents within the organisation was an integral part of the change program. Change agents ensured change was widely communicated, anticipated and its impact understood (Carter 2008; Coulson-Thomas 2008). Burnes (2004a) argued that, this phenomenon was previously explored and tested through Lewin’s work on ‘group-base behaviour’. He added that, its recent resurgence was an attempt to understand organisation complexity, particularly in a change environment. Conceptual modelling was considered a vital component of organisation communication (Miner 1978; Jeske & Werner 2008).

The capacity of change programs to implement an overall change solution was considered questionable unless the objective and subjective factors were captured and analysed collectively (Cao & McHugh 2005; Lang & Zangl 2008). The implementation of QMS frameworks, for example, was seen as an attempt

to override organisation soft factors (Coulson-Thomas 2008). The capture of cognitive (soft) factors was a practice developed by Kurt Lewin in his analysis of social factors affecting organisation change (Carter 2008; Coghlan & Brannick 2004; Burnes 2004a). Since then, there have been numerous studies covering human cognitive factors, or organisation behaviour as it became known. Organisations adopted a variety of decision tools and DSS to redress the problem. Lang and Zangl (2008) stated that, in a change environment, sophisticated tools should be designed to capture both the ‘objective’ (hard) and ‘subjective’ (soft) factors. Similarly, Mathieson (2007) proposed that, a combination of technology theory and social science theory, specifically, automated modelling and analysis tools, would neutralise the decision process. In other words, applying incremental logic (cause and effect) to analyse each action derived from the decision process would help defuse soft factors (Mathieson 2007).

Coulson-Thomas (2008) recognised the failure of topical change programs - such as those discussed in this section - to adequately manage organisation change. He concluded that, successful change relied on logical and quality decisions, and measuring and communicating the impact of change would ensure the right course of action followed. Coulson-Thomas (2008) proposed that such a phenomenon could be achieved through an automated decision tool. The Dewhurst, Barber and Pritchard (2002) position was similar based on their assessment of EA simulations, which they saw as mostly inert. In their opinion, an effective organisation model should provide multiple domain perspectives while incorporating ‘real-time’ data analyses. Sensitivity analyses would enable real-time data extraction through add-on tools, object oriented local application processing (‘OOLAP’) for example, and extend model capability through report outputs (Dewhurst, Barber and Pritchard 2002). As noted, real-time model-based scenario building and sensitivity analyses have yet to be incorporated into EA or other frameworks. However the benefits of automated change tools have long been recognised (Mayer, Painter & Lingineni 1995).

It should be noted here that, within some quarters, change tools, change practices, and change frameworks were labelled as interchangeable terms. However, in order to differentiate between automated change tools and non- automated change practices, the following distinctions have been applied. First, automated change tools are defined under two categories; software that provides sensitivity analyses on primary data stored within a repository (database), and, software that provides model-based scenario building derived from secondary data inputs. Second, non-automated change practices are static frameworks, which includes; symptoms-causes-outputs-resources- effects (S.C.O.R.E.), strengths weaknesses opportunities threats (SWOT), Six Sigma, balanced scorecard, key performance indicators (KPI), TQM and QMS, to name but some.

Automated EA change tools included, but were not limited to, integrated enterprise modelling (IEM), method of object oriented business process optimisation (MO2GO) (Jankovic et al. 2007; Mertins & Jaekel 2006), applications integrated project (ATHENA IP), process organisation product (POP) and other methodologies (or data exchange tools) (Jankovic et al. 2007). These particular tools were product, order, and resource oriented but were also workflow or business process focused with the ability to store, exchange, and extract different organisational views (models) (Jankovic et al. 2007; Mertins & Jaekel 2006; Mertins & Jochem 2001). Although these tools enabled the automated derivation of model-based scenarios, they were not generic models, meaning, they were restricted by design to the operations of specific domains or industry types. In addition, these tools did not provide sensitivity analysis on real-time primary data, nor did they provide automated report outputs. A combination of both factors would enable all organisational parties, processes, systems etc. impacted by change to be captured and reported.