Please see attached file
Communication Plan exercise
We will revisit the IT Project Scenario one more time. This time, define a communication plan for this change. Some of the topics you should include in the communication plan are building awareness, unfreezing, reinforcement strategy (identifying rewards and consequences), providing metrics, and building a training plan. You should also define what you will communicate early and what you will communicate later in the transition.
The Scenario:
Change in an IT Project Scenario
You are a manager in the IT department and the CIO has assigned you to manage the transition to change out IT infrastructure and software. The organization is currently using MS Office, now moving everything to Google Suite. The organization hasn’t practiced good application portfolio management so there are multiple versions of MS Office being used and some of the departments have bought their own MS enterprise licenses. When Windows 7 was sunsetted a few years ago, the changes were not communicated well, and several departments lost key documents. There is no central repository for information, many documents are not backed up and some are on personal PC.
Current State
The operating system we have now is no longer supported. Licenses for software will no longer support, no upgrades, no tech support, have to invest in a new system. This will mean a major change in infrastructure and support for Office products.
The IT Organization Challenge
· This is a company that is based in Bellevue that started 5 years ago, created by 4 people doing similar work for a larger organization. They had a small office for a couple of years, then expanded and opened an office in Fremont last year. There are three people who moved to Portland and are trying to open an office there.
· When the company expanded, they didn’t add any layers of management, so team leaders are supervising a team of 30 people or more. The workspaces are open workspaces and the company uses the term “adaptative leadership” but this means that people must work things out for themselves. Some haven’t seen their supervisor in months.
· The CIO wanted to make sure this had enough time, so she chose October as the cutover month. There hasn’t been any project management planning to see how long this would actually take to implement.
· Most of the company uses Microsoft products. They use Outlook for email, SharePoint for document storage, and Skype for instant messaging and video meetings. Some workgroups have figured out how to use Microsoft Teams and have installed their own version using personal email accounts to set it up. There have been numerous complaints about SharePoint because each site looks different and there is no consistency from site to site.
· When the CIO brought you the idea, she said she wanted to try out a pilot this time. This was always brought up, but there was either no time or it got started but not finished.
Additional consideration for the IT implementation
· There has been a lot of debate about which department oversees training. Human Resources has sent out several memos that all training classes within the company need to be approved by HR. The Information Technology department went through a period of offering classes. Between complaints from HR and no one showing up, the IT department stopped any official technology training. Everyone knew that if you needed some training, you sent an email to Bob or Brenda at IT and they would stop by your desk and show you how it worked.
Purpose of this assignment: Good change management requires planning for communication to enable increased awareness, acceptance, and reduced resistance. The communication plan is built on the analysis and strategies developed in the stakeholder analysis. This applies the concepts of unfreezing, use of metrics, application of consequences and rewards, and training to promote change and encourage sustainability. There is also the concept of communication changes over the lifecycle of change to be considered. This document brings all these concepts together and proposes an overall plan to manage change in this complex example, which was based on a real-life scenario.
Criteria for success: The following characteristics are reviewed and a proposed plan to manage them is proposed:
· building awareness
· unfreezing
· reinforcement strategy (identifying rewards and consequences)
· providing metrics
· building a training plan
There should be at least one of these that includes actions early in the change compared to actions later in the change. If external quotes or sources are uses, they must include APA citation – note that is not a requirement, it’s more important that you relate to your own experience. Multiple spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes will reduce the score.
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