![\"\"](\"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/143\/2020\/03\/jeshoots-com-2vD8lIhdnw-unsplash-300x200.jpg\")
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Photo by\u00a0<\/span>JESHOOTS.COM<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0<\/span>Unsplash<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Our world is complex and ever-changing.\u00a0 As a result, organizations must continually adapt, including their project managers who must remain knowledgeable of current project management research and skilled in effectively applying it to their organization and industry\u2019s contexts.<\/p>\n I was recently involved in a project to shift a course’s formative testing from paper-based to online.\u00a0 This was a critical change because the final exam was administered online but students did not receive online testing practice throughout the course.\u00a0 The paper-based tests mirrored the test format of the final exam, but students were missing the online experience.\u00a0 Changing to online formative tests would allow students to feel more comfortable completing the online final exam and their grade would be more likely to reflect their content knowledge rather than their comfort level with the technology.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, if there were project and change management plans, they were not communicated to the teachers who were expected to administer the online tests.\u00a0 Training was rushed and IT support was minimal.\u00a0 At some campuses, the available technology was insufficient to administer the online tests.<\/p>\n There were multiple barriers to change in this project.\u00a0 The primary barrier was a lack of communication: both between management and teachers and among the teachers themselves.\u00a0 Another barrier was a lack of teacher buy-in and involvement.\u00a0 This reflects a lack of \u201corganizational readiness\u201d (Weiner, 2009).\u00a0 People are often resistant to change, even positive change, partly because it requires time and energy to learn something new.\u00a0 Teachers are no exception.\u00a0 They are often stretched to the limits with minimal time to complete their heavy workloads.\u00a0 It takes consistent and open communication from management, an important gesture of respect for others, to generate buy-in and support.<\/p>\n The technological insufficiencies were a significant physical barrier.\u00a0 Although organizational readiness focuses on organizations\u2019 psychological readiness for change, a change management plan that considered organizational readiness would have revealed that the teachers did not feel comfortable administering the formative online tests.\u00a0 Further analysis, perhaps with the \u201c5 Whys\u201d (Crowe, 2015) of project management, would have revealed the need for teacher training and updated hardware to ensure teachers had the skills and comfort level for organizational readiness.<\/p>\n Theories and models of project and change management are certainly helpful.\u00a0 However, across a broad range of organizations and industries, most projects fail completely or are challenged as that they are late, over-budget, and\/or missing some required functions or features (Watt, 2014, Figure 2.1).\u00a0 Do projects fail because management models are not used, as appears to be the case in my example?\u00a0 Or do projects fail because the models are applied incorrectly or insufficiently?\u00a0 Or do project managers attempt to use them but they do not transfer to today\u2019s fast-paced, uncertain, complex world?\u00a0 I believe all three cases exist. \u00a0The world is increasingly complex, and organizations are continually adjusting to change as technologies advance, and people and societies\u2019 needs and wants change.\u00a0 Project managers must understand both current research and their organization and industry’s unique context.\u00a0 Most importantly, they must be skilled at effectively integrating that knowledge for their projects to have the greatest chance of success.<\/p>\n References<\/p>\n Crowe, A. (2015, January 22). Using the 5 whys in project management [Blog post]. Liquid Planner. <\/em>Retrieved from https:\/\/www.liquidplanner.com\/blog\/using-5-whys-project-management\/<\/a><\/p>\n Conway, R., Masters, J., & Thorold, J. (2017). From design thinking to systems change: How to invest in innovation for social impact<\/em> [PDF file]. Retrieved from https:\/\/www.thersa.org\/globalassets\/pdfs\/reports\/rsa_from-design-thinking-to-system-change-report.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n Watt, A. (2014). Project management.<\/em> Victoria, BC: BCcampus. Retrieved from https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/projectmanagement\/<\/a><\/p>\n Weiner, B.J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change.\u00a0Implementation Science, 4<\/em>(67). doi: 10.1186\/1748-5908-4-67<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Photo by\u00a0JESHOOTS.COM\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash\u00a0 Our world is complex and ever-changing.\u00a0 As a result, organizations must continually adapt, including their project managers who must remain knowledgeable of current project management research and skilled in effectively applying it to their organization and industry\u2019s contexts. I was recently involved in a project to shift a course’s formative testing from paper-based … Continue reading “Planning Management for Effective Change”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}