Implementing New Technology

1. Implementing New Technology Leonard-Barton & Kraus HBR

2. Do People Resist Change?

3. Questions? • What’s the difference between a “marketing” and a “sales” IT implementation perspective? • “Those who manage technological change must often serve as both technical developers and implementers.” Precisely true?

4. “The higher the organizational level at which managers define a problem or a need, the greater the probability of successful implementation.” But----

5. “The closer the definition and solution of problems or needs are to the end-users, the greater the probability of success.”

6. More Questions/Issues • Promotion, hype, and “vaporware,” where is the proper balance? • The “Pilot” issue- - Risky site, safe innovation • Suggested roles - - sponsor, champion, project manager, integrator • Supporters, assassins, hedgers (handling the latter)

7. The Magic Bullet Theory Markus & Benjamin SMR

8. “Change is not produced by planners planning, designers designing, and funders funding.”

9. Is it true that, “implicit in major IT-enabled change projects are expectations that the organization and its people will operate better when the technology is successfully installed and used?”

10. Central Theme is Simple • IT is not a “Magic Bullet” • Change is everyone’s job • Roles (champions, execs as sponsor) don’t work (everyone must play these roles)

11. Questions/Issues • What is Magic Bullet Theory? • Change agents -IT?-Middle management?-Users?-Senior management?-Consultant (OD, training, other)?

12. Magic Bullet Theory Simply: IT makes benefits happen, as if by magic

13. Magic Bullet • IT changes behavior of people who use it by enabling new work practices • Users are the intended target for the bullet • IT specialists - tool builders - build guns, they don’t worry about aiming and firing -magic bullets always hit the target • Senior line managers contract for guns hoping to profit from their sale - if the product doesn’t work, the builders are responsible and to blame • The gun fires itself • Blame- - “no top mgmt. support”-”users who play with loaded guns”

14. Views of Change • Tool Builder View: If we build it, they will come • OD View: People, not technologies make change. A facilitating role in the process • Change Advocate View: Don’t worry about elegant tools or staying on the sidelines while people work things out.

15. Change Advocate View • Whatever works: • Overt persuasion • Covert manipulation • Symbolic communication • Naked exercise of formal power (when available)

16. Change Advocacy • Works best in organizations in which IT is viewed as supportive rather than strategic(is so, what works best with strategic view?) • Works better when the role of the IT function is more advisory than control oriented • Can be deadly in multidivisional companies with strong general mangers and a CEO who wavers on questions of shared IT needs.

17. Final Issues • “Good ideas and good designs together do not ensure success.” • “Change management involves listening, understanding, giving people a chance to learn, designing learning experiments, and visualizing and dramatizing ideas. This activity must be done as an integral part of initiating, designing, and building technology-enabled change. It cannot be successfully ignored, delegated, or deferred.

18. “Change is a Contact Sport”