MBA 687 Module 4 Change Model Diagnostic Report example

Diagnosing the One Platform Change With the Burke-Litwin Model and Choosing a Change Model to Lead It

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

MBA 687: Leading Organizational Change

Module Four Report

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The organization, setting and figures below are a composite written as a model document. No real employer, client, colleague or patient is described.

Diagnosing the One Platform Change With the Burke-Litwin Model and Choosing a Change Model to Lead It

Purpose

Veritane US, the Delaware branch of a Singapore supply chain software company, is preparing for the One Platform program: 38 enterprise clients will move from U.S. custom code onto the parent's global configurable platform over 18 months, and branch engineers will join product squads shared with Singapore. The readiness assessment found that employees accept the need for change but doubt this approach and doubt leadership's commitment. Before building a plan, leaders need a structured view of which parts of the organization the change touches and how deeply. This report uses the Burke-Litwin model for that diagnosis and then selects a change model to guide the plan.

Why Burke-Litwin

Burke and Litwin (1992) linked twelve organizational factors in a model intended to explain both performance and change. It separates transformational factors, which, when they change, require new behavior across the whole organization, from transactional factors, which govern day-to-day operations and can often be adjusted without deep disruption. The model suits this case because the branch's leaders have been describing One Platform as a technical migration. If the diagnosis shows that transformational factors are involved, the plan must be built for a transformation, not a systems project.

External Environment

The pressure for change comes from outside the branch. Supply chain software buyers increasingly expect cloud products that update continuously, and competitors release features monthly to all customers at once. Maintaining 38 versions of the product has slowed the branch's release cycle to twice a year and left several clients on versions that lack current security features. Headquarters' decision reflects a market that rewards scale and speed over tailoring.

Mission and Strategy

The branch's working mission has been customer intimacy through tailored solutions. The parent's strategy is one global product configured rather than customized. One Platform replaces the branch's mission with the parent's, which is a transformational change: it alters what the branch is for, not only how it works. Employees sense this, and the drop in agreement between the need for change and the appropriateness of this change reflects it.

Leadership

Leadership is the weakest transformational factor. The general manager is new, and only 27 percent of employees believe leaders will see the change through. Headquarters leaders are distant and associated with the abandoned customer system rollout. Burke and Litwin place leadership among the factors that shape everything below it, so this weakness will surface in management practices, climate and motivation unless it is addressed directly.

Organizational Culture

The branch's core assumption, that it wins by building whatever the client asks, runs against the change. Communication and decision norms also differ between the branch and headquarters, producing mutual misreadings. Culture is therefore both a target of the change and a condition for it.

Transactional Factors

Table 1 summarizes the full diagnosis, including the transactional factors.

Table 1

Burke-Litwin Diagnosis of the One Platform Change

Note. Composite diagnosis based on survey, interview and document evidence. Individual and organizational performance, the model's outcome factors, are omitted.

Diagnostic Conclusion

All four transformational factors are involved, and every transactional factor below them will shift. One Platform is a transformation of the branch presented as a software migration. A plan limited to technical steps and training would repeat the pattern of the customer system rollout. The change model chosen must address leadership, culture and mission as well as structure and skills, and it must reach individuals whose roles change most.

Comparing Change Models

Three models were considered. The account of unfreezing, moving and refreezing offered by Lewin (1947) established that stable patterns must be loosened before change and consolidated afterward; it is clear but general. The eight steps described by Kotter (1995), from establishing urgency through anchoring new approaches in culture, sequence leadership actions for large transformations. ADKAR, developed by Hiatt (2006), tracks five stages each individual passes through: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement. Table 2 compares them against the branch's needs.

Table 2

Change Models Compared Against Branch Needs

Note. Assessment by the consultant.

Recommended Approach

I recommend combining Kotter's steps at the program level with ADKAR at the level of individuals and teams. Kotter's sequence answers the diagnosis at the top of the model: it requires a guiding coalition that can repair confidence in leadership, a vision the branch can accept, short-term wins in the first client migrations and deliberate steps to anchor the change in culture. ADKAR answers the diagnosis at the bottom: it lets managers see, for each consultant and engineer, whether the obstacle is understanding, willingness, knowledge or practice, and respond accordingly. Lewin's framing will remain useful in communication, since unfreezing the custom-build assumption is the first task.

Combining models has a cost. Two frameworks can confuse managers if their language is mixed. By (2005) noted that the change management literature offers many frameworks with limited empirical evidence behind them, which argues for using models as practical guides rather than as proof. The plan will therefore use Kotter's steps as the program's structure and ADKAR only as a coaching and measurement tool for managers, with one short guide explaining how the two fit together.

Using the Diagnosis During the Program

The diagnosis should not be filed away once the plan is written. Burke-Litwin factors can serve as a checklist at each phase gate: if climate in the migrating teams deteriorates or managers keep acting as client escalation points instead of coaches, the model points upward to leadership and culture as the likely source, rather than to the teams themselves. The readiness survey will be repeated after the first migration wave, and the results will be mapped back to Table 1 so that leaders can see which factors are moving and which are stuck.

References

Burke, W. W., & Litwin, G. H. (1992). A causal model of organizational performance and change. Journal of Management, 18(3), 523-545. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639201800306

By, R. T. (2005). Organisational change management: A critical review. Journal of Change Management, 5(4), 369-380. https://doi.org/10.1080/14697010500359250

Hiatt, J. M. (2006). ADKAR: A model for change in business, government and our community. Prosci Learning Center Publications.

Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59-67.

Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method and reality in social science; social equilibria and social change. Human Relations, 1(1), 5-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872674700100103