MBA 687 Module 8 Final Project Change Management Plan example

One Platform, One Branch: The Change Management Plan for Veritane US

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

MBA 687: Leading Organizational Change

Module Eight Final Project

[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.

One Platform, One Branch: The Change Management Plan for Veritane US

Executive Summary

Over the next 18 months, every one of the branch's 38 enterprise clients will leave its tailored U.S. version for the Singapore parent's shared platform, and the 52 branch engineers will be regrouped into product squads that span both offices. This plan asks leadership to approve a three-wave operating plan with decision gates, a workforce development program for the roles that change most and a set of measures that will keep the change in place after the final migration. The branch's last major change, a customer system abandoned after nine months, failed through the way it was led. This plan is built so that the same failure cannot happen quietly again.

Justification for the Change

The case rests on three costs of standing still. First, maintaining 38 versions of the product consumes about 31 percent of engineering hours, time that produces no new capability for any client. Second, releases reach clients only twice a year, while competitors release monthly, and four clients remain on versions without current security features. Third, every custom branch makes the next migration harder, so delay increases the eventual cost. Against these costs, the program requires about 2.4 million dollars over 18 months for training, temporary support contractors, working visits and retention agreements, funded by headquarters. Once migrations are complete, the engineering hours now spent on maintenance can be redirected to platform features that every client receives.

The change also carries costs for people, and the plan does not hide them. Implementation staff lose most of their custom build work, senior engineers lose the value of their specialized knowledge and some clients lose features they value. The justification for asking this of them is that the alternative, a branch that falls further behind each year, would put far more jobs and clients at risk.

Readiness and Culture

Of the 118 employees who answered the readiness survey, most agreed that the branch must change (64 percent), but few agreed that the platform is the right approach (38 percent), fewer still trusted leaders to follow through (27 percent) and under a third expected to benefit personally (31 percent). Implementation staff were least ready on nearly every measure. Using the framework of Armenakis et al. (1993), the branch has accepted the discrepancy but not the appropriateness, principal support or personal valence of this change. The culture analysis found two gaps: the branch's assumption that it wins by building whatever clients ask for, and differences in communication and decision norms between Delaware and Singapore that each side reads as bad faith. Voluntary turnover of 19 percent last year shows that the branch cannot afford a change that pushes more people out.

Change Model

A Burke-Litwin diagnosis showed that the program touches every transformational factor, mission, leadership and culture, as well as structure, systems and skills (Burke & Litwin, 1992). The plan therefore uses the eight steps described by Kotter (1995) as its program structure: a guiding coalition that includes respected branch employees, a vision expressed in client and employee terms, short-term wins from the first wave and deliberate anchoring in culture. At the individual level, managers use the ADKAR stages described by Hiatt (2006) to identify whether each person's obstacle is awareness, desire, knowledge, ability or reinforcement, and respond to that obstacle rather than repeating the general message.

Operating Plan

Table 1 sets out the operating plan by phase, with owners and the gate that must be passed before the next phase begins.

Table 1

Operating Plan by Phase

Note. Composite plan. Client counts total 38.

Developing the Workforce

Workforce development is where the plan answers the losses it creates. For the 30 implementation staff, the configuration consultant role replaces custom build work with client advisory and platform configuration, supported by a paid certification program completed before each person's first migration and a three-level career ladder that recognizes client expertise. For the 11 senior engineers, the migration design group gives their knowledge a new purpose, and each receives a retention agreement tied to wave completion and a path to platform architecture roles shared with Singapore. The remaining engineers receive platform training and a two-week working visit with their squad in the first quarter.

Managers need development too. The shift from client escalation point to squad coach is a new job for most branch managers, so each will complete a short program on coaching, running distributed teams and using ADKAR in one-to-one conversations. The leadership team commits to the behaviors set out in Module 7, measured through a monthly pulse survey, including using the product council for client requests rather than asking engineers for quick custom fixes.

Communication and Resistance

Each stakeholder group receives a message that leads with the belief it doubts most, since a persuasive change message has to settle five doubts: the need for change, the fit of this particular change, the organization's ability to deliver it, leaders' commitment and the personal stakes (Armenakis & Harris, 2002). The most affected groups hear first, in small groups from their own managers, and every client hears from its account manager. Resistance is handled mainly through participation and support, because most objections arise from real losses held by powerful groups. The only directive element is the end of new custom commitments after month three, explained openly as the condition that makes the migration possible.

Sustaining the Change

Buchanan et al. (2005) reviewed research on why some changes persist while others decay and concluded that sustainability depends on many factors at once, from individual commitment and leadership to culture, politics, processes and timing. For this branch, the risk of decay is concrete: once the last client migrates and the program team disbands, old habits of quick custom fixes could return through side requests. Four mechanisms guard against this. Custom code branches are formally retired, so there is nothing to return to. Performance measures and commissions that reward platform work become permanent, not program-specific. The product council remains the only route for client requests, with U.S. representatives keeping their seats. And the coalition continues to review the measures quarterly for a year after the final wave, with the results reported to the whole branch.

Culture is the slowest factor. The branch's pride in solving client problems should not be discarded but redirected, so that the configuration consultants who design the best client solutions on the platform become the branch's new heroes, recognized at the all-hands meetings where custom builds used to be celebrated.

Measuring Success

Table 2 lists the measures leadership will review.

Table 2

Measures, Targets and Owners

Note. Composite targets based on the Milestone One baselines.

Conclusion

One Platform will succeed or fail on the same factors that decided the customer system rollout: whether the branch understands why, whether leaders follow through, whether people who lose something are given something real in return and whether the new way of working outlasts the program. This plan addresses each of them with a named owner and a measure. I recommend that leadership approve it and confirm headquarters' funding in writing before the launch sequence begins.

References

Armenakis, A. A., & Harris, S. G. (2002). Crafting a change message to create transformational readiness. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 15(2), 169-183. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810210423080

Armenakis, A. A., Harris, S. G., & Mossholder, K. W. (1993). Creating readiness for organizational change. Human Relations, 46(6), 681-703. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872679304600601

Buchanan, D., Fitzgerald, L., Ketley, D., Gollop, R., Jones, J. L., Lamont, S. S., Neath, A., & Whitby, E. (2005). No going back: A review of the literature on sustaining organizational change. International Journal of Management Reviews, 7(3), 189-205. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2005.00111.x

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

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.