Managing Systems Change

The course unit offers a balanced (non deterministic) view about the human and organisational consequences of designing and implementing Information Technology Systems into contemporary public and private sector organisations in a global context.

1. Introduce the relationship between broad conceptual design of information systems, project team organisation, organisational and task analysis, and early evaluation of system consequences at both the organisational and individual level.
2. Introduce the user and organisational issues associated with developing information technology strategies and implementing change using a framework for evaluating systems against the human and organisational criteria for success.
3. Examine the broader context of organisational change to include generic change programmes, such as business process re-engineering and total quality management, as well as useful change facilitating techniques such as competitive benchmarking and balanced scorecard approaches.

Programme Content and Learning Objectives

On completing the programme, the student should be able to:

1. Describe the human and organisational change issues associated with different design methods available for the creation of systems to be implemented within organisations.
2. Demonstrate an understanding of how to manage the process of stakeholder participation to win active support for systems change.
3. Describe methods for identifying and measuring the potential benefits of change to different stakeholder groups, as well as specifying systems to meet these opportunities.
4. Describe different approaches to designing both organisational structure and individual jobs in the context of change techniques such as business process re engineering, competitive benchmarking, and total quality management.
5. Contrast and describe different methods and controls for effective implementation of systems taking into account human, technical, and security factors.

Syllabus Content

1. System Design Methods
   Variants in system design methods; Traditional Systems Life Cycle; Structured Design methods ;
   Participative Design approaches; Local Technician Developed Systems; End User Development Systems. User impact of different design approaches. General structure and policies for information technology management in organisations. Centralisation versus decentralisation of system development. End user support.
2. Designing the Design and Implementation Process
   The structure of the design team: The customer-contractor relationship. Design by experts versus end user development. Policies for individual project management.
   Effective teamwork. The context of leadership. Agenda for implementing change. Corporate culture and managing corporate politics. Blocks to problem solving and change.
3. Assessing Systems Impact
   Impact Analysis: Assessing the consequences of socio-technical options. Stakeholder mapping.
   Principles for developing user requirements. Use of prototyping. User evaluation of systems. The conduct of evaluation studies. Managerial skills for effective organisational change: Diagnosing change, managing transitions; the coping cycle. Balanced scorecard approach.
4. Design for User Tasks and Organisational Requirements
   Criteria for human acceptability and organisational requirements for systems. Managing major change: Business Process Re-engineering and impact on job design.
   Forms of work organisation: Job rotation; job enlargement; job enrichment; autonomous work groups and empowerment. Incremental change: Role of competitive benchmarking. Total quality management programmes.
5. System Implementation and Security
   Human and organisational aspects of implementation: Organisational structures for implementation. Implementation strategies and the impact on user adaptation and learning.
   Training and user support. Risk analysis and security.