Did you know?

This video, also know as "Shift Happens", is sometimes shown at the very opening of the EIS Change Management Workshop - a way to start with a view of the massive and multitudinous going on in our global society. And to have participants refelct on the impact of these changes in their lives.

One version is here.

As always your comments are welcome.

The Abilene paradox

The Abilene paradox is a paradox in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group. It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group's and do not raise objections.

Reflect on how well (or poorly) your team did in reaching decisions when you did the EIS Simulation. Did you experience some of this paradox? Or perhaps you notices something else related to group dynamics during the workshop? How about in your professional life?

Feel free to post your comments here on this blog so we can all share our insights and ideas for using these learnings.

The cost of not changing

One participant in the recent EIS workshop brought up the question of "The cost of change vs. the cost of not changing".

A simple, yet profound question ... and one not easily answered (especially given that the comparison can be quite project-specific).

Assuming the planned innovation is adopted (the project is successful) then one can calculate (or estimate) the costs of implementation versus the benefits intended. This can give a "missed opportunity" cost if one does not change.

But, looking further and more strategically, the cost of not changing could be, in extreme situations, the very survival of the enterprise (at least in a certain market or domain).

We'll add other links to pertinent materials here over time related to this important issue.

But, as often happens, just raising the questions and reflecting upon it (especially in our individual situations) is a good start to better understanding and using this knowledge.

Failure Rates

Many of you will recall this slide from the first day's presentation on the difficulties of change management ... and the fact that about 3/4th of change efforts or project fail.

A couple of participants asked, at breaks, for more background on this failure rate. So I am including here some preliminary references.

Based on your input and comments we can follow-up with more details as needed.

"It is not resistance which inhibits development and change. It is the leaders way of handling the resistance...”
Rick Maurer: Beyond the wall of resistance, 1996

“Only 20 to 30 percent of all reengineering projects succeed…”
Hal Lancaster: Reengineering Authors Reconsider Reengineering, The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 1995.

“Only 23 percent of all mergers and acquisitions make back their costs…”
Anne Fischer: How to make a merger work, Fortune, January 24, 1994

“Just 43 percent of quality-improvement efforts make satisfactory progress…”
Linda Moran et al: Winning Competitive Advantage, 1994

"Nine (9) percent of all major software development applications in large organizations are worth the cost and 31 percent get canceled before completion. Fully 53 percent will result in overruns by 189 percent…”
Jim Johnson: Chaos. The Dollar Drain of IT Failures, Application Development Trends, January 1995, pp. 41-47.