Overview
To be an effective leader, you must be able to lead change efforts in a collaborative way that demonstrates the culture of the organization. At some point, all leaders will need to lead an organizational change effort or be part of an upper-level team that plans and implements it.
Your final project in this course is to develop a change plan based on a case study. Your plan will use Kotter’s change implementation plan components for an organization. Kotter’s plan will explain what you should look at during each step of a change effort. Changes take time to put in place. You should consider all parts of an organization when making these changes. Be sure to use scholarly research to defend your responses and support your explanations.
This project addresses the following course outcomes:
Determine the root causes and driving forces for effectively implementing an organizational change effort
Diagnose gap differences between current situations and targeted goals of change efforts for determining the needs of a change effort
Analyze the impact of a change effort for its implications on the roles of employees
Predict areas and causes of resistance within an organization to develop a well-informed, effective change plan
Determine the communication needs in a change effort involving employees for successfully implementing a change effort
Enhance the influence of organizational culture on organizational change efforts
Prompt
For this project, you will create a change plan based on a case study. Your plan will include stated objectives that you will follow to accomplish an intended goal or goals. After setting your objectives, you will work backward to create a timeline for each phase of the change plan. This change plan will analyze what the organization needs to make the change successful and what to look out for.
Specifically, you must address the following critical elements:
Analysis and Diagnosis
Identify the problem in need of addressing and describe which forces are driving the change effort.
Establish how the problem arose and determine the current impact of the problem.
Identify the specific organizational needs driving the change and explain each.
Identify specific variables, conditions, issues, and individuals that will impact the change effort negatively and describe how these should be handled prior to planning the change effort.
Identify underlying causes of the problem and determine how these causes should be addressed.
Identify the gap between the current situation and the targeted outcome and establish what needs to occur to build a process to address the gap.
Developing a Change Plan Using Kotter’s Model for Implementing Organizational Change
Create Urgency
Describe a plan to create urgency within the organization and convince stakeholders that this change needs to take place.
Identify current processes for implementing change and describe how processes will need to be updated for the proposed change
Describe a strategy to gain support from employees and describe how the strategy will be effective
Build a Guiding Coalition
Identify who should be involved in the guiding coalition and provide a rationale for each choice. Kotter likes 50% leaders and 50% managers with experience. Others prefer the composition to be 33% leaders, 33% managers, and 33% informal leaders. You can assemble the guiding coalition as you see fit.
Determine steps for ensuring commitment from those involved and describe each step
Form a Strategic Vision
Determine the values that are essential to this change and defend why the values are essential.
Establish the vision for this organizational change effort and describe how the vision will be effective in promoting the change effort.
Identify your intended targeted outcomes and defend each choice.
Determine what must occur for the organizational change effort to be considered a success and defend each response.
Communicate the Change
Establish what is required for the change to be communicated effectively and explain your response.
Determine actions you will take to encourage two-way communication and explain why these actions will be effective.
Establish how direct supervisors within the organization will be supported in their efforts to communicate with employees regarding the change effort.
Describe how you will address any concerns or anxieties regarding this change.
Determine who will need to be involved in the change effort and describe the capacity in which they will be involved.
Enable Action by Removing Barriers
Identify the forces, barriers, and hindrances to the organizational change effort and describe each.
Describe how resistance can be recognized and determine how resistance can be eliminated or mitigated.
Describe actions that enable and empower employees to help drive the change effort.
Generate Short-Term Wins
Determine how you will generate short-term wins and establish how these wins will be rewarded.
Determine what can be gained from short-term wins and defend your response.
Sustain Acceleration
Describe how to ensure that the momentum driving the change effort continues.
Institute Change
Determine what actions need to occur for this change to become part of the organizational culture and defend each action.
Establish infrastructure mechanisms that need to be in place to maintain and sustain the change into the future and describe the importance of each.
Milestones
Milestone One: Kotter’s Steps 1 and 2
In Module Three, you will review the case study Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a Growth Mindset, and then complete the following actions: (a) State what actually occurred in the case regarding Kotter’s first two steps of establishing a sense of urgency and creating the guiding team in a change effort, and (b) reflect on what you think should have been done in the change effort regarding those two steps. State your reflection as recommendations to implement steps 1 and 2.
This milestone will help you build Section II parts A and B of your final project. This milestone is graded with the Milestone One Rubric.
Milestone Two: Kotter’s Steps 3 and 4
In Module Five, you will review the case study Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a Growth Mindset, and then complete the following actions: (a) State what actually occurred in the case regarding Kotter’s steps 3 and 4 of developing a vision and strategy and communicating the change vision (2–3 paragraphs), and (b) reflect on what you think should have been done in the change effort regarding those two steps. State your reflection as recommendations to implement Kotter’s steps 3 and 4.
This milestone will help you build Section II parts C and D for your final project. This milestone is graded with the Milestone Two Rubric.
Milestone Three: Kotter’s Steps 5 and 6
In Module Seven, you will review the case study Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a Growth Mindset, and then complete the following actions: (a) State what actually occurred in the case regarding Kotter’s steps 5 and 6 of empowering employees for broad-based action and generating short-term wins, and (b) reflect on what you think should have been done in the change effort regarding those two steps. State your reflection as recommendations to implement steps 5 and 6.
This milestone will help you build Section II parts E and F for your final project. This milestone is graded with the Milestone Three Rubric.
Final Submission: Change Plan
In Module Nine, you will be submitting your final project, a change plan for the case study Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling A Growth Mindset. Throughout the course, you have had multiple opportunities to work on the elements of this proposal and fine-tune your thinking for the change plan.
Your finalized proposal should incorporate feedback you have received from your instructor as well as your peers. This submission is graded with the Final Project Rubric.
What to Submit
Your change plan must be 13–15 pages (not including the title page or references) with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and APA formatting. Use the following rubric to review your assignment before submitting it.
****Milestones 1, 2, and 3 are included. These will help with the final project.
