NIBCO management’s top priorities essay
What change management initiatives were associated with this project? Why was change management important?
NIBCO made change management one of the project’s top priorities. This was a very efficient decision provided that the company decided to implement the new system using the “Big Bang” approach. When the project was initiated, the company’s culture and systems were quite rigid: the users were not used to exchanging information and collaborating, and they’re even was no email culture in the organization (Brown et al., 2012). Furthermore, the departments worked separately and had separate systems. Dramatic changes in the IT system and approaches were likely to cause resistance and lack of support among NIBCO’s employees, so the importance of change management, in this case, can hardly be overestimated.
The change management initiatives associated with this project included: a change management team that was responsible for leading the change and showing the importance of the new system, analyzing change implications of key decisions for users, developing training and communication plans, including change management elements in all process documentation. An important change management initiative was creating the internal communications plan and organizing the relevant communications activities. The creation of three training sites and user training activities were also a significant contribution of the change management team to the overall project.
What were the things that NIBCO did right in their SAP implementation? What should they have done differently?
NIBCO undertook an unusual approach to implementing large projects – it set an ambitious goal to realize the project using the “big bang” approach. This approach helped the company to save money and optimize the transition losses. The balance of three project leaders (instead of one) let NIBCO combine different viewpoints and create a well-informed and well-planned implementation strategy. A lot of people were motivated, involved, and mobilized. Change management used at NIBCO was a critically important part of the implementation: it allowed to unite efforts and to move the project forward, overcoming potential resistance and criticism. However, it is not clear why NIBCO decided to select IBM as their implementation partner: the company did not have previous experience with “big bang” type projects, a number of IBM representatives criticized the chosen approach, and the three-people leadership group at NIBCO. More importantly, people from IBM had no experience with SAP/ERP, so they had to spend a lot of time learning the systems and adjusting their change management approaches.
References
Brown, C.V., DeHayes, D.W., Hoffer, J.A., Martin, E.W. & Perkins, W.C. (2012). Managing Information Technology, 7th edition, Pearson/Prentice-Hall, ISBN-10: 0132146320, ISBN-13: 9780132146326.
