Chapter 12: An Improvisational Model for Change Management - The Case of Groupware Technologies

Wanda J. Orlikowski J. Debra Hofman

Overview

In her discussion of technology design, Suchman refers to two different approaches to open sea navigation—the European and the Trukese:

The European navigator begins with a plan—a course—which he has charted according to certain universal principles, and he carries out his voyage by relating his every move to that plan. His effort throughout his voyage is directed to remaining "on course". If unexpected events occur, he must first alter the plan, then respond accordingly. The Trukese navigator begins with an objective rather than a plan. He sets off toward the objective and responds to conditions as they arise in an ad hoc fashion. He utilizes information provided by the wind, the waves, the tide and current, the fauna, the stars, the clouds, the sound of the water on the side of the boat, and he steers accordingly. His effort is directed to doing whatever is necessary to reach the objective.^[1]

Like Suchman, we too find this contrast in approaches instructive and use it here to motivate our discussion of managing technological change. In particular, we suggest that how people think about managing change in organizations most often resembles the European approach to navigation. That is, they believe they need to start with a plan for the change, charted according to certain general organizational principles, and that they need to relate their actions to that plan, ensuring throughout that the change remains on course.

However, when we examine how change occurs in practice, we find that it much more closely resembles the voyage of the Trukese. That is, people end up responding to conditions as they arise, often in an ad hoc fashion, doing whatever is necessary to implement change. In a manner similar to Argyris and Sch n's contrast between espoused theories and theories-in-use, we suggest that there is a discrepancy between how people think about technological change and how they implement it.^[2] Moreover, we suggest that this discrepancy significantly contributes to the difficulties and challenges that contemporary organizations face as they attempt to introduce and effectively implement technology-based change.

Traditional ways of thinking about technological change have their roots in Lewin's three-stage change model of "unfreezing", "change", and "refreezing".^[3] According to this model, the organization prepares for change, implements the change, and then strives to regain stability as soon as possible. Such a model, which treats change as an event to be managed during a specified period,^[4] may have been appropriate for organizations that were relatively stable and bounded and whose functionality was sufficiently fixed to allow for detailed specification. Today, however, given more turbulent, flexible, and uncertain organizational and environmental conditions, such a model is becoming less appropriate—hence, the discrepancy.

This discrepancy is particularly pronounced when the technology being implemented is open-ended and customizable, as in the case of the new information technologies that are known as groupware.^[5] Groupware technologies provide electronic networks that support communication, coordination, and collaboration through facilities such as information exchange, shared repositories, discussion forums, and messaging. Such technologies are typically designed with an open architecture that is adaptable by end users, allowing them to customize existing features and create new applications.^[6] Rather than automating a predefined sequence of operations and transactions, these technologies tend to be general-purpose tools that are used in different ways across various organizational activities and contexts. Organizations need the experience of using groupware technologies in particular ways and in particular contexts to better understand how they may be most useful in practice. In such a technological context, the traditional change model is thus particularly discrepant.

The discrepancy is also evident when organizations use information technologies to attempt unprecedented, complex changes such as global integration or distributed knowledge management. A primary example is the attempt by many companies to redefine and integrate global value chain activities that were previously managed independently. While there is typically some understanding up-front of the magnitude of such a change, the depth and complexity of the interactions among these activities is fully understood only as the changes are implemented. For many organizations, such initiatives represent a new ball game, not only because they haven't played the game before but because most of the rules are still evolving. In a world with uncertain rules, the traditional model for devising and executing a game plan is very difficult to enact. And, as recent strategy research has suggested, planning in such circumstances is more effective as an ongoing endeavor, reflecting the changing, unfolding environments with which organizations interact.^[7]

In many situations, therefore, predefining the technological changes to be implemented and accurately predicting their organizational impact is infeasible. Hence, the models of planned change that often inform implementation of new technologies are less than effective. We suggest that what would be more appropriate is a way of thinking about change that reflects the unprecedented, uncertain, openended, complex, and flexible nature of the technologies and organizational initiatives involved. Such a model would enable organizations to systematically absorb, respond to, and even leverage unexpected events, evolving technological capabilities, emerging practices, and unanticipated outcomes. Such a model for managing change would accommodate—indeed, encourage—ongoing and iterative experimentation, use, and learning. Such a model sees change management more as an ongoing improvisation than a staged event. Here we propose such an alternative model and describe a case study of groupware implementation in a customer support organization to illustrate the value of the model in practice. We conclude by discussing the conditions under which such an improvisational model may be a powerful way to manage the implementation and use of new technologies.

^[1]G. Berreman (1966) cited in Suchman (1987).

^[2]Argyris and Sch n 1978.

^[3]Lewin 1952, Kwon and Zmud 1987.

^[4]Pettigrew 1985.

^[5]Not all groupware technologies are flexible and customizable (e.g., fixed-function e-mail systems). We are interested here only in those that are (e.g., Lotus Notes).

^[6]DeJean and DeJean 1991, Malone, Lai, and Fry 1992.

^[7]Mintzberg 1994, McGrath and MacMillan 1995.