Acme Corporation is currently using a "homegrown" computer system called UBuy to manage their purchasing. They have developed this system over the last 10 years. It has been designed specifically to meet their organization's needs. Every time the organization changes or a new need arises, the Information Technology (IT) department updates the system to meet the need.

Everyone at Acme is very happy with UBuy. Not only has the technology been customized for each department in the organization, but each department has also created their own business processes based on how they prefer to use it.

Everyone is happy, that is, except IT and leadership. UBuy has become increasingly difficult for IT to manage. There are so many customizations that the department is no longer able to keep track of all of the changes to the software. This makes it difficult to maintain. In addition, because the system is homegrown and heavily customized, every time a new person is hired into the IT department, it takes them a long time to learn how to support UBuy. Finding people to join their department is becoming harder each year.

IT would like to implement a new purchasing system called We Shop. We Shop can be bought from a software vendor. Although it can be customized to the organization's needs, it will help standardize the purchasing software across all of the departments.

Implementing We Shop will simplify system maintenance and support. It will also make it much easier to find qualified people to join the IT department, as it is a common software that many IT professionals have worked with at other companies.

When the IT manager proposes implementing We Shop to the leadership team, they quickly agree that it is a good idea. Leadership believes that We Shop will bring a number of benefits to Acme. First, they see the implementation of the new software as an opportunity to standardize the purchasing business processes across the organization. The diverse business processes that the departments followed in the past often led to confusion around how purchases should be made and approved. Second, by standardizing the business processes, leadership hopes they can implement new procedures that will reduce wasteful spending and improve the organization's bottom line. Finally, the leadership team knows that many of their competitors use We Shop, and they feel that implementing it at their organization will bring them in line with the industry standard.

At the next employee meeting, the Vice President of IT at Acme Corporation stands up and informs everyone that over the next year, the organization will be implementing We Shop. He explains why they are implementing it, and encourages everyone to help with the project in any way they can. Some people will be asked to participate on the project team, while others will not use the system until it goes live in a year. He believes that this is an important change for their organization, and expects that everyone will support the We Shop implementation.

The IT manager watches the presentation from the back of the auditorium. He sees many people nod their heads in agreement, and he leaves the meeting feeling optimistic about the project.

Over the next week, however, he begins to get worried. As he walks around the office, he hears more and more people talking about the project, and most of them are very negative. The Facilities department is worried that the new system will be difficult to use. They're so comfortable with the current system that they're scared to learn something new. The Finance department is worried that because the new system is standardized, it won't meet their specific data capture and reporting needs.

The Human Resources and Sales departments are worried about the changes to the business processes. Some people are worried leadership will use this opportunity to implement rules that will give them a "big brother" view of every purchase. Others are concerned that the new processes will be cumbersome, increasing the length of time to purchase basic supplies. Still others feel that the work their departments do is too unique to be able to fit into standardized business processes.


The IT manager also hears people in the Purchasing department worrying about their jobs. The people who currently do the purchasing for each department are wondering if they'll still have jobs after We Shop is implemented. Even his own team is worried. Many of the employees in the IT department are so specialized in UBuy that they aren't sure they have the skills to continue working in IT after We Shop is implemented.

More distressing than the complaints he's hearing though, are the people who are silently plotting. The IT manager knows that because a number of projects have failed in the past, many people have decided that if they just wait long enough, this project will fail too. They haven't actively planned to make it fail, but they aren't planning to help it succeed either.

After a few days of hearing these conversations, the IT manager sits down to make a plan. He isn't worried about the technical aspects of implementing We Shop. He knows his team has the skills necessary to deploy the system. The people it's being deployed to are another matter. He is very concerned about whether they will be willing and able to make We Shop a success. He knows that even if his team implements the system perfectly, if nobody at Acme Corporation uses it, the project will be considered a failure. With this in mind, the IT manager decides it's time to create a Change Management plan.

Think about a time when your organization faced a situation similar to the one described in the case study. How did the leadership and/or team implementing the change address the people's challenges? List three actions they took to address these challenges. For each action, evaluate how successful it was in overcoming the challenge and helping people adopt the change.