Managing Failure: A Case of Change Mismanagement

Mike Donoghue is a member of a multinational information technology corporation where he collaborates on the communications guidelines and customer relationship strategies affecting the interactions with internal and external clients. He has analyzed, defined, designed and overseen processes for various engagements including product usability and customer satisfaction, best practice enterprise standardization, relationship/branding structures, and distribution effectiveness and direction. He has also established corporate library solutions to provide frameworks for sales, marketing, training, and support divisions.

  Change Management  

To keep a project under control, there needs to be a resolution to keep risk manageable--even more so when it comes to making changes within the project. Certainly there is some risk associated with the project and an accompanying analysis that demonstrates just how much is at stake when adding, removing or altering its original design. But with that in mind, there also needs to be an assessment that helps determine points where success can deviate to failure, particularly when it comes to going out of scope or “off project”.

The importance in guiding a project may be in working toward its completion; however, it really needs to include an element of preventing the project from failure. With great planning, team building, task/goal oversight and communication of the vision, a project team has a superior chance of completing its assignment and achieving appropriate customer satisfaction. When there are bumps in the road—like when stakeholders don’t support the initiative or when team members cannot agree on the principles of the effort--conflict is an inevitable outcome that increases the risk of failure and removes confidence in the project as a whole.

In many situations, the introduction of a project change produces an involuntary tightening of the stomach or a quickening of one’s heart rate. Changes frequently add to the potential for …

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