HRM587 Week 1 Course Project Latest 2017 August

Part 1: Topic Selection (Due Week 1)

Pick out your two companies and their change. In 1 double spaced
page, please submit your company selections, with a brief write-up on the
changes you will be comparing in the two companies. Pick two companies which
have undergone some type of fairly substantial change in the recent past. Find
the company and the change information online, using EBSCO, or using a
company’s case described somewhere in our textbook. (See page 388 of the
textbook index for page numbers and names of each of the cases described in the
textbook.) Other ways to find information: utilize Google or Yahoo Finance, or
Reuters, and look up Annual Reports of companies which interest you. Often
reading the first sections of these reports (i.e. letters from CEO’s) will give
you ideas about changes they have gone through in the past year(s).

Be sure that:

1. Your
companies are publicly traded so that their information will be easy to
research and find

2. Your
change in the two companies are comparable (i.e. don’t compare a new CEO to a
change in HRIS – DO compare two changes in CIO) and

3. The
changes happened in the recent past so that you will find plenty of online
information about how they were handled, but not so recent that the information
about the change “results” is still up in the air.

Your topic will be graded/approved and returned to you so that
you know your topic will work for the course. You must get approval to move
forward with your project. This section will be worth 25 points and must
have at least two
references.

Part 2: The Change Analysis – Images of Change (Due Week 2)

The “Images” section focuses on the six different images of
managing change and how each “approach” to change effects all that follows in
its implementation and continued support. Download the “Week 2 Project Images
Grid” from doc-sharing. Pick three of the “images of change” explained in the
Week 2 lecture from the grid, and analyze how those particular “images” would
affect the ensuing diagnosis and implementation in your two selected companies
on their change plans.

Here’s what to do:

1. Working
with the information that you provided in your topic proposal, and any feedback
you have received from your Professor, flesh out the facts and information from
your original proposal.

2. Review
the changes in each company and describe them thoroughly in a word document.
Explain how the change impacted the companies, and who it impacted. Compare
some of the similarities and differences between the change in the two
companies.

3. Look
at your grid and pick three images of change from your grid. Fill out the empty
blocks on the grid for those three images using outlines, bullet points, and
rough ideas for both company’s change.

4. Now,
in a Word document, analyze, compare and contrast the three images and explain
how the behaviors of those images would be different or the same during your
companies’ changes, and how those differences could (or did) impact the success
(or failure) of the change, comparing and contrasting the results at both
companies.

5. Explain
which image (or combination of images) you feel would have best facilitated the
described change and why.

6. Based
on the information you actually read about the results of this change, state
which image you think the leader of the change actually resembled the most. You
may speculate here on which image you feel best represents the “change agent”
at either or both of the companies. This will depend on how much information
you found about the internal workings of the company during the change.

This paper should focus on evidence that demonstrates how the
management of the organization integrated one or more of the six images of
managing change (Chapters 2 and 3) how effective the change was and what
management could have done differently to increase the probability of
successfully implementing the strategic change initiative. Again, this is a
compare and contrast paper – so include information about both companies in
your report.

Part 3: Diagnosing the Change (Due Week 4)

Select a Diagnostic Model (see Chapter Five) that you utilize to
review aspects of change activities and actions that have been taken by the
companies chosen. Here we are looking at the “parts” of the companies as well
as their strategies, as surmised by your research in Part 1. It is acknowledged
that this information will not be complete, as you are looking at these
companies as an outsider; but a thoroughly researched paper will give enough
data to allow some (well-defended) assumptions on your part.

Here’s what to do:

1. Choose
one Diagnostic Model (i.e. 6-box, 7S, congruence, or etc.) to apply to the two
chosen companies. Choose the model which you feel best identifies and measures
the relevant aspects of the organization’s performance and therefore the
diagnostic choices made will affect your findings.

2. Apply
the data obtained in your research through an analysis of the appropriate
chosen model. This will allow you to create a diagnosis of where each company
is today (as per the criteria of the model).

3. Create
a SWOT Analysis for each of the two chosen companies change plans/programs,
utilizing information obtained in the diagnosis. (Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, Threats.)

4. Compare
the two company analyses to each other and offer your perspective (value
judgment) of the effectiveness of the changes made to date in each case.

5. Identify
potential areas of resistance that may occur and at least one strategy to
respond to each. (This will most likely come from your Weaknesses/Threats
section of your SWOT. If not, take another look at your SWOT.)

6. Recommendations
for further actions within the organizations and the rationale chosen for these
recommendations.

7. Write
your paper including each of the above sections, and analyses

Part 4: Communicating the Change (Due Week 6)

An
important part of any change project is how the change is communicated to the
organization, to the change agents, to the line workers, to the customers, and
to the public. Along with media relations issues, communicating change
(especially in a publicly traded company) can involve multiple legal and
regulatory aspects, as well as personnel and management concerns. Perhaps the
single most difficult piece of handling Kotter’s “establish a sense of urgency”
is that too many inexperienced or immature change agents read this to mean
“panic the troops.” Never do this.

This
project piece will have 3 parts:

A.
The main part of your project this week will ask you to pick ONE
of the company’s change plan, and develop a communication plan for the company.
This plan should be submitted by using an excel spreadsheet, setting out the
Stakeholders, the timeline of the communication plan, the method of
communication, the rationale for why you chose this method of communication,
the purpose of the communication and identifying “who” will do the
communicating. The grid for this project can be found in doc-sharing, entitled
“Grid for Week 6 – Communication Plan.”

B.
Pick ONE of the communication pieces which you would have used
which is listed in your communication plan, and write the communication in a
Word document (either the text or the script, if the communication would have
been oral.) Be sure to review the Week 6 lecture and the examples of communication
plans and types there for more assistance on this piece of the project. If you
use any form of communication from templates you find online or in a textbook,
be sure to cite your source. Your instructor will grade this based on how well
it relates to the audience/stakeholder group to which it is intended.

C.
The “real world” aspect of this project is that you will write a
1-2 page analysis of one of the media pieces about one of the company’s changes
written (or provided via oral media) by the company. For this section of the
project, please analyze any media, news, or other communications which
explained the change going on in the organization. Explain in your paper how
the company handled communicating the change to its stakeholders.

Part 5 – Annotated Bibliography (Due Week 7)

List
of all of your references you used in the project to date (you should have at
least 12 at this point) and create an annotated bibliography. Basically, for
this assignment, you will use your reference list, in alphabetical order, and
provide a 2-4 sentence summary (brief!!) of what that reference said. This is a
summary style document! Your grade will be based on your ability to BRIEFLY
summarize the important points in the document as well as the strength of your
reference materials. (i.e. if you used mainly low-level reference documents
like encyclopedias, online dictionaries, anonymous articles, etc. this will
negatively impact your grade.)

A.
Use of at least 12 references, properly annotated: 24 points
(roughly 2 points each)

B.
Strength of references overall: 6 points (roughly .5 points
each.)

C.
Use of one of the 5 Keller-approved citation methods