IT System Change Management: Consulting at a Global Metal Company

Introduction and Nature of the Problem

This section describes the nature of the change problem at a multinational corporation, International Metal Service (IMS), and the author's experience with the company. IMS is a multi-national, multi-product, and multi-material corporate group established in 12 European countries and the United States through 18 subsidiaries operating in 51 locations. IMS carries out international technical distribution of its inventory for specializations in specific markets. It is represented in all major industrial centres, with 19 subsidiaries in 12 European countries and one in the United States. The Group sells special metallurgic products for the abrasion-resistant, corrosion-resistant, and engineering steel markets. Their products are utilized in the construction of such things as road construction equipment and armor plating for armored transports. The various stock-keeping units (SKUs) are sold, held, and stored in distribution and processing centers across the globe. This activity demands the support of an effective logistics organization and depends upon a professional sales force with a strong technical background. Eighteen IMS companies provide this service. They carry a permanent stock of approximately 40,000 different stocklines. These companies are product specialists in their product market and serve their industrial customers locally from 60 service centers (IMS-group.com).

The IMS group has been controlling their stock, production, inventory, sales, and accounting functions on a location-by-location basis using independent information management systems. In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, this practice is costly. Service functions are being duplicated by each branch and facility. Overstocks and underproduction shortages cannot easily be distributed through the corporate system. Accounting practices are made more complex by each location handling its own complete accounting structures. Also, many IMS customers are themselves competing in the global marketplace. The company's limited ability to distribute orders effectively throughout its branches is another constraint of the aging control system. In their book It's Not the Big That Eat the Small… It's the Fast That Eat the Slow, Jennings and Haughton argue that only the swiftest of corporations will thrive in the 21st century (Jennings, 2001). They describe a program, based on best practices developed by contemporary business successes, that describes a fast business structure built on streamlining "commerce, resource deployment, and people." The authors insist that being faster does not mean being out of breath, but being smarter by managing customer relationships closely and staying close to the marketplace factors which drive a particular industry.

Kay observes that "old rules have changed, and new concepts, new paradigms — to use the favorite phrase — are required" (Kay, 2000). In this new business model paradigm, in which the internet can be used to facilitate intra-company communication, IMS's old system has come to the end of its useful life cycle. The company recognized that by shifting many of its resource management functions to an internet application basis, the overall corporation could position itself to save money and respond more quickly to the global marketplace.

The World Wide Web already accounts for more internet network traffic than any other application, including email and simple file transfer. It is also a collaborative technology in a broad sense — it allows people to share information. It is socially unique in that, unlike the telephone system, it is a broadcast medium, and unlike television and radio, users have a large degree of control over what is published and what they see. Most groupware systems are developed for particular platforms and are only usable within the particular organizations that use them. In contrast, the web offers a globally accessible, platform-independent infrastructure. Not surprisingly, many organizations are looking toward the web as a potential platform for richer forms of cooperative work.

The most important issue when discussing the changeover of a business information management system to the internet is at what point the business-IMS interface reaches critical mass. Grudin cites various reasons for the failure of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) systems (Grudin, p. 87). One of the principal problems is obtaining a critical mass of users. Consider the cost-benefit trade-off for a user of a CSCW system. The costs of use are often constant irrespective of the number of other users; in contrast, the benefit rises with the number of other users. If you are the only user, you do not expect much benefit from a CSCW application. So, if there is a small number of users, the cost for each user is likely to exceed the benefit; only when there are a large number of other users does the benefit exceed the cost. The cross-over point is called the critical mass (see Figure 1). Below the critical mass of users, cost exceeds benefit and any sensible user will abandon the system, further reducing the number of users. Above the critical mass, benefit exceeds cost and users will remain — and others will join. The challenge is reaching that critical mass position.

However, there is another dimension of the critical mass factor which is not based on number of users or any other objective measurement. When considering the overall transition of a business information management system from one platform to another, the organizational quality and smoothness of the transition process is the largest single determinant of the point of critical mass.

If the cost of a system is fixed and the number of users is predetermined to be sufficient to warrant the expense, the company can still fall short of critical mass. The point at which the benefits of the new system exceed the cost will remain elusive if the transition is not planned, organized, pre-trained, and executed with a smooth and complete methodology.

Using Figure 2 as a graphic example of the change process: during the transition into new technology, the benefit of the new technology does not reach a point at which its cost is perceived to be of less value than the benefit unless the organizational quality of the transition is thoroughly planned. The execution time for the transition can also affect the perceived cost-benefit relationship. The new system must begin to return applicable benefit to the organization within a planned timeframe, or the transition will begin to be opposed by those involved. This is the situation in which IMS Group currently finds itself. Managing this change process — from pre-planning through the resolution of the last bug and glitch — is the responsibility of an IT consultant and the focus of this project.

The web was designed principally as a mechanism for information access. However, it is not immediately obvious how this existing infrastructure is best used for richer forms of collaborative activity. The most obvious architectural issue is which parts of the web infrastructure are modified or extended. This infrastructure operates in three parts: server, client, and protocol.

Server-end modifications: Several systems, including BSCW (Bentley et al., p. 12), use server-end extensions — both CGI scripts and independently running servers. The former make use of the existing ease of extension within web servers.

Client helpers and applets: The incorporation of Java and JavaScript into web applications has emphasized the value of client-end computing, especially for rapid user interface feedback. In common with server-end scripting, the need for users to download special code is avoided. In addition, some systems have made use of downloaded helper applications and modified clients, including clients modified to run Tcl/Tk as a client-side scripting language (van Welie et al., p. 8).

Additional protocols: HTTP is certainly not suited to real-time conversations. Hence, systems which aim to provide talk-style interaction must use their own protocol over independent internet channels (Walter, p. 24). It is more suitable for the user to consider interactive text messages and notification mechanisms.

The systems which fall into one or other of the above categories are all clearly "web" applications which effectively use HTTP as a transport layer, allowing very large (whole-file) transactions. This makes the web a perfect working platform from which to launch the type of intra-corporation or inter-continental production management system that IMS requires.

This section describes the purpose of the consulting assignment with IMS and the details of their control systems changeover. Many systems use the web as an interface. It is increasingly cost-ineffective to produce platform-independent interfaces without leveraging the web, which combines the advantages of platform independence with a rapid distribution mechanism. Furthermore, interface development is iterative, and using the web means that changes are automatically propagated to all users. Because of these features, and the platform-independent applications which can operate cooperatively over global distances in real time, International Metal Service selected the STRATIX production and corporate management software from Invera in January 2003.

In June 1996, Invera was requested to respond to a major systems proposal for International Metal Service, which is headquartered in Paris, France. Invera's involvement was based on previous implementation of STELPLAN — another metal production and processing management software package — in a large number of metal service centers in the United States. Starting in April 1997 and concluding in July 1998, IMS and Invera conducted a joint 15-month study of the specific requirements of the European service center industry. As a result of this review, Invera embarked on the development of a totally new, metal-specific, international, and highly scalable system called STRATIX. This web-based application incorporated technology to meet and exploit the challenge and opportunity of the internet for corporate business demands (invera.com, 2003).

Released in January 2003, STRATIX included state-of-the-art technology addressing the global metal market. The system included integrated applications for multi-lingual metal distribution and global metal manufacturing. STRATIX was designed as a web application that would address the most sophisticated enterprise customers as well as the most price-conscious, single-location companies. The STRATIX core functionality addresses multi-step production operations with integrated capacity planning and production scheduling, shipping, sales, accounting, and purchasing.

According to Invera literature, the rollout and implementation of the new control software was to include:

1. Implementation Schedule: The implementation of STRATIX is a highly organized and structured process. The timetable is scalable and dictated entirely by the client company.

2. Executive Overview: The project commences with an executive and technology overview to outline the scope of the product's operations.

3. Core Team Training: This is followed by the selection and training of a Core Team composed of individuals from the metal company with specific areas of responsibility such as sales, inventory, production, purchasing, and accounting.

Purpose of the Project and STRATIX Implementation

4. Operational Fit Analysis: As part of the training process, the Core Team examines STRATIX's operational fit to the metal company. The two objectives are: first, to specify policies and procedures within STRATIX, and second, to specify any modifications that may be mandatory for the product to operate within the metal company.

5. Data Conversion: As a parallel process, data conversion from the proprietary in-house computer system is planned, and system gateways into Invera product data tables are specified to run concurrently during the rollout phase.

6. Technology Installation: The deployment of technology — hardware, software, and network — must be planned to allow for Core Team training, user training, simulation, and finally the product rollout.

7. Simulation and Conversion: After a comprehensive business and technology simulation has been successfully conducted, the conversion weekend consists of verifying and balancing all information in the new databases. This is followed by full computerized operations the following weekday using the new policies, procedures, and computer systems (invera.com).

However, throughout the actual implementation of this process, the STRATIX system has not performed to the expectations of the local IMS plant. Nor have the proposed features and benefits listed above been the experience of IMS staff as they have attempted to fully implement the system. After months of progressive, phased, incremental rollouts and working through successive glitches, the plant staff responsible for managing performance and production facilities do not have much confidence in STRATIX. The system is PC-based with the ability to interface seamlessly with the internet and the global corporate structure — that is the end goal. However, at the time of this writing, the company was not able to rely on the system to produce accurate control data within its own plant.

In summary: the Manager of Information Systems and the Financial Director need workers to start using the system immediately so that their positions have the necessary data for oversight and control. However, the plant staff — approximately 85 workers in the production floor and shipping department — are unwilling to commit their success to a system that has not been consistently delivering accurate data. The staff responsible for transport planning are equally unwilling to trust their success to a seemingly recalcitrant computer system.

Gunge suggests that company re-engineering conducted "in a top-down and goal-directed fashion" fails to meet the directives of a truly empowered organization. He argues that a change process which changes the substance and culture of an organization cannot find its sole energy within the organization itself: "How can an organizational change programme, which is based on hierarchical authority, possibly lead to an organization that is empowered in any substantive way?" (Gunge, 2000: 121).

As a consultant, the assignment is twofold. Primarily, the task is to consult on the successful integrated implementation of the STRATIX system. Secondly, this project considers the wider concept of the consultancy process. Therefore, this dissertation addresses two questions:

1. What would have been the ideal approach if the consultant had been introduced into the situation earlier as a systems manager — how would the process of change have been managed in order to execute a successful transitional process of moving the plant's production and control onto the STRATIX system?

2. Now that IMS is experiencing difficulties, what can be done as a systems manager and IT consultant to overcome these problems?

There are approximately 85 users of STRATIX within IMS, and the system is not yet operating cleanly. With the passage of time, the potential for error is growing. Also increasing is the inability to track errors because key people are developing their own systems for managing their tasks. The company's goal is for everyone to start using the new system, because STRATIX has been determined to be the future of the company.

This presents the central conflict. The Financial Director and Manager of Information Systems are committed to using the system, and for their jobs to operate successfully they need STRATIX to be fully operational, fully utilized, and accurate. For the Transport and Production department supervisory staff, the key imperative is that the proper materials are manufactured, milled, and shipped to the right customers at the right time, without lag or error. From their perspective, if STRATIX will not deliver accurate information for daily management, they will create their own system.

Each of the key players in this transition is focused on his or her own area. Unfortunately, they are collectively losing sight of the advantages of the new system. The fully implemented STRATIX system will be a worldwide system, whereas currently each country and plant uses its own separate system. The existing system was written in a programming language that has not been in common use since the 1980s. In short, STRATIX moves the company's information management systems into the 21st century and makes IMS a single business entity within Europe.

The primary concern with the STRATIX system at this time is the improper usage of the transport planning screens. To understand the inter-related nature of these functions, it is necessary to review the overall STRATIX IMS process and compare it to how individual company staff are currently using or bypassing the system.

For example, the sales department is responsible for order processing and should be using the order-quote screen. Telephone sales staff currently write orders into a book and then enter the order onto the system at a later time. There is actually a function in STRATIX that lets a salesperson enter a quote on screen and convert it to an order with the click of a button. The sales staff are not using this feature, which is the beginning of the entire information management chain.

STRATIX can also be used by sales to generate invoices once an order is input and flagged as shipped. Without control on the front end (the sales department), any attempt to make sense of the back end (the shipping department) is an exercise in futility.

The sales module includes a customer account database. If there is a new customer, the sales staff enter information into a prospective account, which then goes to the accounts department. The accounts department needs to run checks on new accounts before converting them to regular client accounts — determining credit limits and completing other required checks. Without this front-end control, the accounts staff do not have complete management of international client accounts.

This is one small example of the additional work created by only partially using STRATIX. However, the most glaring problem is in the transportation and shipping department. At the time of this assignment, this department is using the original method, which involves a paper trail of job work orders. A printed spreadsheet is used as a control document containing all the details of the customer, transport route, the nine zones of transportation, and essentially all the vital information needed to ship the order. Once the steel has been cut and processed, workers in the factory write down the pertinent information on pieces of paper — or even on random leftover pieces of steel. At the end of the day, these notes are compared with the control document, and the information is then entered back into the system.

These habits arise from the old system, much of which was paper-based. The introduction of STRATIX has therefore caused a significant culture shock. The final version of STRATIX is expected to be in place within a couple of months from the time of this project. Where there was initially some training for the new system, additional frustration has been growing due to the fact that STRATIX is incomplete and constantly changing.

With the introduction of STRATIX, staff have begun entering information from work order forms into the system, which then generates a transport number. A packing list is also produced through STRATIX — usually one packing list per customer per order, which may contain several items. Because this list is only a partial list of all customer orders (due to selective use of the system), many steel pieces that are produced early and stand ready for delivery are put on hold because of a later due date. Individual items' production and shipping schedules — some managed by STRATIX, some managed via the old system — result in materials being produced a month before they need to be shipped. This creates additional storage problems in the shipping department and on the production floor. Accurate and complete use of STRATIX would solve this problem.

The issues with STRATIX are magnifying typical communication problems between departments. There is now a communication breakdown between the sales department and the shipping department, as well as problems with loading documents — staff are questioning whether the loading paperwork shows enough relevant information linked to STRATIX. The loading documents are produced separately from the STRATIX system. Looking forward, distribution functions that are currently externally contracted are under consideration for being brought in-house. The company wants to purchase its own transport, but the Manager of Information Systems cannot recommend a move in this direction before the STRATIX problems are resolved.

In addition to production and management difficulties, an intangible factor is the staff's willingness — or opposition — to using STRATIX. Each member of the company has their own psychological contract and personal desire to produce accurate orders and maintain effective production. The continued mis-implementation of this system threatens the staff's commitment to performing their jobs. Most workers have an inner desire to produce and complete their assigned duties and are willing to overcome daily pressures to complete something they feel is worthwhile. However, when the company appears to be making their jobs more difficult, it risks upsetting the balance of workers' willingness to produce accurate work. This situation is as serious a potential problem as any other the company faces as it works to bring STRATIX into compliance.

This section looks at the background of the larger picture of change and change management in a corporation, and introduces the role of the consultant in the change process. Returning to the horse-and-stream metaphor: there are two steps that need to be considered. First, before entering the river, the rider needed to know that his horse was strong enough to swim to the other side, and also needed to account for his own riding talents — could he direct the animal to keep swimming when the currents became strong and the horse could no longer feel the river bed under its feet? Secondly, once the rider and horse committed to the water, there was no turning back. The current might be stronger than anticipated, the water colder, but once the decision was made to leave the shore, it was decided that horse and rider would arrive together on the other side.

While horses and riders are an image long passed from daily experience, this vivid picture helps illustrate the process of change that IMS faces and the position into which the consultant steps in any change management assignment. The project of shifting to the new STRATIX system is daunting, like crossing a swift, swollen river on horseback. The company may or may not have adequately prepared for the change by taking stock of its existing systems, personnel, and planning for the inevitable unexpected problems along the way. The process also involves a shift in company culture and how it thinks about its control systems. However, the company is now "in the middle of the river" and struggling to complete the process.

The significance of this problem is that in every industry, change is mandated by advances in technology, products, and changing market demands. This change process takes into consideration both the company's processes and how those processes interact with people. Referred to as organizational development, the change process is a "systematic process for applying behavioral science principles and practices to increase individual and organizational effectiveness… OD is an organizational improvement strategy… involving how people and organizations function" (French and Bell, 2000: 1). At no time is a company free to set planning, production, and forecasting functions on autopilot and continue doing things in the future as it did them in the past. To do so is to attempt to maintain the bureaucratic structure of the late 20th century, which moves too slowly to be competitive in the information-saturated 21st century. The bureaucratic organization becomes an unsuitable workplace — it did not survive the postmodern condition because it could not learn from its errors.

As business use of information technology (IT) expands, the traditional constraints of time and geography are relaxing or changing. Rapid advances in telecommunications and other information technologies are fostering the globalization of economies. As a result, the global marketplace is becoming the new frontier of business. Faced with the rapid pace of change in today's markets, organizations are compelled to adapt with unprecedented dexterity and flexibility in order to remain competitive.

This use of technology brings a company to the entry point of change. At the beginning of a change process, organizations need to reassess the types of knowledge and skills needed by their workforce to compete effectively in the marketplace of the future (Fellers, 1993). In addition, they need to learn from both successes and failures. Much of an organization's identity has been built over time, and change does not mean abandoning that identity. Organizational learning has been progressing throughout the history of organizations and is a fundamental requirement for sustained existence (Kim, 1993). Since radical change is extremely hard to accomplish, organizations should realize that radical change will be trying and should be willing to accept failure and learn from it (Caron et al., 1994). Although it may be easier to learn from failure, organizations should have a mechanism to retain what was done correctly as well as what was not (Levitt and March, 1988). Such a mechanism is typically referred to as organizational memory, which can be defined as organizational knowledge with persistence (Ackerman, 1994).

Hammer and Champy (1993) argued that empowerment of front-line workers is critical if organizations are to understand core business processes and move through the process of change. Frontline workers are closest to those processes and are probably the only ones who truly understand how they work. To reap the full benefit of empowerment, many organizations have chosen to push decision-making down to workers who deal daily with core processes. Thus, empowerment appears to be a very important factor in sustained business success. To share and learn from empowerment over time, organizational memory must retain and allow access to the lessons learned.

A powerful mechanism available to most organizations for organizational memory is information technology. IT can support organizational memory by making recorded knowledge retrievable or by making individuals with knowledge accessible (Ackerman, 1994). Notwithstanding, an increasingly interdependent and unpredictable business environment has made it impossible for top management to manage the entire repertoire of organizational knowledge alone. Workers should be empowered to not only carry out their respective jobs but also to facilitate the accessibility of knowledge. Further, integrative thinking and action should permeate the organization at all levels (Senge, 1990).

Background and Significance: Change Management in Organizations

This is precisely the function of an IT control system. When integrated with the web, workers at every level can access control information and make control decisions within the parameters programmed into the IT system. However, the culture of the company may not be ready to accept the distribution of power and responsibility to workers at various levels that is necessary to accomplish this shift in company policy. Companies are scrambling to adjust their culture to accept this shift in business theory. Rather than organization and structure as the source of a company's strength, information and information management have become the new competitive high ground. As Thornton noted, the number-one issue facing chief information officers seeking to migrate their organizations to enterprise-wide client/server technologies is mastering the "Seven C's of Knowledge Management" (Thornton, p. 16):

Codification: Identify what is known and build a database of that knowledge.
Collection: Bring together what is known.
Creation: Create, build, buy, or learn to fill in the gaps.
Conservation: Use the knowledge you have and leverage it to your advantage.
Communication: Engage your staff with the information you have and begin to use it.
Commercialization: Capitalize on what you know.
Compensation: Get paid for your knowledge by reselling it to others.

The change process — nurturing a business from bureaucratic to proactive functions, from protectionist to globally competitive — is the process which consultants are asked to manage. The same dynamics within the IMS/STRATIX situation are encountered by consultants across industries.

The consultant is in a powerful and highly delicate position. He or she comes to the table with a fresh view of the problems, able to look at the situation without the territorial prejudices of those in the business. In the IMS setting, the Information Manager and Financial Director need accurate information to guide the company. The floor production staff and sales force require a quick, reliable system to transact their orders. The Invera staff — those who sold the STRATIX system to IMS — want to successfully deliver their product and build future business on this success. Invera has invested over five years of research, development, and business political capital in creating STRATIX to serve IMS.

Each party feels a level of territorial protectionism because the other parties' interests appear to threaten their own success. Each party wants to arrive at the successful completion of the change process, but mounting difficulties raise questions about whether this goal can be achieved. Into this internally competitive and territorial setting, the consultant must:

apply his or her expertise; gain the trust of all parties involved; identify cooperative goals; identify and promote a step-by-step process for each involved party to reach toward those goals; manage the change process; transfer knowledge to the parties; "refreeze" the new operating culture and systems in the new organizational structure; and exit in such a way as to allow the change process to continue within the company.

Consulting is sometimes viewed as a totally different activity from other management professions, but this is not accurate. Consulting consists fundamentally of a process of analyzing, deliberating, judging, counseling, and implementing solutions. Whether the case involves knowledge management, marketing, organizational development, or systems management, the consulting process becomes the core activity.

The current business era has been called "post-modern" by some. This new era is identified by a rejection of absolute truths and grand narratives explaining the progressive evolution of society, while bringing to the surface a multitude of different perspectives and an appreciation of different cultures. The postmodern idea has highlighted global competitiveness in the marketplace on one hand and the use of technology and information to remain localized in personal business relationships on the other.

Postmodern organizational structures are loosely coupled, fluid, and organic rather than static and mechanistic. In the postmodern organization, there is a reduction in the number of people working in operational roles, while employment in professional, knowledge-based roles has risen compared to older organizations. On a purely theoretical level, the postmodern organization does not fully exist — for example, most organizations today spend large amounts of time and money rationally calculating which markets to enter and which firms to acquire. It would be valid to conclude that at the present time we can witness a mixture of modern and postmodern forms in most organizations. This openness, however, can create many internal uncertainties — and it is precisely here that the organizational consultant is engaged to help managers deal with and manage those uncertainties.

While many management books have sought to break down the consulting process into manageable steps, the process in a setting such as IMS can be discussed in eight steps, summarized by Tranfield and Smith's (1991) admonition to "get in, do the work, and get out."

1. Connect with the Issue or Problem. In the case of IMS, a large amount of time was spent with each of the key players and in the different departments asking questions and observing the methodology of current processes. Since STRATIX was already installed when the assignment began, this assignment was hands-on from the start. Through this process, the consultant also spent time earning the trust of those involved. As an outsider, the consultant is respected only in name until he or she can connect with the issues and demonstrate that their input will be a positive influence on the change process.

2. Open the Doors. There are three identifiable realms of the change management function. The first is process-defined: the assignment's goal was already identified — the STRATIX system needed to be utilized by the company staff. The second realm resembled a participative management function — continuing to generate trust and engage participants in the first realm. The third, and most undefined realm, is identifying the underlying psychological contracts and issues for each participant. As a consultant, effectiveness would be diminished without addressing these issues. After identification, the consultant can discuss the contract with the client and only then begin the process of change.

It is important to discuss the contract at this point. Without a contract, actual consulting should not begin. To proceed without a contract is to work without boundaries, setting a dangerous precedent and creating conditions in which misunderstanding is likely to occur.

3. Find a New Understanding to Interpret or Interact with the Problem. This stage involved digging into the actual workings of the STRATIX system and IMS manufacturing systems to understand the core issues, the forces inhibiting change, and those pushing for change.

4. Specify and Identify Needed Actions. Until this point, the consultant takes no action. Building trust and coming to understand the company's issues are the key to determining what actions can be taken.

5. Initiate and Undertake Needed Actions. At this point, with every key player involved, committed to the process, and prepared for unexpected events, the consultant urges the company into the river of change. The preparatory work is the foundation for success. This is the point at which the quality of earlier relationship-building is tested.

6. Locate Gaps and Opportunities via Intermittent Evaluations. During the change process, progress will be impeded by unexpected obstacles and advanced by unforeseen successes. Remaining flexible, retracing steps, and remediating those in the system regarding progress are all essential to the change process.

In the educational world, this process is termed pedagogy — the science or organizational structure of education. Without the consultant taking on the willing role of teacher and building the structure of learning into the system as the team adapts, key players will often retreat to protecting their own interests rather than engaging the change process. The following table outlines the benefits of a pedagogical approach:

Adapted from C. Willet (2002), "eRoom for Power Users."

This is the stage of the process during which the consultant spends political capital to encourage team members to stay committed to the process of change. It is the stage in which organizational efforts must bring the organization to the place of critical mass, where the benefit exceeds the cost (Buchanan and Boddy, 1992).

7. Transfer Knowledge to the Organization. The change process should be executed on a specific timetable that each participant has agreed to. Well before the completion of the learning cycle, the consultant begins to lessen their influence on the organization. By slowly withdrawing input, the consultant ensures that the other key participants are able — and know that they are able — to run the new system independently.

8. Successfully Transition Out of the Organization's Activities. The final transition should be a summary survey of the entire process. The company culture will likely have changed as a result of the consultant's input. Reviewing the starting point, the process, and the outcome is an important part of validating psychological contracts and finalizing any remaining knowledge transfer.

Conclusion and Implications for Practice

The dynamics within the IMS/STRATIX situation are the same as those encountered by consultants across the industry. Managing this change process — from pre-planning through the resolution of the last bug and glitch — requires integrating technical, cultural, and human factors simultaneously. The fundamental challenge is not the technology itself but the human and organizational dimensions of the transition: building trust, managing psychological contracts, addressing resistance, and guiding the organization through Lewin's unfreeze-change-refreeze cycle in a way that brings all stakeholders to the point of critical mass where the benefits of the new system are clearly perceived to exceed the costs.