Change is an essential requirement for organizational health. Without adequate adaptation to potential future situations, no organization can optimize its future performance and achieve success. Changes are necessary in all systems, processes, methods and individuals, especially in top management and middle management. All employees play significant roles in transformations and other enabling activities.
Each change process is unique to an organization and its special circumstances. Although there are many general frameworks for any development activity, these most likely have to be modified and tailored to meet specific situational requirements. This is to ensure both the optimal development effort with desired return on their "change investment" and adequate assurances to maximize gains from any future opportunities. If special future business, technological, management and operational requirements are identified and used, while designing reward and punishment systems for optimal transitions, the successful completion of any future business endeavors may be more easily achieved.
Environmental changes are affecting all levels of an organization. Depending on an event and variables involved, the nature of required system modifications often varies. Methods, instructions, forms and some procedures may change very frequently, while some structural elements, main processes such as a design and development process, management review systems and other main sub-systems remain constant for longer time periods due to significant capital investments in these processes. Changes can be initiated through various information channels: quality audits, design reviews, employee initiatives, management reviews, corrective and preventive action processes and any other process where specific improvement can be obtained. Quality system designers have to pay special attention to the development of proper and effective escalation processes for ineffective activity items. Occasionally some specific actions may not result in immediate and perceivable improvements, but in the long run they may influence other activities and initiatives positively.
No change is ever a failure. Your quality system and its key resources have to be ready to maneuver in a flexible manner at any time, when your market observation system with its weak signal mechanisms sends a signal for either corrective and preventive actions. How can an organization be changed? There are many different ways to evaluate, design, initiate, implement, verify, follow-up and maintain a required transition. Quality in your change processes is highly important to prevent the loss of resources including human and information assets and to maximize an overall effectiveness of changed processes to achieve desired results.
It is recommended to maintain a listing of all change activities with assigned priorities. Each item should be perceived as a project with specific allocated resources (information, human, finances, material), timelines and objectives. In addition, often it is very beneficial to identify any interrelations between change projects and use project-mapping techniques to analyze a big picture of the whole organizational transition. This can also be very helpful, when designing and initiating any new projects.
Training is an effective tool during all phases of the process and organizational development. However, it should be integrated into an overall strategic and tactical communication plan as one tool of many communication tools and techniques to lead, facilitate and manage change processes. One of the first things that you should train within your system is the understanding and acceptance of "an on-going and continuous change". Every person affecting quality in products should expect changes in the future and be willing to support these projects with his or her actions. To move you and your management systems from a position A to a position B, a complete management commitment is needed.
This should be expressed in management policies and supported with actions, clear communications and necessary reward / punishment systems. Resource allocations to change processes is essential, which is one of the best measures also to understand the level of the management commitment in an organizational change. A company and its management is the key and should understand their significant role. If you have a problem in this area, there are some options how you can improve your system capabilities. Often this issue may be caused by the lack of the system knowledge, but sometimes also by individuals' pure ignorance. When the executive management commits resources to develop a system, resources are also automatically committed to change the system.
No system - yours, mine, your suppliers, customers or competitors - is ever perfect and one should never assume this attitude. The attitude of continuous changes should be adopted and accepted as a part of our daily organizational life. Word Count: 737
