Od - Fingersmith Project

This paper identifies the main elements required in Fingersmith's CIO Project Plan and critically analyses the issues associated with using this plan. It assesses the potential problems involved, illustrates the strategy to gather data and shows how to analyse the data in order to provide the information necessary for designing change interventions. It also illustrates how to form the Change Team that will actuate the change.

Weisboard's Six-Box Model has been used to diagnose the organisational situation. It is recommended that Kotter's eight step change model is implemented to create a successful long-term change. The plan presents a strategy to implement the required changes to ensure servicelines work with the new IT&T Group and advises on recruitment strategies so that the new IT&T employees are selected for the desired state.

Background

Fingersmith, an insurance company, outsourced its entire IT&T operation to Global Information Systems (GIS) seven years ago, however company expectations have not been met. This coupled with changing global market conditions, new compliance regulations and changes in IT transactional activities has led senior management to reassess operational risk and consequently reestablish the internal IT&T strategy capability under the management of a new CIO.

The CIO's responsibility is to establish an IT&T group responsible for developing and implementing the IT&T strategy across all servicelines. A major function of this IT&T group is to insource the management of the IT&T Security currently operated by GIS as part of the outsourcing contract.

In order to assist in implementing the changes, there is a requirement to get servicelines to work with the new IT&T Group, recognising that some of the related risk and management of the IT&T support is being centralised with the new structure. Recruitment strategies must be advised upon so that the new IT&T staff are selected for the desired and not the current state

Situation Analysis

Weisbord's Six-Box Model is used as a diagnostic tool to analyse Fingersmith (see Figure 1), (Weisboard, 1978). In terms of purpose, organisational change is urgent, so the new formal goal clarity and informal goal agreement must be established quickly.

Fingersmith is "an established company with a long tradition" and hence the organisational culture has been instilled into its employees for many years, supporting employees in espousing Fingersmith's mission. The introduction of the new IT&T Group may disrupt cultural norms and hence this should be investigated (Schein, 1992).

During the change process, employees must be informed of the new company vision. The gap between the formal systems (policies and procedures Fingersmith claims to do) and informal systems (behaviors which actually occur) must be bridged to increase organisational effectiveness (Duck, 2001).

Fingersmith is structured into teams which have a close working relationship and strong morale. These increase the fit between the purpose and its internal structure. Getting servicelines to work with the new IT&T Group will require teamwork, relationship building, conflict management and development of common goals (Smith, 2004). Reward programs must be established to encourage the change (Smith, 2004).

In order to manage the change properly, leaders must now embody purposes in their programs and revisit their leadership style. Helping mechanisms such as planning, controlling and information systems should be centralised to meet organisational goals (Weisboard, 1978).

The IT&T group will increase the size of Fingersmith, as most of its growth will come through entry into new business because of its new IT competency. New divisions by function, market or nation may be required (Weisboard, 1976) due to the changing global market conditions. Fingersmith's centralised structure must be transformed into a more flexible structure to fit its new IT environment and increased size (see "Structural Change").

Information Gathering Strategy

This strategy involves collecting pertinent information about current operations using qualitative tools and quantitative methods. The data will then be analysed and conclusions will be drawn for potential change and improvement.

Formal Methods

Questionnaires consisting of open and closed questions will be distributed. . Closed questions allow for easy scoring but do not allow much depth to answers. Open questions allow for more individual responses but are difficult to score (Kirkpatrick, 2001).

Focus groups of 8 to 12 people should be selected and structured or free-flowing questions should be asked by the facilitator (Kirkpatrick, 2001). Here, individuals can be spurred on to think more fully about an answer by hearing the answers of others--the individual group members build on each other's ideas. However, it must be ensured that certain people do not dominate the discussion.

Formal one-on-one interviews should be conducted. Due an interview's intimate setting, trust can be established early and the session can delve deeply into the subject matter. The process of interviewing is time-consuming, and the quality of data is often dependent on the interviewer's aptitude (Byrne, 2001).

Informal Methods

Informal visits with individuals, stopping in alone and unannounced to talk with people and find out how they feel about the new processes not only gains valuable feedback but also sends a strong symbolic message by traveling without a large entourage (Byrne, 2001). Individual and group behavior must also be observed in order to view natural patterns of behavior.

Analysis of Information Gathered

Two methods, content analysis and force-field analysis, should be used to analyse the data in order to provide the information necessary for designing change interventions.

Content analysis

This method reduces many interview comments into a few themes that summarise respondents' issues or attitudes into categories (Byrne, 2001. It involves three major steps:

1. Read responses to particular questions to assess whether some comments occur over and over.

2. Based on the sampling