An Evaluation of Why Change Projects Fail

Answer

According to the IBM video, only sixty percent of change projects succeed. Accordingly, the video highlights several factors that might help organizations to increase their success rates when implementing change.  Change projects often fail for various reasons, some of which the video has discussed and others not in the video. As such it is proper have at finger print the reason that might lead to failure when implementing or executing changes in an organization. In light of the above, this analysis evaluates the factors that contributes to the failure of change projects both in the video and the ones not in the IBM video. 

Changing mindsets and attitudes is the greatest challenge that faces change projects in organizations. According to the study, fifty eight percent of change projects fail because of changing mindset and attitudes (https://youtu.be/2ol9zYw4Chg). Most employees sometimes develop negative attitude to changes in work environment, a situation that greatly impacts their productivity negatively. It is also difficult to change the employee’s mindset to adopt the new changes in an organization, hence the organization spends more time to influence such changes.

Corporate culture is another cause of change project failure (https://youtu.be/2ol9zYw4Chg). Accordingly, corporate culture implies the belief system and how the management and employees interact with one another. Accordingly, one of the corporate cultures that leads to project change failure is the non-involvement of the employees in the change initiatives. In most instances, the organization only inform the employees of the changes and do not care about their feelings about the same. Employees would appreciate such changes and own them more if they participate in making them as opposed to when the organization imposes such changes on them. 

Lack of resources to implement such changes also contributes to the failure in most instances. Implementing changes in an organization is usually an expensive process that requires a lot of funds (Varney 2017). For instance, the organization would need funds to take their employees for further training and induction on such new ideas. Apart from training, there are other expenses that the organization must incur like development of suitable infrastructure for such changes (Varney, 2017). Licensing would also cost the organization more funds when initiating such new ideas. A community-based organization that o worked for some years ago failed in its change project because it lacked sufficient funds to achieve the same. The organization wanted to digitize its operation and thus needed more funds to purchase computers and develop proper infrastructure for the same. It also needed to train some of the elderly employees about the operation of the new digital system. It however dropped the plan when it became apparent that it lacked enough funds for the same.

In conclusion, change projects fail due to several factors. Some of these factors include organization culture, changing mindsets and attitudes and also lack of funds to sustain the changes. Organization culture such as inability to inform the employees of the intended changes make them lose interest and willingness to discharge their duties under such changes. Lack of funds also contribute to such failure considering how expensive it could be to train employee on new work environment and technology.