1. Change Management – A success story in a government organization.
Ashutosh Pandey, R.T.Sundari
Any change initiative is to steer the organization away from where it’s currently headed to an
enhanced and improved future. Mostly we find the change process and improvement programs
often “fail” due to improper understanding of corporate strategic objectives and processes are not
aligned with business imperatives. The successful change will depend upon the collective power
of change initiatives, having sufficient impact on the targeted driving forces, thereby altering the
course of the organization. To have appropriate infrastructure in place will certainly support the
‘mechanics’ of change. This means having effective organizational structure, project
management office (PMO), clear roles and responsibilities, plans, communications and
measurement. For improving the future course of activities it is also essential to nurture the
individual competencies to build the organizational capabilities. In this paper we discuss about
the changes made in the organization having project based structure to matrix structure of
different functions with project base. The change initiatives are then measured with leading
indicators like cost, revenue, technology implementation and quality of deliverables. With above
orientation of change management the organization was able achieve the milestones leading
towards processes and performance improvement. It has also resulted in the client and employee
satisfaction.
Key words: Change Management, Organizational structure, Matrix structure
1. Introduction
The concept of "change management" is a familiar one in most businesses today. Any change
initiative is to steer the organization away from where it’s currently headed to an enhanced and
improved future. But, how businesses manage change and how successful they are at it varies a
lot depending on the nature of the business, the change and the people involved. Organizational
change is something that occurs throughout an organization’s life cycle. The effect of change
occurs in the entire organization rather than one part of it. Change in the organization is required
due to demand in the globalization, ever changing technology. Therefore it is necessary to
understand the present needs and accordingly the change strategy to be implemented. Change
management in this paper refers to organization-wide change, that is, change which affects all
systems, structures and processes, as well as organizational culture. This holistic approach
involves learning throughout the organization.
2. Challenges in the Government R&D organization.

2. In a government R&D organization, as is well-known, the software development activities are
significantly different from those of other software development companies who develop the
applications as per well defined customer requirements. In such a R&D unit, dealing with
various mega software projects, the planning itself was more complex and specification changes
during project implementation were frequent and inevitable. To begin any successful change
process, you must first start by understanding why the change must take place.
Implementing change management strategy is not easy in those organizations. CM has to find a
fine balance of Organizational Structures, Cultural Acceptance, Procedures, Processes and the
right degree of system support. It requires acceptance from the top management and support.
Buy-in has to percolate from top to bottom.
3. Change Management Model
Change Management in an organization is a result of influencing both internal and external
factors. For example, the internal environment might be affected by following factors.
Identification New/Large opportunities
Improper work distribution among employees
Performance gaps to to attain organization goals and objectives
Introduction to New Processes/ Technologies
Crisis- Financial or Resources
Everyone has few theories about change management. While there are many change
management models, most organization will choose at least one of the following three models to
implement the strategy:
1. Lewin’s Change Management Model
2. McKinsey 7-S Model
3. Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model
While each one of the models has its own advantages and disadvantages, one has to carefully
analyse the model that best suit to his organization and its culture. Mostly we find the change
process and improvement programs often “fail” due to improper understanding of corporate
strategic objectives and processes are not aligned with business imperatives. The successful
change will depend upon the collective power of change initiatives, having sufficient impact on
the targeted driving forces, thereby altering the course of the organization. Organizational
performance is core to its success. After careful analysis and evaluation of the suitability
factors, Kotter’s 8 Step model was chosen to implement the CM.

3. The 8 steps in this model are:
1. Increase the urgency for change.
2. Build a team dedicated to change.
3. Create the vision for change.
4. Communicate the need for change.
5. Empower staff with the ability to change.
6. Create short term goals.
7. Stay persistent.
8. Make the change permanent.
Significant advantages to this model are:
- The process is an easy step-by-step
- The focus is on preparing and accepting change, not the actual change.
- Transition is easier.
While implementing the CM, it is fore most important to evaluate various risks and financial
implications in the organization. Following Cost & Risks were analyzed on both levels i.e.
Project and organization.
Costs Risks
Project level Project delays
Missed milestones
Budget overruns
Rework required on design
Loss of work by project team
Resistance – active and passive
Project put on hold
Resources not made available
Obstacles appear unexpectedly
Project fails to deliver results
Project is fully abandoned
Organizational
level
Productivity plunges (deep and
sustained)
Loss of valued employees
Reduced quality of work
Impact on customers
Impact on suppliers
Morale declines
Legacy of failed change
Stress, confusion, fatigue
Change saturation
If the change is not
implemented
Lost investment made in the project
Lost opportunity to have invested
in other projects
Expenses not reduced
Efficiencies not gained
Revenue not increased
Waste not reduced
Regulations not met
Table 1: Analysis of Cost and Risks-Organizational vs Project level
4. Implementation of Change Management in an R & D Government Organization:

4. To meet challenges in implementation of CM, such an organization need to focus on changes in
following areas:
Organization’s Mission and Vision…. by continuously monitoring its Mission i.e.
purpose of its business, Vision i.e. what the Organization should look like and its
competitive strategies.
Working Mechanism can be changed by introducing new procedures, methods to attain
better performance with available resources.
Organizational Structure can be changed to be more responsive with external factors
i.e. customers, market competitions etc. Structure can be changed inside the organization
also to make life-cycle more effective.
Human behavior and Organization Culture can be redefined by training to managers
and employees for new knowledge and skills. Right-Sizing can be done to deal with
financial crisis and best fit persons can be more utilized by increasing motivation and
incentive schemes.
C-DAC Noida center (a scientific society of Ministry of communication and IT) has been
involved in R&D and application oriented design and development for various Government
Clients. Over the decades, it has acquired competency, expertise and extensive experience in the
areas of Health Informatics, Embedded Systems, Language Computing and e-Governance
domains. The organization structure was built around these domain areas. Project teams were
formed within these groups, who were responsible for design, development, testing and
implementation which led to excessive coding and little importance given to knowledge sharing.
Time lines for delivering the products were often missed. Team Members were not released to
other teams where the requirement is priority. That resulted in excess man power deployment in
each projects.
Fig 1: Project base organizational structure

5. During data collection and internal audits we came to know that the project documents like
designing, review reports were prepared after the activity of that phase is over. The very purpose
of the documentation seems to have been defeated as the Project Leader and his team managed
everything within their ambit.
So keeping opportunities and challenges in mind, Centre evolved some internal changes in its
functional structures. In order to create an urgency of the change, staffs are consulted for the
change management plan. First step towards this was to identify the group which will implement
the change. Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) was formed with the representation
from different technical groups. The next was empowering the SPEG so as to work without any
hindrance.
Putting people at the top of the agenda with planning for enhanced staff performance has become
a key element of the Strategy. Accordingly, it was decided to change the organization structure
by creating four groups’ viz. Design, Development, Testing and Implementation. Within this
group projects were handled by different teams. Changing the whole structure from Project-
Based to Metric Base was a great challenge for the organization. This has helped in pooling the
skill and talent in a group with a clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
Due to this structure, the documentation has become a must from other group before they start
their work. Project Managers were from the Implementation group and they will be interacting
with the customers for the requirements and finalizing the same with them. They prepare the
System Requirement Document and forward to the Design Team for designing. The Design
Team works on the High Level Design and Low Level Design and reviews the same with the
proposed committee before releasing the Design document to the Development Group. After
coding, the application was deployed in the test server and testing team work on them by testing
the functionalities as per clients’ requirements. The common repository system was created by
the Quality Assurance Group for easy handing of the documents from the various groups. The
baseline documents were uploaded in project repository for the stakeholders to use. At the same
time Project Manager can be able to monitor the activity with the help of common repository.
The vertical functional group and horizontal project team of matrix helped to speed up the
implementation.

6. Fig 2: Matrix based structure
Initially, the changes made in the structure did not go well in between the groups. There have
been barriers created between the groups leading to water tight compartments. No accountability
was felt by Design, Development and Testing groups. As such, the Implementation team always
faced the pressure from the clients.
SEPG group has identified the Project Management Office (PMO) to co-ordinate with different
groups. It tracks the timeline and progress of the project and gave a good support to
implementation group. Weekly meetings were conducted by the PMO with the Team Leads of
different groups. Targets were fixed during the meeting and issues between the groups were
sorted out amicably.
5. Analyses about the result obtained due to CM
Before introducing the Change in the organizational structure there was lot of rework in the projects.
Similar modules/ functionalities developed by a number of projects but components developed under one
project were not being re-used in other projects thus resulting in duplication of work and more effort.
Same defects were noticed and experienced in different projects. Maintaining of the similar type of
modules in all projects became difficult as each group or team was developing their modules
independently.
After six months of executing the new change in structure and functionalities, we have collected the data
from different projects only to find very little improvement in the outcome. PMO began to closely
monitor the project execution and the hi cups in the process and procedures were ironed out. After one
year the improvement were felt. The following table of Customer Satisfaction was taken after one and
half years. Here you see during the project based structure overall Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) was
between 1 and 2 whereas the matrix based structure of CSI was reached 3.

7. Customer Satisfaction Index in Project based Structure
Projects Availability
of Build on
Production
Documen
tation
Defect
Occurren
ce
Maintai
nability
Reliabil
ity
Perform
ance
Usabil
ity
Overall
CSI (in
Project
Based)
PGIMER 2 2 3 3 3 2 2 2
GNCTD 1 2 4 2 1 1 2 1
RIMS 1 2 3 1 1 1 1 1
SMS 3 2 3 3 3 3 3 2
Customer Satisfaction Index in Metric based Structure
Projects Availability
of Build on
Production
Documentat
ion
Defect
Occurr
ence
Maintai
nability
Reliabil
ity
Perform
ance
Usabil
ity
CSI (in
Metric
Based)
PGIMER 4 3 2 3 3 3 4 3
GNCTD 5 4 1 4 4 4 4 3
RIMS 5 3 2 4 4 4 5 3
SMS 3 3 1 4 4 3 3 3
Table 2 Customer Satisfaction Index
Fig 3: Customer Satisfaction Index
Another main benefit accrued was lowering of cost of implementation of projects. In Table 3 below for
each project we have taken ‘Size’ (i.e No of processes in the project). Against size we have compared the
re-usable components, rework, defects detected before delivery of the product and after delivery and
redundancy percentage. From the result below we can see that after the changes in the process structure
reworking has reduced due to no of re-usable components used in the projects. The defects rate after
delivery was also declined while the defects rate before delivery was high. This means that testing was
very effective. Overall the implementation cost of each project has been decreased in the matrix based
structure.
0
1
2
3
4
Overall CSI (in
Project Based)
CSI (in Metric
Based)

8. Implementation Cost in Project based Structure Per Process
Projects Size (No.
of
Processes)
Re-
Usable
Compone
nts
Rework
(Man
days)
Defects
detected
before
Delivery
Defects
detected
after
Delivery
Redunda
ncy %
Cost of
Product
Developme
nt (INR)
Project
Based Per
Process
Implement
ation Cost
(INR)
PGIMER 728 45 340 2673 215 42 3899500.00 5356.46
GNCTD 446 14 225 1463 175 54 2495750.00 5595.85
RIMS 875 7 324 1225 227 62 3650500.00 4172.00
SMS 678 17 275 1900 122 38 3211750.00 4737.09
Per Process Implementation Cost in Metric based Structure
Projects Size (No.
of
Processes)
Re-
Usable
Compone
nts
Rework
(Man
days)
Defects
detected
before
Delivery
Defects
detected
after
Delivery
Redunda
ncy %
Cost of
Product
Developme
nt
Per
Process
Implement
ation Cost
(INR)
PGIMER 1625 124 201 3678 202 12 6310000.00 3883.08
GNCTD 1258 76 175 2458 124 6 4671000.00 3713.04
RIMS 986 49 115 2126 62 8 3715750.00 3768.51
SMS 625 29 121 1965 57 7 2743500.00 4389.60
Table 3: Implementation Cost per Process
6. Conclusion
With above orientation of change management the organization was able achieve the milestones
leading towards processes and performance improvement. It has also resulted in the client and
employee satisfaction. Whatever change management strategy is used it should have holistic
approach for better results. Comparison of the data between the two type structures shows that there
is an average of 40% cost reduction due to the Change. The Change has Minimized Project Risks,
Accelerating Project Benefits and Optimizing current & future processes and structures. Due to the
customer satisfaction we have been able to get more projects of same type.
References:
1. Project data: QMS, CDAC Noida
2. Kotter, John P., and Dan S. Cohen, The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People
Change Their Organizations. Harvard Business Press, 2002.
3. Journal of Organizational Change Management, Professor Slawomir Magala, ISSN: 0953-4814

9. 4. Change Management Masterclass: A Step-By-Step Guide to Successful Change Management, by
Mike Green, Published August 28th 2007 by Kogan Page
5. Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation by
Tim Brown (Sep 29, 2009)
6. Organization Change: Theory and Practice (Foundations for Organizational Science series) by
W. Warner Burke (Nov 29, 2010)
7. Management of Organizational Change: K Harigopal, SAGE, 14-Apr-2006
8. Change Management Strategies for an Effective EMR Implementation : Claire McCarthy,Douglas
Eastman, HIMSS, 2010
9. Change Management 100 Success Secrets, by Gerard Blokdijk, 2008
10. Organizational and personal change management, process, plans, change management and
business development tips- www.businessballs.com.
11. Change Management Consulting Case Study by Ryan Gunhold
Mr. Ashutosh Pandey (B. Tech CSE, MS in Cyber Laws) has a total work experience of 7.5 years and a Project
engineer in CDAC Noida for the past 5 years. He is also registered as ATM (Appraisal Team Member) in SEI
(Software Engineering Institute) and helped CDAC Noida in attaining CMMI Level 3 in December 2008 and CMMI
Level 5 in February 2011. He’s Also a Member of CSI. His research interest includes Object Oriented Software
Engineering, Software Testing. He may be contacted in ashutoshpandey@cdac.in.
R.T. Sundari (Consultant) has Post graduation in Management and 35 years experience in
software designing, development and testing. She is currently heading the PMO(Project
Management Office) and SEPG (Software Engineering Process Group) in addition to Quality
Assurance division of CDAC, Nodia. She has been instrumental in attaining CMMi 5 and ISO
9001 Certifications for CDAC Noida. She has guided many national and international papers
work. She may be contacted in sundari@cdac.in