Real outcomes
Discuss About The Using Internal Communication Turn Strategy.
The main expectations from the project were that it will be able to save the cost and increase efficiency by reducing the staff, to improve the service levels for the public by increasing accuracy, reliability and quick turnaround time to public queries and to create a system which is flexible enough and easily adaptable to the future changes in present taxation system or implementing reforms in personal taxation.
As per the stakeholders and member of steering committee, the main aim of this modernized program is to generate extra tax due to more accuracy and systems changes and the same extra tax will actually justify the cost of the project as well as generate the savings in the long run. According to the data released in 2008 by the National Audit office, the PAYE modernization project was due to cost 140 million Euros during 2006-2011 and expected to deliver the savings of 93 million Euros during the same period.
During the time of feasibility study of the project, there were no computerization projects that have been implemented at such large scale. Thus, there were large number of challenges like inadequate technology, large number of vendors, inexperienced programmers, political challenges but still the project is a very much successful due to its strong and committed leadership and the strong steering committee. The approved project budget was 180 million Euros in 1980s. Adding the inflation and adjusting to retail price index, this figure comes out to be 266 million Euros however the project actual cost is 240 million Euros. This clearly indicated the success of the project and the decision was taken to implement the system in the rest of the country.
This project was initiated by the Department of Inland Revenue in 1960s with the aim of processing the huge quantities of data in a systematic, accurate and error free manner and giving the better service to the public. Also, as the computerization increases, it will reduce the number of staff and also saves the money and efforts due to inaccurate data processing and thereby generating a saving in a long run. As per the Department of Inland Revenue, this project is clearly in nation’s interest.
There were large number of stakeholders in the project like Department of Inland Revenue, various vendors like British telecom, Plessey, ICL, PSA, consultants, employees, employers, CSC staff, payroll providers, people and everyone impacted by the project directly or indirectly.
Difference between the expected and real outcomes
Most of the leadership theories and decision making frameworks are based on the assumptions that circumstances are simple and relationships between cause and effect are often knowns however when these assumptions are no longer valid, it is not a good idea to follow the traditional model for decision making. Cynefin is one such model that proposes different decision making approaches in different situations and hence applicable for different situations like obvious situations, complex situation and chaotic situations to name a few (Munya, 2014). In case of COP project, it was very complicated and complex and there were unforeseen challenges at different steps and thus require a robust model for decision making and Cynefin is really helpful. This model defined 4 domains and advocates appropriate approach for decision making in that particular domain. The first one is obvious domain also known as domain of best practices where the problem and solution is known and not much expertise is needed to deal with such situations. In such domains, sense, categorize and respond approach should be used to take the decisions. Next one is complicated domain also known as domain of good practices where there may be many right answers and clear relationship between cause and effect but it is not visible to everyone as the problem is complicated. It is advised to use Sense, analyse and respond approach in such situations.
Third domain is complex also known as domain of emergence. In complicated domain, there is at least one correct answer but in complex domain, it is difficult to identify the right answer. Most of the business problems fall in this category and the reason is only concluded in Hindsight (Ziadat, Kirkham, & Gardiner, 2017). Leader should conduct business experiments to know the reasons and accept failure as part of the process (Joshi, & Narwankar, 2017). In this domain, Probe, sense and respond is recommended to take the decisions. Next domain is Chaotic also known as domain of rapid novel solutions and rapid responses. This domain usually consists of emergency situations or crisis. The immediate action of the elder should be to establish the order and bringing the situation to complex domain as soon as possible. Act, sense and respond is recommended in such situations.
This project COP is quite complex in nature that involves large number of suppliers. It is very important that all the vendors should work in tandem (Abrahamsson, 2017). Therefore, there are numerous situations in this project that are of complex and complicated domain. For instance, there was scepticism about the ICL hardware capabilities to match the COP’s requirements, there was tough decisions like to award a contract to ICL just for maintaining confidence on British technology although many better vendors exists from America. Also, ICL went bankrupt and it was again another important decision to bail them out and continue on the project. Apart from it, there was lack of experienced programmers who have worked on the assignment of such complexity and size. These all were uncertain situations where right or wrong was not evident however the steering committee was very strong and the decisions proved to be right at the end when project is highly successful. Cynefin model was helpful in analysing the uncertainties and take the appropriate decisions Due to the nature of the projects, there were large number of simulations are needed which is of course a part of how to deal with complex situations (O’Connor, & Lepmets, 2015). Experiment was the way forward as per Cynefin model in such situations.
Who initiated the project, and why?
This is the age of Knowledge and knowledge workers who uses their heads much more than their hands. During such times, it becomes imperative to convert this tacit knowledge in the people’s head into corporate repository so that it can be effectively used and exploited across the enterprise (Donate, & de Pablo, 2015). Today, organizations spent a lot of money in developing tools and methodologies for particular projects but if it not properly documented and captured, it will not be reusable and the employees spent the time and money again in reinventing the wheel. The goal of the knowledge management strategies is to organize, store and manages the knowledge related documents and also provides a useful search function using which people can find if there are documents available for their requirements (Mangiarotti, & Mention, 2015). KM strategies also make the knowledge available across the world anytime anywhere and thus more reliable then formal trainings. Apart from it, it also makes the transition easy because if the new team joins in, they can use the existing documents for bringing them on to the same page in speedy manner. However, if there is no knowledge management, if a person leaves the company or something happens to that person, then it will take long time for the replacement to work (Omotayo, 2015). Also, he may not be aware of past dealings, conditions, norms, scenarios and will start from the very beginning that can also lead to escalations. Today, knowledge management strategies are the need of the hour and clients are also prefer to have business with the organizations that have Knowledge management strategies in place (Quirke, 2017).
As per the stakeholders, there were 2 main pillars for the success of COP project. One was senior management commitment and another one was great emphasis on documentation of the system requirements and change control processes. All the key requirements were properly captured to convert the critical user knowledge in to the documents so that it can be used by multiple teams simultaneously anytime and anywhere. Apart from it, programmers may need to access the requirements multiple times to code them properly so it is best to document them and store. It will also avoid the conflicts at a later stage when the requirement is clearly documented. Apart from it, there were weekly and daily meetings with contractors, various vendors to discuss and make important decisions. Minutes of meetings were also captured and stored so that in case of change in the management or conflict, minutes of meetings can be referred to resolve the issues. Undoubtedly, this strategy explains the success of the project.
Main stakeholders of the project
Knowledge management helps the organization to reuse its tools and solutions to complex problems instead of reinventing the wheel and thus saves time and money. Apart from it, it also helps the new people to learn the things quickly and help in their learning and development. By transferring the tacit knowledge of experts, organizations also reduce their training costs and their reliance on the people. Such documents are of immense use during mergers and acquisitions, management change, transformational change, downsizing, cost cutting (Dehghani, & Ramsin, 2015). Organizations has to develop a culture of knowledge management and also have incentives for the people, only then people will come forward and share their knowledge. There must be central repository where all the reusable content and important documents should be stored and people should be encouraged to use that and refine the ideas in the repository
One of the main weakness of knowledge management is that some people are not motivated to share their knowledge and it is very difficult task to get their knowledge out of their head and convert it into storable format (Amara, et al., 2016). These people often have job security and think that if they share everything, organization may kick them out. Also, sometimes people rely too much on the existing knowledge documents that they do not want to make much effort and this hampers the organization capabilities to innovate (Estrada, Faems, & De Faria, 2016). Constant innovation is the must for the organization to survive in this era of massive competition and increased bargaining power of the customers. Apart from this, today, some of the customers demanded that all their documents should be kept confidential and tools developed for them is their property and organizations must not use them in any other engagements. Knowledge sharing may become a compliance issues in such cases.
References
Abrahamsson, P. (2017, October). Towards Understanding Startup Product Development as Effectual Entrepreneurial Behaviors. In Software Business: 8th International Conference, ICSOB 2017, Essen, Germany, June 12-13, 2017, Proceedings (Vol. 304, p. 199). Springer.
Amara, N., D’Este, P., Landry, R., & Doloreux, D. (2016). Impacts of obstacles on innovation patterns in KIBS firms. Journal of Business Research, 69(10), 4065-4073.
Dehghani, R., & Ramsin, R. (2015). Methodologies for developing knowledge management systems: an evaluation framework. Journal of Knowledge Management, 19(4), 682-710.
Donate, M. J., & de Pablo, J. D. S. (2015). The role of knowledge-oriented leadership in knowledge management practices and innovation. Journal of Business Research, 68(2), 360-370.
Estrada, I., Faems, D., & de Faria, P. (2016). Coopetition and product innovation performance: The role of internal knowledge sharing mechanisms and formal knowledge protection mechanisms. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, 56-65.
Joshi, S. P., & Narwankar, C. S. (2017). Organizational problem solving in continuous process improvement. In Proceedings of the International Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management. (pp. 1-10). American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM).
Mangiarotti, G., & Mention, A. L. (2015). Investigating firm-level effects of knowledge management strategies on innovation performance. International Journal of Innovation Management, 19(01), 1550012.
Munya, P. W. (2014). A Bayesian Abduction Model for Sensemaking (Doctoral dissertation, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University).
O’Connor, R. V., & Lepmets, M. (2015, August). Exploring the use of the cynefin framework to inform software development approach decisions. In Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Software and System Process (pp. 97-101). ACM.
Omotayo, F. O. (2015). Knowledge Management as an important tool in Organisational Management: A Review of Literature. Library Philosophy and Practice, 1.
Quirke, B. (2017). Making the connections: using internal communication to turn strategy into action. Routledge.
Ziadat, W., Kirkham, R., & Gardiner, P. (2017, June). On the Edge of Chaos: Complexity Offering Value Expectations on O&G Projects. In SPE Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Annual Technical Symposium and Exhibition. Society of Petroleum Engineers.
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