Project Information

Course Project: This project must be completed individually. 

Course Project milestones are due by Sunday of Weeks 3, 5, and 7. The final written component and the final oral presentation are due by Saturday of Week 8. Hence, it is necessary to begin working on your project as quickly and as early as possible. 

Deliverables

This Course Project will help you utilize the concepts in this class by doing a thorough analytical and in-depth review and comparison of the change in two companies. 

You will accomplish the following in the course.

1. Research two publicly traded companies (Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Microsoft, Apple, AT&T, Verizon, are NOT eligible companies.) and compare and contrast their methods of handling a significant change in their organizations. Analyze and write about images of change in those organizations in a Change Analysis Paper ‐ Images of Change (Milestone 1, include four references). This component is due in Week 3.
2. Determine the change in those companies and their barriers and resistors by creating a Determining the Change Paper (Milestone 2, include four references). This component is due in Week 5.
3. Analyze and create applications for a change project in communication, based on the change in one of your researched companies. This is the Communicating the Change Paper (Milestone 3, include two references). This component is due in Week 7.
4. Create the final written version of your project. The written component will simply be a combination of Milestones 1, 2, and 3, completely formatted using APA writing styles. You must ensure that your final written component includes a title page, table of contents, and a References Page (which will include the required 10 references from Milestones 1, 2, and 3). This component is due in Week 8.
5. Create the final audio version of your project. The audio component will be a summary of your project. You must use an audio multimedia tool of your choosing (PowerPoint and Kaltura are the two most used). This component is due in Week 8.

Please note the following points related to the research component of this Course Project.

Utilize multiple references using online research, including the DeVry University on-site or online libraries. As well, consider using a public library or other area university or college library for print resources. Other secondary research sources you feel would be appropriate for this project may also be used. The purpose of completing the research component for this Course Project is to include strong references to support your findings. 

Note: Do not use Wikipedia as a reference source. If you find useful information from Wikipedia, triangulate your research, and find other, more credible source(s) that provide the same (or better) information, and then utilize the information from that more credible source in your paper and References page.

Examples

Here are some examples.

• Both Ford and General Motors experienced serious issues pre-, during, and post-TARP period, causing them to restructure and change how they do business. Each of them reacted to these pressures differently. A paper comparing and contrasting the way both companies reacted to this pressure would be very interesting and easy to set up in an organized fashion. Further, utilizing the grid of the image, you can discuss how they did handle these pressures (using which image) and how a different style of the leader (image) might have handled it differently.
• Both Hewlett-Packard and Home Depot have had issues selecting a new chief executive officer (CEO) for their company. Reviewing the last 10 years of CEO history, a paper comparing and contrasting the pressures involved and how they impacted the overall productivity of the companies would be sustainable throughout the term.
• Review any two companies in the airline industry, their entrance into (and possibly their completion of) bankruptcy, and how they handled the changes through management as a result (i.e., United Airlines and American Airlines).
• Review any two companies who have recently been through some part of merger and acquisition change and how they handled the culture changes.
• Review any two companies who have had industry changes, how they have reacted either successfully or unsuccessfully, and how their reactions perhaps resulted in their success or failure (i.e., Yahoo versus IBM).

These are simply illustrative. You can do research and find a number of companies and topics of change that could work for this Course Project, and you are encouraged to do so. If you have questions or need more ideas, please ask your professor for assistance.

Topic Selection

Select your two companies that have undergone some type of fairly substantial change in the recent past. Find the company and the change information online using EBSCO or using another appropriate resource in the DeVry Library. Other ways to find information include utilizing Google, Yahoo Finance, or Reuters and looking up annual reports of companies that interest you. Often, reading the first sections of these reports (i.e., letters from CEOs) will give you ideas about changes they have gone through in the past year(s).

You will need to ensure the following.

1. Your companies are publicly traded so that their information will be easy to research and find.
2. Your change in the two companies are comparable (i.e., don’t compare a new CEO to a change in the human resources information system [HRIS]. Do compare two changes in chief information officer.
3. The changes happened in the recent past so that you will find sufficient online information about how they were handled, but not so recent that the information about the change results is still being researched and published.

The Change Analysis—Images of Change Paper (Milestone 1)

The Images section focuses on the six different images of managing change and how each approach to change affects all that follows in its implementation and continued support. Download the Project Images Grid from the Course Resources area. Select three of the images of change explained in the lesson from the grid. Then, analyze how those particular images would affect the ensuing diagnosis and implementation in your two selected companies on their change plans.

Here’s what to do.

1. Review the changes in each company and describe them thoroughly in a Word document. Explain how the change impacted the companies and who it impacted. Compare some of the similarities and differences between the change in the two companies.
2. Review your prepared grid, and select three images of change from your grid. Complete the empty blocks on the grid for those three images using outlines, bullet points, and rough ideas for both company's change.
3. In a Word document, analyze, compare, and contrast the three images and explain how the behaviors of those images would be different or the same during your companies’ changes and how those differences could (or did) impact the success (or failure) of the change, comparing and contrasting the results at both companies.
4. Explain which image (or combination of images) you feel would have best facilitated the described change, and explain why.
5. Based on the information you read about the results of this change, state which image you think the leader of the change actually resembled the most. You may speculate on which image you feel best represents the change agent at either or both of the companies. This will depend on how much information you found about the internal workings of the company during the change.

This paper should focus on evidence that demonstrates how the management of the organization integrated one or more of the six images of managing change, how effective the change was, and what management could have done differently to increase the probability of successfully implementing the strategic change initiative. Again, this is a compare and contrast paper, so include information about both companies in your report.