| Course | DDBA 8521 Seminar in Change Management |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 1 |
| Paper type | Discussion post |
| Length | About 590 words, 4 pages |
| Format | Discussion post, APA 7 citations |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for DDBA 8521 Week 1
Week 1 Discussion: Can Change Be Planned?
Planned on Paper, Narrated Afterward: Taking the Side That a Hospital Laboratory's Move to Overnight Batch Testing Was Mostly Emergent, and Admitting What the Planned-Change Account Would Say About the Same Facts
The Episode
I manage operations at a composite reference laboratory owned by a regional hospital system in Kentucky. In 2024 the laboratory moved most of its routine outpatient testing from a daytime schedule to overnight batch runs. On paper, this was a planned change: a project charter dated February 2024, a timeline with five phases, a steering committee and a go-live date in September. The final report to the board describes the change as having followed that plan.
My Side: The Change Was Mostly Emergent
I take the side that this change was mostly emergent and narrated as planned afterward. The charter's original aim was to reduce courier costs by consolidating pickups from clinics, not to move testing overnight. The shift to overnight runs began in April, when two night-shift technologists, idle between emergency samples, started running the morning's outpatient backlog early to clear their benches. Turnaround times improved, clinic managers noticed, and the steering committee adopted the practice in June. The five-phase timeline was rewritten in July to fit what had already happened. By September, the change existed; the go-live date marked its formal recognition.
Weick and Quinn (1999) contrasted change that arrives in deliberate bursts with change that accumulates without pause from many small local adjustments. They argued that much of what organizations call planned change is better understood as continuous change that leaders later frame as episodic. Our laboratory's move fits that description: the important shift came from technologists' local improvisation, and the plan was revised to describe it.
What the Planned-Change Account Would Say
A defender of planned change would read the same facts differently. Lewin (1947) pictured change as loosening a settled state, shifting it and then setting it again, and a planned-change view would say the charter unfroze the laboratory: by announcing that the schedule would change and forming a committee, leaders created the conditions in which technologists felt free to experiment. The committee then did what planning is meant to do, recognizing a promising option, testing it and building it into standard work. On that reading, the night technologists' improvisation was a product of the plan, not evidence against it.
That reading has force. Without the charter, the technologists' early runs might have been stopped as unauthorized. But it credits the plan with something the plan did not anticipate. The charter never mentioned overnight testing, and the steering committee's minutes from March show members proposing a different consolidation, of courier routes, which was later dropped.
Why I Hold My Side
Pettigrew (1990) argued that change should be studied as a process unfolding over time in context, not as a sequence of planned steps, because the sequence is often imposed afterward. Reading the minutes in order shows the plan following the practice. I would describe the charter as creating permission, which matters, but not direction.
Question for Classmates
In the change you know best, did the plan describe what was going to happen or what had already happened?
Reply to Grant
Grant, your factory's lean rollout followed Kotter's steps closely. Did the steps produce the changes, or did the rollout team map what happened onto the steps in the final report?
Reply to Amara
Amara, you argue that your bank branch's new appointment system was purely emergent. Was there any decision by senior leaders without which the staff's improvisation would have been stopped?
References
Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method and reality in social science; social equilibria and social change. Human Relations, 1(1), 5-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872674700100103
Pettigrew, A. M. (1990). Longitudinal field research on change: Theory and practice. Organization Science, 1(3), 267-292. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1.3.267
Weick, K. E., & Quinn, R. E. (1999). Organizational change and development. Annual Review of Psychology, 50(1), 361-386. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.50.1.361
DDBA 8521 Week 1 instructions, in plain terms
The opening week asks you to take a side in the dispute over whether change can be planned. Choose one organizational episode you know well and describe what happened, with dates. State which account of change, planned or emergent, the episode supports, and explain why using the facts. Then state the rival account as its strongest defender would apply it to the same facts, and say what is right about it. Explain why you still hold your side, citing evidence such as plans, minutes or reports in the order they were written. Draw on the change literature for both accounts. Avoid surveying both camps evenly without choosing. Close by asking classmates whether their own plans led or followed events, then reply to two of them.
How this DDBA 8521 Week 1 example is built
The post describes the laboratory, the February 2024 charter, five phases, a steering committee and a September go-live, and notes the final report claims the plan was followed. It then argues the change was emergent: technologists improvised early runs, turnaround improved, the committee adopted the practice and the timeline was rewritten to fit, with Weick and Quinn's distinction between episodic and continuous change. The rival section applies Lewin's unfreezing, movement and refreezing, crediting the charter with creating permission. The post answers that the charter never mentioned overnight testing and that March minutes proposed courier consolidation instead, citing Pettigrew on reading change as it unfolds. Replies question Grant's lean rollout and Amara's purely emergent appointment system.
DDBA 8521 Week 1 rubric: what earns full marks
The marks follow commitment and fairness. A post that surveys planned and emergent change evenly earns little; one that takes a side on a real episode and supports it with dated facts earns most. Instructors weigh the rival account heavily: it should be applied to the same facts, at full strength, with its merits acknowledged. Reading documents in the order they were written, to show whether the plan led or followed, is the strongest kind of evidence for this dispute. Sources should be used to frame each account precisely rather than as decoration. The closing prompt should send classmates back to their own documents. A good reply puts one sharp question that might move a classmate to the other side.
DDBA 8521 Week 1 help from the desk
Students often choose a change they led and describe it as planned because that is how it was reported. Gather the documents and put them in order: what did the first plan say, and when did the actual changes appear? If the plan was rewritten, note when and why. Then argue the side your evidence supports. Give the opposing view the case its keenest supporter would make. Avoid long definitions of each theory; apply them to your facts. Keep the post near four hundred words, with two short replies. If you are unsure which episode to use, a tutor can help you choose one with enough documentation.
Get a DDBA 8521 Week 1 example written to your instructions
Copy the opening thread's prompt and the participation rubric into the request, plus any case the instructor assigned. A finished post taking a position, with replies to two classmates, is back within 24 to 48 hours, and the first one is free. The episode can be public or described from experience without names.
More DDBA 8521 papers and DBA samples
- DDBA 8521 Week 2: Rejected Change Diagnostic
- DDBA 8521 Week 3: Process Workaround Audit
- DDBA 8521 Week 4: Incentive Conflict Analysis
- DDBA 8521 Week 5: Change History Brief
- DDBA 8521 Week 6: Organizational Identity Brief
- DDBA 8521 Week 7: Diagnosis Peer Critique
- DDBA 8521 Week 8: Change Theory Comparison
- DDBA 8521 Week 9: Change Sponsor Memo
- DDBA 8521 Week 10: Adoption Evidence Plan
- DDBA 8521 Week 11: Change Ordering Seminar Paper
- DDBA 8511 Week 1: Innovation Boundary Discussion
- DDBA 8307B Week 1: Data Audit
- DDBA 8303 Week 1: Case Boundary Memo
- DDBA 8300 Week 1: Problem Framing Paper
DDBA 8521 Week 1 questions, answered
Where can I find a free DDBA 8521 Week 1 sample paper?
The full planned or emergent post and both replies are reproduced lower on this page and are free to read.
What episode does the DDBA 8521 Week 1 post use?
A hospital laboratory's 2024 move of routine outpatient testing to overnight batch runs.
Why does the post call the change emergent?
Night technologists started running the backlog early on their own, and the committee adopted and wrote the practice into the plan afterward.
What would the planned-change account say?
That the charter unfroze the laboratory and created permission for technologists to experiment, which the committee then built into standard work.
How does the post answer that account?
The charter never mentioned overnight testing, and early minutes proposed a different change entirely.