MLDR 6905 Week 7 Change Measurement Plan Example

Saying in Advance What Would Show It Failed: A Measurement Plan Pairing Six Measures With Prior-Year Baselines and Preset Thresholds, With the Position's Own Falsifiers Carried Forward

Student Name

Walden University

MLDR 6905: Capstone: A Case for Leaders as Change Agents

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Saying in Advance What Would Show It Failed: A Measurement Plan Pairing Six Measures With Prior-Year Baselines and Preset Thresholds, With the Position's Own Falsifiers Carried Forward

Purpose

Any change can be described as a success after the fact by choosing the right measure. This plan prevents that by fixing, before the shared-services unit begins, what Cedar Hollow Community College will measure, what each measure was last year, which direction counts as improvement and what threshold triggers a review. Behn (2003) argued that public managers measure performance for several different purposes, such as evaluating, controlling, learning and improving, and that each purpose calls for different measures. This plan's main purpose is to evaluate whether consolidation should continue, so its measures are chosen to show harm as readily as benefit.

Pairing Measures

Each measure is paired with another that could reveal a cost hidden by the first. Registration turnaround, for example, could improve because staff process registrations faster and less carefully, so it is paired with the registration error rate. Measures that could each be gamed alone become harder to game together.

The Measurement Table

Registration turnaround is paired with registration error rate. Employer invoice corrections are paired with repeat contracts, because a faster invoice process that annoys employers would show up as fewer renewals. Enrollment by campus is paired with learner complaints, since a drop in enrollment might come from reasons unrelated to registration, while complaints point to registration directly. The seventh line, staff turnover and overtime, is a watch measure without a threshold: it matters, but the plan does not yet have a basis for saying what level would show harm.

Table 1

Measures, Baselines and Thresholds

Composite college. Baselines are illustrative prior-year figures from division records.

The Position's Own Falsifiers

My position statement named two findings that would make me abandon the position. Both are carried forward here unchanged, so the case can be proved wrong on its own terms.

The first concerns accuracy. Last year's correction rate was 3.1 percent, and the position allows the unit's first full term to run no more than two points worse, so the table's threshold is 5.1 percent.

The second concerns access. The table compares Linden's noncredit enrollment change with the average change at the other three campuses, and a gap of ten points or more in the first year counts as harm to rural learners.

If either falsifier is met, the plan does not call for a review; it calls for registration to return to the campuses, as the stakeholder case promised the Linden director. Popper (2002) held that a claim earns scientific standing by naming the observations that would sink it. A change proposal is not a scientific claim, but borrowing the discipline makes the case more honest.

Who Reports, and to Whom

The shared-services supervisor will compile the table at the end of each term and send it to the dean, all four campus directors and the author. The Linden figures will be reported separately and sent to the Linden director in advance, as promised. If any threshold is crossed, the dean and directors will meet within two weeks to decide whether to pause the next step of the implementation plan.

Limits

The baselines come from one year, and continuing education enrollment varies with the local economy. A recession or a new employer in Linden County could move enrollment for reasons unrelated to consolidation. The plan does not try to separate these causes statistically; it relies on comparison with the other campuses, which face the same regional economy. Kotter (1996) warned against declaring victory too soon, and the annual review date for the larger measures is set at twelve months for that reason.

References

Behn, R. D. (2003). Why measure performance? Different purposes require different measures. Public Administration Review, 63(5), 586-606. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6210.00322

Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading change. Harvard Business School Press.

Popper, K. (2002). The logic of scientific discovery. Routledge.