WMBA 6882 Week 3 Change Readiness Assessment Memo Example

Memorandum

To: Vice President of Merchandising (sponsor), Prairie Line Farm & Home

From: Director of Store Operations

Date: September 20, 2027

Re: Readiness for computer-generated ordering in hardgoods: verdict and evidence

Proposed Change and Verdict

Proposed change: replace the weekly order walk, in which each store's department leads count shelves and write hardgoods orders by hand, with computer-generated orders that the system calculates from sales, on-hand counts and minimum display quantities, reviewed by the lead before release. Feed, livestock supplies and seasonal goods stay manual for now. Proposed window: pilot in three stores from January 10, 2028, chainwide by May 1.

Verdict: Prairie Line, a composite chain of nineteen farm and home stores in Kansas and Nebraska, can absorb this change, but not in the proposed window. I recommend a pilot from July 10, 2028, after the spring season, and chainwide rollout by October 30, on two conditions set out at the end.

Method, Given That Nobody Can Be Asked Yet

This assessment was done before any announcement, which ruled out a staff survey: asking 152 department leads whether they are ready for automated ordering would announce it. The evidence therefore comes from records: the project register, the store operations calendar, payroll and turnover reports, and the 2024 to 2027 initiative files. I also spoke in confidence with two store managers who have run pilots before. Weiner (2009) describes readiness as a shared state of commitment to a change and belief in the collective ability to carry it out, shaped by an appraisal of the task, the resources and the timing. Records can speak to the last two before anyone is told.

Current Change Load

Table 1

Initiatives Open or Scheduled, January to May 2028

Prairie Line Farm & Home and its records are composite.

Nine initiatives overlap the proposed window. Department leads, the people computer-generated ordering would affect most, are touched by six of them. In February alone, a lead in one of the six point-of-sale stores would reset the spring planogram, learn a new register and a new time clock and, under the proposal, begin reviewing system orders. Herold et al. (2007) studied twenty-five changes and found that how much other change surrounded each one mattered for how committed employees were to it, and that the link between people's confidence in their own ability and their commitment grew stronger as surrounding change increased. In a crowded February, leads with lower confidence are the ones most likely to disengage.

Completion Record

The strongest indicator available before an announcement is how many recent initiatives finished. Of the eight store-level initiatives launched between January 2024 and June 2027, three finished on schedule, two finished late, two were reduced in scope and one, a shelf-label scanning program, was abandoned after four months. Both late projects and the abandoned one launched between February and May. The three on-time projects launched in July or later.

This record does not show an unwilling organization. It shows an organization that has learned spring initiatives tend to slip, and leads who will reasonably expect this one to do the same.

Capacity Indicators

Department lead turnover was 24 percent over the last twelve months, and eleven of 152 lead positions are open today. Lead overtime averages 3.1 hours a week from March to May and 0.8 hours from July to September. Each lead already uses four systems: the register, the handheld for receiving, the planogram tool and email. Computer-generated ordering would add a fifth screen to review, though it would remove most of the weekly order walk, which leads estimate takes four to six hours.

What the Evidence Implies for Timing

Moving the pilot to July 10 places it after the spring season, after the point-of-sale rollout ends and in the months when lead overtime is lowest. It also gives the pilot stores' leads the summer to learn the review screen before the fall reset. Armenakis et al. (1993) argued that readiness is created partly by the message that explains why the current state must change and that the organization can manage the change. A July start would let that message describe something the organization can visibly handle, rather than one more item in a crowded spring.

Conditions

First, fill at least eight of the eleven open lead positions in the three pilot stores and their neighbors before July. Second, take the order walk off the leads' schedules in the pilot stores from the first week, so the change gives time back rather than adding a task. If either condition cannot be met by June 1, I recommend reassessing rather than starting.

References

Armenakis, A. A., Harris, S. G., & Mossholder, K. W. (1993). Creating readiness for organizational change. Human Relations, 46(6), 681-703. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872679304600601

Herold, D. M., Fedor, D. B., & Caldwell, S. D. (2007). Beyond change management: A multilevel investigation of contextual and personal influences on employees' commitment to change. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(4), 942-951. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.4.942

Weiner, B. J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change. Implementation Science, 4, Article 67. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-4-67