Pagers and implementations and change management (oh my!)

A couple weeks back, NPR’s Planet Money ran a phenomenal episode on organizational change management vis-a-vis paging systems at hospitals.

I’m a dork, so I came for the pagers and stayed for the change management.

The episode introduces what initially appears to be a straightforward IT project – a hospital system upgrading from old-fashioned one-way numeric pagers to two-way text/photo messaging – and some unexpected non-technical problems that brought the implementation to a halt.

The case study is brought with commentary from Michaela Kerrissey, a Harvard management prof who offers a framework to look at factors that can cause organizational resistance to new technology: Risks, Habits, Identity and Power (RHIP). Spoiler alert: all four come into play in the pager case.

This episode is a must-hear for anyone starting out in ERP implementation or similar careers. Really excellent content.

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