Dealing with Change and Uncertainty

A radical restructure of roles, including academic and administrative departmental structures has been scheduled for the university over the next few months and this has come as a bit of a blow to the action researchers. The project is at a crucial stage – one process has successfully been presented to stakeholders, reworked and changes planned. The other two are on the verge of presentation to stakeholders but there is now an impasse due to lack of clarity about future stakeholder and administrator roles and responsibilities.

This has created a tension, frustration and a potential nervousness over future activities. It is important that the good work is not undone and that individuals motivation and commitment is maintained at this unsettling time.

Hence, as Project Manager, I decided to take the opportunity to bring all action researchers back together to celebrate what has been achieved so far and provide the researchers with some techniques to deal with the anticipated changes that lie ahead. The occasion will also provide individuals with the time and space to evaluate their involvement in the project and feedback challenges and barriers to success that they envisage at this stage.

An outline of the activity is shown below:

A copy of the evaluation questionnaire is shown below:

INDIVIDUAL EVALUATION OF THE PROCESS REVIEW AND ENHANCEMENT PROJECT AT UNIVERSITY OF BOLTON 2012