People Skills: Ensuring Project Success—A Change Management Perspective

This is one in a series of articles about the most effective models, methods, and processes of organization development (OD), also known as change management, a discipline that offers much to professionals intent on solving real-world problems. Because it is based on a systemic view of organizations, OD includes the whole universe of fuzzy people issues that increasingly determine the success or failure of efforts to implement otherwise flawless technical solutions. This article examines project success rates, suggests reasons for project failure, and provides ideas for dramatically improving the odds of project success based on established change management principles and processes.