Dear all,
up to now the below students are not going to attend the mid-term exam for professional life one, I will update the list as soon as I read your papers:
Ozan Tuzun (11120169)
Ozgen Ekin Ulug (11120175)
Adil Ozhan Yuksel
Deniz Dilan Aslan

English for academic purposes:
Rafis Abliazimov (10120280)
Soner Tomruk (11120165)
Nuriye Akyel (11120014)
Sakit Kassimov (11120260)
Doga Hasturk (11120108)
Oxana Ponomarenco (11120255)
Pinar Ayhan (11120044)

Forth grade students who are not going to attend the exam:
Muslu Caner Nezir (10120299)
???? (10120141) (please send me an email or send a comment on this blog and let me know your name!!!)
Dogancan Aksoy (09120009)
Melike Bahar Cilali (09120215)
Dicle kavak (09120113)

two more names for English for professional life:
Ferda Idil Lostar (10120156)
Robia Akcebe (10120004)
Gaye Gugluten (10120109)
Onur Erturk (10120085)
Ibni Sina Melitca
Emirhan Karatekin *10120125
K.Can Gursoy (11120105)
Orkan Basak (10120040)

I will reveal more names soon

Just to remind you again: those students whose their names are on the list should be present on the exam day and sign the list. 

professional life 1 - Monday and Friday

Dear all,
For those who didn't receive the email, the topics of writing are as follow you may choose one of them:

*some people believe that playing games can teach us about life. Do you agree? Why of why not? Use specific examples and reasons to support your answer.

 * People act differently when they wear different cloths. Do you agree that different clothes can change the way people behave? Use specific examples to support your answer. 

Good luck 

professional life one- Monday and Friday classes

Unit One

Culture dimensions:

National cultures can be described according to the analysis of Geert Hofstede. These ideas were first based on a large research project into national culture differences across subsidiaries of a multinational corporation (IBM) in 64 countries. Subsequent studies by others covered students in 23 countries, elites in 19 countries, commercial airline pilots in 23 countries, up-market consumers in 15 countries, and civil service managers in 14 countries. Together these studies identified and validated four independent dimensions of national culture differences, with a fifth dimension added later.

Power distance

Hofstede’s Power distance Index measures the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. This represents inequality (more versus less), but defined from below, not from above. It suggests that a society’s level of inequality is endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders.

For example, Germany has a 35 on the cultural scale of Hofstede’s analysis. Compared to Arab countries where the power distance is very high (80) and Austria where it very low (11), Germany is somewhat in the middle. Germany does not have a large gap between the wealthy and the poor, but have a strong belief in equality for each citizen. Germans have the opportunity to rise in society.

On the other hand, the power distance in the United States scores a 40 on the cultural scale. The United States exhibits a more unequal distribution of wealth compared to German society. As the years go by it seems that the distance between the ‘have’ and ‘have-nots’ grows larger and larger.

Power distance in Turkey is: 66

Individualism

Individualism is the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

For example, Germany can be considered as individualistic with a relatively high score (67) on the scale of Hofstede compared to a country like Guatemala where they have strong collectivism (6 on the scale).

In Germany people stress on personal achievements and individual rights. Germans expect from each other to fulfil their own needs. Group work is important, but everybody has the right of his own opinion and is expected to reflect those. In an individual country like Germany people tend to have more loose relationships than countries where there is collectivism where people have large extended families.

The United States can clearly been seen as individualistic (scoring a 91). The “American dream” is clearly a representation of this. This is the Americans’ hope for a better quality of life and a higher standard of living than their parents’. This belief is that anyone, regardless of their status can ‘pull up their boot straps’ and raise themselves from poverty.

Turkey: 37

Masculinity

Masculinity versus its opposite, femininity refers to the distribution of roles between the genders which is another fundamental issue for any society to which a range of solutions are found. The IBM studies revealed that (a) women’s values differ less among societies than men’s values; (b) men’s values from one country to another contain a dimension from very assertive and competitive and maximally different from women’s values on the one side, to modest and caring and similar to women’s values on the other. The assertive pole has been called ‘masculine’ and the modest, caring pole ‘feminine’.

For example, Germany has a masculine culture with a 66 on the scale of Hofstede (Netherlands 14). Masculine traits include assertiveness, materialism/material success, self-centeredness, power, strength, and individual achievements. The United States scored a 62 on Hofstede’s scale. So these two cultures share, in terms of masculinity, similar values.

Uncertainty Avoidance

Uncertainty avoidance deals with a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it ultimately refers to man’s search for Truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, and different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; ‘there can only be one Truth and we have it’.

For example, in Germany there is a reasonable high uncertainty avoidance (65) compared to countries as Singapore (8) and neighbouring country Denmark (23). Germans are not to keen on uncertainty, by planning everything carefully they try to avoid the uncertainty. In Germany there is a society that relies on rules, laws and regulations. Germany wants to reduce its risks to the minimum and proceed with changes step by step.

The United States scores a 46 compared to the 65 of the German culture. Uncertainty avoidance in the US is relatively low, which can clearly be viewed through the national cultures.

Turkey: 85

Long-Term Orientation

Long-Term Orientation is the fifth dimension of Hofstede which was added after the original four to try to distinguish the difference in thinking between the East and West. From the original IBM studies, this difference was something that could not be deduced. Therefore, Hofstede created a Chinese value survey which was distributed across 23 countries. From these results, and with an understanding of the influence of the teaching of Confucius on the East, long term vs. short term orientation became the fifth cultural dimension.

Below are some characteristics of the two opposing sides of this dimension:

Long term orientation

-persistence

-ordering relationships by status and observing this order

-thrift

-having a sense of shame

Short term orientation

-personal steadiness and stability

-protecting your ‘face’

-respect or tradition

-reciprocation of greetings, favors, and gifts

you can also watch this, it may help

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=6gJzRS0I7tA

Next Friday

Dear friends,
Upon your request I talked to the Iranian restaurant to made a reservation for next Friday, 10th of May 2013.
The foods are as followed:

1- Khoreshte Gheyme: Iranian Rice with sauce (meat, cotyledon (a kind of lentil), tomato sauce, onion and ...)

2- Joje Kabab: Iranian Rice with chicken

3- Ghorme sabzi: Iranian Rice with sauce (vegetable sauce, meat and ...)
the prices will be between 9 to 11 TL, but they are going to give us a 25% discount.
we will be there at 6:00.
please inform me till Monday,

best
* you can contact me through my email: aridil@gmail.com
* your friends also can accompany you.

Project Management

Principles of Project Management

Make sure your projects are driven by benefits that support your strategy

You should be able to demonstrate explicitly how each project you undertake fits your business strategy. The screening out of unwanted projects as soon as possible is essential. Companies with clear strategies are able to screen more effectively than those without. The less clear the strategy, the more likely unsuitable projects are to pass the screening: hence there will be more projects competing for scarce resources, resulting in the company losing focus and risking its overall performance.

Use a staged approach to manage your project

Rarely is it possible to plan a project in its entirety from start to finish; there are simply too many unknowns. You should, however, be able to plan the next stage in detail and to the end of the project in outline. As you progress through the project you gather more information, reduce uncertainty, and increase confidence. The typical framework comprises the following progressive steps, or stages:

• Proposal—identifying the idea or need.
• Initial investigation—a brief overview of the possible requirements and solutions.
• Detailed investigation—undertaking a feasibility study of the options and defining the chosen solution.
• Development and testing—building the solution.
• Trial—piloting the solution with real people.
• Operation and closure—putting it into practice and closing the project.

Use a typical staged project framework

You should use the same generic stages for all types of project. This makes the use and understanding of the process familiar and easier, avoiding the need to learn different processes for various types of project. What differs is the content of each project, the level of activity, the nature of the activity, the resources required, and the stakeholders and decision makers needed within each use of the framework. The gates are entry points to each stage, and are the key check points for revalidating a project and committing resources and funding.

Place high emphasis on the early stages of the project

The early stages of a project are fundamental to success. High emphasis might mean that between 30% and 50% of the project’s life cycle is devoted to investigative stages before any final deliverable is physically built. Research clearly demonstrates that placing heavy emphasis up-front significantly decreases the time to market/completion. Good investigative work means clearer objectives and plans; work spent on this is rarely wasted effort. Decisions taken at the early stages of a project have a far-reaching effect and set the tone for the remainder. In the early stages, creative solutions can slash delivery times in half or cut costs dramatically. Once development is underway it is rarely possible to effect savings of more than a few percent, and introducing changes later can be very costly.

Engage your stakeholders and understand their current and future needs

A stakeholder is any person involved in or affected by a project. The involvement of stakeholders such as users and customers adds considerable value at all stages of the project. Engaging the stakeholders is a powerful mover for change, while ignoring them can lead to failure. When viewed from a stakeholder perspective, your project may be just one more problem they have to cope with in addition to fulfilling their usual duties; it may appear irrelevant to them, or even regressive. If their consent is required to make things happen, it is unwise to ignore them.

Always address all aspects, not just technology

Projects are not just about technology; they should cover every aspect required to achieve the expected benefits. Stakeholders should be identified to cover every base.

Encourage teamwork and commitment

The need for many projects to draw on people from a range of functions means a cross-functional team approach is essential. The more closely people work and the more open the management style, the better they perform. Although this is not always practical, closeness can be achieved by frequent meetings and good communication, often through Web tools or video-conferencing.

Ensure that project teams work across functions

The more functionally structured a company, the more difficult it is to implement effective project management: project management by its nature crosses functional boundaries. To make projects succeed, the balance of power usually needs to be tipped towards the project and away from line management.

Monitor against the plan

Good planning and control are prerequisites for effective project management. There must be guidance, training, and support for all staff related to projects, including senior managers who sponsor projects or make project-related decisions. Core control techniques include planning, managing risk, issues, scope change, schedule, cost, and reviews.

Planning as a discipline is essential. If you have no definition of the project and no plan, you’re unlikely to be successful. It will be virtually impossible to communicate your intentions to the project team and stakeholders. Furthermore, if there is no plan, terms such as ‘early’, ‘late’, and ‘within budget’ have no real meaning.

Risk management is key: using a staged approach is itself a risk management technique, with the gates acting as formal review points at which risk is put in the context of the business benefits and cost of delivery. Projects are risky, and it is essential to analyse the project, determine which are the inherently risky parts, and take action to reduce, avoid, or, in some cases, insure against those risks while looking to exploit any opportunities that arise.

Despite all this foresight and care, things will not always go smoothly. Unforeseen issues do arise that, if not resolved, threaten the success of the project. Monitoring and forecasting against the agreed plan is a discipline that ensures events do not take those involved in the project by surprise. This is best illustrated by the ‘project control cycle’. The appropriate frequency for the cycle (daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly) depends on the project, its stage of development, and the inherent risk.

Manage the project control cycle

Such monitoring should focus more on the future than on what has actually been completed. Completion of activities is evidence of progress, but is not sufficient to predict whether milestones will continue to be met. The project manager should continually check that the plan is still fit for purpose and likely to deliver the business benefits on time.

Many projects are late or never even get completed. One of the reasons for this is scope creep: more and more ideas are incorporated into the project, resulting in higher costs and late delivery. Managing change is critical to benefits being achieved and the project not getting derailed by good ideas or good intentions. Changes, even beneficial ones, must be managed to guarantee that only those enabling the project benefits to be realised are accepted; you must communicate this to the team and stakeholders so they are absolutely clear what the current project comprises. Always remember that the ultimate change is to terminate a project that is no longer viable!

Formally close the project

Finally, every project must be closed, either because it has completed its work or because it has been terminated early. By explicitly closing a project you make sure that all work ceases, lessons are learned, and any remaining assets, funding, or resources can be released for other purposes.

DICE chart

check this:

http://dice.bcg.com/dice.html

this also may help:

http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/unssc/unpan022087.pdf

The hard side of change management

When French novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” (the more things change, the more they stay the same) he could have been penning an epigram about change management. For over three decades, academics, managers, and consultants, realizing that transforming organizations is difficult, have dissected the subject. They’ve sung the praises of leaders who communicate vision and walk the talk in order to make change efforts succeed. They’ve sanctified the importance of changing organizational culture and employees’ attitudes. They’ve teased out the tensions between top-down transformation efforts and participatory approaches to change. And they’ve exhorted companies to launch campaigns that appeal to people’s hearts and minds. Still, studies show that in most organizations, two out of three transformation initiatives fail. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Managing change is tough, but part of the problem is that there is little agreement on what factors most influence transformation initiatives. Ask five executives to name the one factor critical for the success of these programs, and you’ll probably get five different answers. That’s because each manager looks at an initiative from his or her viewpoint and, based on personal experience, focuses on different success factors. The experts, too, offer different perspectives. A recent search on Amazon.com for books on “change and management” turned up 6,153 titles, each with a distinct take on the topic. Those ideas have a lot to offer, but taken together, they force companies to tackle many priorities simultaneously, which spreads resources and skills thin. Moreover, executives use different approaches in different parts of the organization, which compounds the turmoil that usually accompanies change.

In recent years, many change management gurus have focused on soft issues, such as culture, leadership, and motivation. Such elements are important for success, but managing these aspects alone isn’t sufficient to implement transformation projects. Soft factors don’t directly influence the outcomes of many change programs. For instance, visionary leadership is often vital for transformation projects, but not always. The same can be said about communication with employees. Moreover, it isn’t easy to change attitudes or relationships; they’re deeply ingrained in organizations and people. And although changes in, say, culture or motivation levels can be indirectly gauged through surveys and interviews, it’s tough to get reliable data on soft factors.

What’s missing, we believe, is a focus on the not-so-fashionable aspects of change management: the hard factors. These factors bear three distinct characteristics. First, companies are able to measure them in direct or indirect ways. Second, companies can easily communicate their importance, both within and outside organizations. Third, and perhaps most important, businesses are capable of influencing those elements quickly. Some of the hard factors that affect a transformation initiative are the time necessary to complete it, the number of people required to execute it, and the financial results that intended actions are expected to achieve. Our research shows that change projects fail to get off the ground when companies neglect the hard factors. That doesn’t mean that executives can ignore the soft elements; that would be a grave mistake. However, if companies don’t pay attention to the hard issues first, transformation programs will break down before the soft elements come into play.

That’s a lesson we learned when we identified the common denominators of change. In 1992, we started with the contrarian hypothesis that organizations handle transformations in remarkably similar ways. We researched projects in a number of industries and countries to identify those common elements. Our initial 225-company study revealed a consistent correlation between the outcomes (success or failure) of change programs and four hard factors: project duration, particularly the time between project reviews; performance integrity, or the capabilities of project teams; the commitment of both senior executives and the staff whom the change will affect the most; and the additional effort that employees must make to cope with the change. We called these variables the DICE factors because we could load them in favor of projects’ success.

We completed our study in 1994, and in the 11 years since then, the Boston Consulting Group has used those four factors to predict the outcomes, and guide the execution, of more than 1,000 change management initiatives worldwide. Not only has the correlation held, but no other factors (or combination of factors) have predicted outcomes as well.

The Four Key Factors

If you think about it, the different ways in which organizations combine the four factors create a continuum—from projects that are set up to succeed to those that are set up to fail. At one extreme, a short project led by a skilled, motivated, and cohesive team, championed by top management and implemented in a department that is receptive to the change and has to put in very little additional effort, is bound to succeed. At the other extreme, a long, drawn-out project executed by an inexpert, unenthusiastic, and disjointed team, without any top-level sponsors and targeted at a function that dislikes the change and has to do a lot of extra work, will fail. Businesses can easily identify change programs at either end of the spectrum, but most initiatives occupy the middle ground where the likelihood of success or failure is difficult to assess. Executives must study the four DICE factors carefully to figure out if their change programs will fly—or die.

Duration.

Companies make the mistake of worrying mostly about the time it will take to implement change programs. They assume that the longer an initiative carries on, the more likely it is to fail—the early impetus will peter out, windows of opportunity will close, objectives will be forgotten, key supporters will leave or lose their enthusiasm, and problems will accumulate. However, contrary to popular perception, our studies show that a long project that is reviewed frequently is more likely to succeed than a short project that isn’t reviewed frequently. Thus, the time between reviews is more critical for success than a project’s life span.

Companies should formally review transformation projects at least bimonthly since, in our experience, the probability that change initiatives will run into trouble rises exponentially when the time between reviews exceeds eight weeks. Whether reviews should be scheduled even more frequently depends on how long executives feel the project can carry on without going off track. Complex projects should be reviewed fortnightly; more familiar or straightforward initiatives can be assessed every six to eight weeks.

Scheduling milestones and assessing their impact are the best way by which executives can review the execution of projects, identify gaps, and spot new risks. The most effective milestones are those that describe major actions or achievements rather than day-to-day activities. They must enable senior executives and project sponsors to confirm that the project has made progress since the last review took place. Good milestones encompass a number of tasks that teams must complete. For example, describing a particular milestone as “Consultations with Stakeholders Completed” is more effective than “Consult Stakeholders” because it represents an achievement and shows that the project has made headway. Moreover, it suggests that several activities were completed—identifying stakeholders, assessing their needs, and talking to them about the project. When a milestone looks as though it won’t be reached on time, the project team must try to understand why, take corrective actions, and learn from the experience to prevent problems from recurring.

Review of such a milestone—what we refer to as a “learning milestone”—isn’t an impromptu assessment of the Monday-morning kind. It should be a formal occasion during which senior-management sponsors and the project team evaluate the latter’s performance on all the dimensions that have a bearing on success and failure. The team must provide a concise report of its progress, and members and sponsors must check if the team is on track to complete, or has finished all the tasks to deliver, the milestone. They should also determine whether achieving the milestone has had the desired effect on the company; discuss the problems the team faced in reaching the milestone; and determine how that accomplishment will affect the next phase of the project. Sponsors and team members must have the power to address weaknesses. When necessary, they should alter processes, agree to push for more or different resources, or suggest a new direction. At these meetings, senior executives must pay special attention to the dynamics within teams, changes in the organization’s perceptions about the initiative, and communications from the top.

Integrity

By performance integrity, we mean the extent to which companies can rely on teams of managers, supervisors, and staff to execute change projects successfully. In a perfect world, every team would be flawless, but no business has enough great people to ensure that. Besides, senior executives are often reluctant to allow star performers to join change efforts because regular work can suffer. But since the success of change programs depends on the quality of teams, companies must free up the best staff while making sure that day-to-day operations don’t falter. In companies that have succeeded in implementing change programs, we find that employees go the extra mile to ensure their day-to-day work gets done.

Since project teams handle a wide range of activities, resources, pressures, external stimuli, and unforeseen obstacles, they must be cohesive and well led. It’s not enough for senior executives to ask people at the watercooler if a project team is doing well; they must clarify members’ roles, commitments, and accountability. They must choose the team leader and, most important, work out the team’s composition.

Smart executive sponsors, we find, are very inclusive when picking teams. They identify talent by soliciting names from key colleagues, including human resource managers; by circulating criteria they have drawn up; and by looking for top performers in all functions. While they accept volunteers, they take care not to choose only supporters of the change initiative. Senior executives personally interview people so that they can construct the right portfolio of skills, knowledge, and social networks. They also decide if potential team members should commit all their time to the project; if not, they must ask them to allocate specific days or times of the day to the initiative. Top management makes public the parameters on which it will judge the team’s performance and how that evaluation fits into the company’s regular appraisal process. Once the project gets under way, sponsors must measure the cohesion of teams by administering confidential surveys to solicit members’ opinions.

Executives often make the mistake of assuming that because someone is a good, well-liked manager, he or she will also make a decent team leader. That sounds reasonable, but effective managers of the status quo aren’t necessarily good at changing organizations. Usually, good team leaders have problem-solving skills, are results oriented, are methodical in their approach but tolerate ambiguity, are organizationally savvy, are willing to accept responsibility for decisions, and while being highly motivated, don’t crave the limelight. A CEO who successfully led two major transformation projects in the past ten years used these six criteria to quiz senior executives about the caliber of nominees for project teams. The top management team rejected one in three candidates, on average, before finalizing the teams.

Commitment

Companies must boost the commitment of two different groups of people if they want change projects to take root: They must get visible backing from the most influential executives (what we call C1), who are not necessarily those with the top titles. And they must take into account the enthusiasm—or often, lack thereof—of the people who must deal with the new systems, processes, or ways of working (C2).

Top-level commitment is vital to engendering commitment from those at the coal face. If employees don’t see that the company’s leadership is backing a project, they’re unlikely to change. No amount of top-level support is too much. In 1999, when we were working with the CEO of a consumer products company, he told us that he was doing much more than necessary to display his support for a nettlesome project. When we talked to line managers, they said that the CEO had extended very little backing for the project. They felt that if he wanted the project to succeed, he would have to support it more visibly! A rule of thumb: When you feel that you are talking up a change initiative at least three times more than you need to, your managers will feel that you are backing the transformation.

Sometimes, senior executives are reluctant to back initiatives. That’s understandable; they’re often bringing about changes that may negatively affect employees’ jobs and lives. However, if senior executives do not communicate the need for change, and what it means for employees, they endanger their projects’ success. In one financial services firm, top management’s commitment to a program that would improve cycle times, reduce errors, and slash costs was low because it entailed layoffs. Senior executives found it gut-wrenching to talk about layoffs in an organization that had prided itself on being a place where good people could find lifetime employment. However, the CEO realized that he needed to tackle the thorny issues around the layoffs to get the project implemented on schedule. He tapped a senior company veteran to organize a series of speeches and meetings in order to provide consistent explanations for the layoffs, the timing, the consequences for job security, and so on. He also appointed a well-respected general manager to lead the change program. Those actions reassured employees that the organization would tackle the layoffs in a professional and humane fashion.

Companies often underestimate the role that managers and staff play in transformation efforts. By communicating with them too late or inconsistently, senior executives end up alienating the people who are most affected by the changes. It’s surprising how often something senior executives believe is a good thing is seen by staff as a bad thing, or a message that senior executives think is perfectly clear is misunderstood. That usually happens when senior executives articulate subtly different versions of critical messages. For instance, in one company that applied the DICE framework, scores for a project showed a low degree of staff commitment. It turned out that these employees had become confused, even distrustful, because one senior manager had said, “Layoffs will not occur,” while another had said, “They are not expected to occur.”

Organizations also underestimate their ability to build staff support. A simple effort to reach out to employees can turn them into champions of new ideas. For example, in the 1990s, a major American energy producer was unable to get the support of mid-level managers, supervisors, and workers for a productivity improvement program. After trying several times, the company’s senior executives decided to hold a series of one-on-one conversations with mid-level managers in a last-ditch effort to win them over. The conversations focused on the program’s objectives, its impact on employees, and why the organization might not be able to survive without the changes. Partly because of the straight talk, the initiative gained some momentum. This allowed a project team to demonstrate a series of quick wins, which gave the initiative a new lease on life.

Effort 

When companies launch transformation efforts, they frequently don’t realize, or know how to deal with the fact, that employees are already busy with their day-to-day responsibilities. According to staffing tables, people in many businesses work 80-plus-hour weeks. If, on top of existing responsibilities, line managers and staff have to deal with changes to their work or to the systems they use, they will resist.

Project teams must calculate how much work employees will have to do beyond their existing responsibilities to change over to new processes. Ideally, no one’s workload should increase more than 10%. Go beyond that, and the initiative will probably run into trouble. Resources will become overstretched and compromise either the change program or normal operations. Employee morale will fall, and conflict may arise between teams and line staff. To minimize the dangers, project managers should use a simple metric like the percentage increase in effort the employees who must cope with the new ways feel they must contribute. They should also check if the additional effort they have demanded comes on top of heavy workloads and if employees are likely to resist the project because it will demand more of their scarce time.

Companies must decide whether to take away some of the regular work of employees who will play key roles in the transformation project. Companies can start by ridding these employees of discretionary or nonessential responsibilities. In addition, firms should review all the other projects in the operating plan and assess which ones are critical for the change effort. At one company, the project steering committee delayed or restructured 120 out of 250 subprojects so that some line managers could focus on top-priority projects. Another way to relieve pressure is for the company to bring in temporary workers, like retired managers, to carry out routine activities or to outsource current processes until the changeover is complete. Handing off routine work or delaying projects is costly and time-consuming, so companies need to think through such issues before kicking off transformation efforts.