Applied Management Report: Innovation and Change in Transdev Auckland

This report examines applied management practices within Transdev Auckland, focusing on project management to execute strategic innovation and organizational change. It details the project management process, including initiation, preparation, implementation, checking and control, and closure. The report identifies and analyzes a staff development program designed to address organizational innovation and change, emphasizing the importance of training and education. It evaluates the feasibility of a problem-solving project, outlining precautions and detailing the six steps of problem-solving in the context of the case study. The report also provides insights into the background of Transdev Auckland, its organizational structure, and the challenges it faces, such as the need for improved service quality and the reorganization of regional power structures. The conclusion highlights the importance of applied management in achieving organizational goals and improving services, emphasizing the significance of innovation and change management.

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System04116
6/19/2019

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Background of the organization.......................................................................................................2
Project management process to execute strategic level innovation.................................................2
Project management process to execute the organizational change identified................................3
Identify and analyze staff development programme to address organizational innovation and
change..............................................................................................................................................4
Evaluate feasibility of problem-solving project..............................................................................5
Precautions to be taken before execution of project........................................................................6
SIX steps of problem solving and its operational feasibility...........................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
This report discusses about the applied management in Transdev Auckland. Applied
management states the examination of practices of present business administration and the
implementation of plans to change advance them. The theory of applied management can involve
the execution of new hierarchical order, developing technology or new styles of decision
making. In this report, the process of project management is to be discussed to execute the
organizational change identified and strategic level innovation. Furthermore the appropriate staff
development programme to address the organizational and change is to be identified and
analyzed. Along with this, the viability of problem solving project is to be evaluated and
precautions that need to be taken before implementation of the project in the company is to be
recommended. The understanding of SIX steps of problem solving is to be demonstrated and
operational viability of every step in relevance to the certain case study is also to be evaluated.
Background of the organization
Transdev Auckland is an organization which runs the urban passenger trains of Auckland
under contract from Auckland transport on an infrastructure which is owned and managed
through the KiwiRail. It has centralized headquarters, four geographical regions, a number of
levels within regions and a number of areas within the divisions. They now plan to organize a
quality programme with a motive to maintain a general emphasis on quality and reintroduce
separations instead of regions.
Project management process to execute strategic level innovation
1. Project initiation: it is a stage of project management process where the value and
viability of the rail project are measured. The managers of the project use two tools of
evaluation to execute strategic level innovation:
 Business case document: this explains the necessity for an innovation and it
includes an estimation of possible financial welfares.

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 Viability study: it evaluates the goals and cost of innovation to determine if it is
executed. It balances the requirements and available resources for the innovation
to see if it pursuing the strategic level innovation makes sense.
2. Project preparation: once the project receives the green signal, it requires a strong plan to
direct the railway team as well as keep them on budget and on time. This well written
plan of project gives guidance for acquiring financing, obtaining resources and producing
needed materials for executing the innovation. This plan gives the direction to railway
team for organizing the quality, making innovation, creating acceptance of strategic level
innovations, communicating the benefits regarding new innovation within the railway
(Kerzner, Et al, 2017).
3. Project implementation: this is a stage which is most frequently linked with the project
management. Strategic level innovation execution is all about satisfied the railway clients
or customers. This is happen just by assigning task and allocating required resources.
The execution of the strategic level innovation is heavily depending on the planning
stage. the team work and efforts during the execution stage are derived from the plan of
the railway innovation project (Giampaoli, Et al, 2017).
4. Project checking and control: the checking and control are combined with the execution
of strategic level innovation as they are essential at the same time. As railway teams
execute their plan, they should continuously monitor or control their own innovative
progress. To guarantee innovation for improving quality service to external customers,
teams need to monitor those tasks for making innovation within railway. This constant
vigilance assists in keeping the railway project moving ahead effectively and efficiently.
5. Project closure: A railway team finishes the project at what time they make innovation
within the railway and change the whole system and make available for the customers.
This important step in the project management process permits the team to execute and
document the project (Fiore, Et al, 2017).
Project management process to execute the organizational change identified
1. Define goals: the first stage is to define the goals for which the change within an
organization is made. The goal of railway team is to improve service quality provided
within the region to the internal and external clients.

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2. Identify what needs to change: the changes which are needed within the organization are
its culture, service quality to the external and internal clients, attitude and behavior of
staff, reintroduce divisions instead of regions, appointment of infrastructure manager
within each division, remove traditional power bases of regions and functions, tightening
up of procedures, reduce hours of overtime work and selection and training of employees
and the reward system.
3. Sharing of vision: the vision must be shared between the railway team so that they can
get why change is made within the railway and how much it is effective for the railway.
The vision such as improvement in the quality service.
4. Communicate the plan: the vision need to be shared in getting railway team members to
change. They must communicate their railway development, innovation or change plan
for getting from the preset state to the one which is envisioned (Van Aken, Et al, 2018).
5. Execute the plan: they need to identify the people who are excited about the upcoming
changes and enlist those people to help the railway team stay on the track. This could
include leading daily scheduled training refreshers, sending friendly reminders about the
upcoming changes or using the railway language which is in line with the new plan.
6. Stay consistent: it is needed to schedule periodic check-ins to assess the implementation
plan and course correct as essential. When training on new innovation or changes, use a
retention strategy to hold it new and top of mind. Most significantly, when the goal of
railway is organizational change, leadership must stay to course and not revert to the old
ways and for this purpose they have training to stay consistent through the organizational
change (Care, Et al, 2015).
Identify and analyze staff development programme to address organizational innovation
and change
From the case study, it is recognized that there is new innovation and change in the
improvement of the service quality to the external and internal customers within the railway. For
this purpose, they need helpful and polite staff. The railway teams make staff development
programme that is all training and education to the staff to improve occupational as well as
personal knowledge, skills and attitude of vested staffs.

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 Firstly, they assess the educational needs of every staff related to the innovation and
change within railway.
 Secondly, they set priority to which they focus more for change and innovation so that it
results in staff development (Rosemann, Et al, 2015).
 Develop general goals or objectives for the staff development program which change or
correct the attitudes of staff and reach to the quality of work by increasing productivity.
 Determine the resources required to reach the desired objectives that are improving the
quality of service by focusing more on training and development of staff so that they can
adapt to changes or new innovations within the railways.
 Develop and maintain the record system of staff development.
 Establish files on major educational topics such as be staff must be helpful and polite to
both external and internal customers to maintain fair relationship and customers get full
satisfaction.
 They daily evaluate the staff development programme so that they can well aware of staff
needs for own development and ultimately reach to the improved quality of service (Tidd,
Et al, 2018).
Evaluate feasibility of problem-solving project
The process is followed for evaluating the feasibility of problem-solving project:
1. Research the business drivers: they need to hired professionals and also arrange staff
development programme to improve services quality which drive the operational and
financial result of the railway business.
2. Confirm the alternative solutions: they reorganize powers bases of regions and the
functions which represents the operational and professional power and to subordinate to
the divisions. This reorganization involves number of job changes and has a great deal of
time and energy (Larson, Et al, 2017).
3. Determine the feasibility: they determine the feasibility by making huge research of new
change and innovation which are implemented by other organization and have different
impact and they also recognize the part of the solution of problem which has maximum
risk and build that model of it to see that it is likely to develop (Fernandez, Et al, 2017).

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4. Select a preferred solution: the most preferred solution is to organize the staff
development programme so that every staff gets proper training and knowledge about the
task which results in improving quality of service.
5. Review at a lower level: Tasks which are needed to be accomplished are assigned to
teams and done by the deadline of the project. After that recognize the maximum risk
tasks and develop them to check further that they are attainable or achievable. It gives
high degree of confidence (Allen, 2016).
Precautions to be taken before execution of project
There various precautions that needs to be taken before executing the plan such as:
1. Firstly they need to properly design or define the goals of railway that is refining the
quality of services for the external clients.
2. Secondly they focus on Realistic deadlines within which they need to complete the task
assigned to them for such improvement (Lewis, 2019).
3. Thirdly they required to have sufficient team skills related to the improvement in the
quality of services.
4. Lastly they need to have proper communication so that the confusion does not arise
related to the tasks and properly get executed without any hurdles (Bardach, Et al, 2015).
SIX steps of problem solving and its operational feasibility
1. Define the problem: this step defines the problem which arises within the railway such as
reorganization which will be highly disruptive, involving thousands of job changes.
2. Determine the reason of the problem: these problems are arises due to removing the
traditional power bases of the regions and the functions which represents operational and
professional power (Kaufman, 2017).
3. Develop alternative solutions: they need maintain the infrastructure such as track and
signaling, the multifaceted co-ordination of weekend work of repair and quality of staffs
system to check and control absenteeism.
4. Select a solution: they choose to reintroduce divisions instead of regions and reorganize
which leads to great deal of time and energy (Al-Haddad, Et al, 2015).

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5. Implement the solution: these implemented within the railway by developing the staff
development programme which involves the training and practice related to the problems
and way of handling such problems.
6. Evaluate the outcome: the outcome is positive as quality of services improved for the
external and internal customers within the railway and infrastructure is maintained and
systems adopt are monitored on daily basis (Akcaoglu, Et al, 2017).
Conclusion
From the above analysis it is concluded that all organization requires examining the
management practices of existing business and implementing the strategies to change and
improve them. In this report, the various changes are made and innovations done for improving
quality of services so that external and internal customers within the railways can get satisfaction
and get improved and quality services. The project management processes are followed to
implement the strategic level innovation and organizational change and operational feasibility of
this project is evaluated to identify the effectiveness and efficiencies of the project. Thus, it is
clear that applied management is important to achieve the target and improve product and
services.

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References
Akcaoglu, M., Gutierrez, A. P., Hodges, C. B., & Sonnleitner, P. (2017). Game design as a
complex problem solving process. In Handbook of research on serious games for
educational applications (pp. 217-233). IGI Global.
Al-Haddad, S., & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: a model
for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), 234-262.
Allen, J. P. (2016). Learning the problem-solving process through consultation (Doctoral
dissertation, University of Kansas).
Bardach, E., & Patashnik, E. M. (2015). A practical guide for policy analysis: The eightfold path
to more effective problem solving. London: CQ press.
Care, E., Griffin, P., Scoular, C., Awwal, N., & Zoanetti, N. (2015). Collaborative problem
solving tasks. In Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills (pp. 85-104). USA:
Springer.
Fernandez, S., & Rainey, H. G. (2017). Managing successful organizational change in the public
sector. In Debating Public Administration (pp. 7-26). UK: Routledge.
Fiore, S. M., Rosen, M., Salas, E., Burke, S., & Jentsch, F. (2017). Processes in complex team
problem-solving: parsing and defining the theoretical problem space. In Macrocognition
in teams (pp. 143-163). UK: CRC Press.
Giampaoli, D., Ciambotti, M., & Bontis, N. (2017). Knowledge management, problem solving
and performance in top Italian firms. Journal of Knowledge Management, 21(2), 355-
375.
Kaufman, H. (2017). The limits of organizational change. UK: Routledge.
Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. UK: John Wiley & Sons.

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Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2017). Project management: The managerial process. London:
McGraw-Hill Education.
Lewis, L. (2019). Organizational change: Creating change through strategic communication.
Wiley-Blackwell.
Rosemann, M., & vom Brocke, J. (2015). The six core elements of business process
management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Berlin:
Springer.
Tidd, J., & Bessant, J. R. (2018). Managing innovation: integrating technological, market and
organizational change. UK: John Wiley & Sons.
Van Aken, J. E., & Berends, H. (2018). Problem solving in organizations. London: Cambridge
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