Change management in I.T. projects – “It's the people, stupid!”

This paper looks at change management in IT and related business change projects. It is a positional paper, focussing on the behavioural aspects of those involved in the changes and as affected by the emergent properties of the system. It highlights some observed phenomena from running such projects and proposes some fieldwork to investigate the effects of these issues on the success or failure of the projects. It is thought that more attention needs to be paid to the likelihood of working pattern disturbance and system and environment fluidity in preparing change stakeholders for the effects that change will have.