A) PURPOSE: The purpose of this exercise is to encourage students to learn the lessons of organizational change and improvement from managers/professionals in their field. These lessons will be the basis for the formulation of your improvement report to help you better understand how to lead and support organizational change.Proofread your paper at least twice.

B) LEARNING INTERVIEW

METHODOLOGY:

Student will conduct structured interviews with at least five (5) managers/ professionals whose organizations are currently undergoing significant change. You can do multiple organizations or interview five people from the same organization. The key is to find people whose organizations are currently experiencing serious changes. At the start of each interview, explain the purpose of the interview with the manager/professional. The attached structured interview questions should be uniformly addressed in each interview. The student could consider recording each interview (with the permission of the participant) as a means of collecting accurate data. Otherwise, take detailed notes. The student should probe and ask for further explanation of the interviewee's response when necessary. At the completion of each session ask the manager if they have any questions and send them a thank you note within two working days. You might consider offering them a copy of your finished paper as a professional courtesy.

C) ANALYSIS: When all the interviews have been completed compare the responses you have across each of the interview questions. What similarities/differences do you observe? What lessons can be drawn in each area that you find to be important to your own career development? Develop a spreadsheet with responses across each question/each respondent to aid in your analysis and discussion in the paper. Spell out what you learned in each section in a dramatic fashion.

D) THE REPORT: Once you have analyzed the interview data you will write a report on what you have learned through this experience using the following format:

2) Executive Summary- Provide a brief overview and lead into the purpose, process, and key findings of your paper.

3) Interview Results - In this section the student should summarize what you learned from interview questions #1 - #9 and share these results in a clear, concise fashion. Provide a spreadsheet of your findings as an appendix to the paper.

4) Lessons on Organizational Improvement/Change- In this section, you will discuss what you have learned about organizational change from the participants you interviewed. Then you will develop a list of specific lessons that you think are critically important for the success of any organizational change effort. Be very specific and feel free to cite any examples that were provided to you by the people you interviewed in your study.