| Course | MGT 647 Project Management Integration Framework |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 8 |
| Paper type | MBA Agile transformation plan |
| Length | About 1,044 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Aspen University |
| Program | Master of Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MGT 647 Module 8
Two Years to an Agile Lakeshore: A Transformation Plan Built on What the First Teams Learned
Student Name
Master of Business Administration, Aspen University
MGT 647: Project Management Integration Framework
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Two Years to an Agile Lakeshore: A Transformation Plan Built on What the First Teams Learned
Eighteen months ago, Lakeshore Mutual started one Scrum team on a mobile claims app. It now has six Agile teams organized around the claims and policy journeys, a Kanban support team, decision rights for teams and improvement routines. Some things have worked well; others have stalled. The executive team has asked for a plan to make Agile the company's normal way of working in technology and in the business units it serves. This paper sets out that plan, drawing on the course's earlier modules and on research about how transformations succeed and fail.
The Case for Change
The local evidence is mixed, which makes it credible. The claims app now handles half of new claims, and policyholders rate it highly. Requests to the support team now wait under three weeks on average, down from five. Decision delays fell after decision rights moved to teams. But the billing teams have not started, improvement actions stalled until capacity was protected and finance still funds projects annually, forcing teams to write business cases for work already under way. The case for change is not that Agile is fashionable but that the parts of Lakeshore that changed now serve customers better, while the parts that have not are slowing them down.
Why Transformations Fail
Kotter (1995) studied change efforts in many companies and described eight errors that undermine them: not establishing a great enough sense of urgency, not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition, lacking a vision, undercommunicating the vision, not removing obstacles to the new vision, not systematically planning for and creating short-term wins, calling the job done before it is, and leaving the change unrooted in the culture. Lakeshore has avoided some, such as lacking short-term wins, and risks others. The early success could tempt leaders to declare victory, and the funding system is an obstacle that has not been removed.
Readiness
Armenakis and Harris (2009) reflected on decades of research and described five beliefs that a change message must address to build readiness: discrepancy, the belief that change is needed; appropriateness, that the proposed change is the right one; efficacy, that people can carry it out; principal support, that leaders are committed; and personal valence, that the change benefits the individual. A readiness survey of the billing department found high discrepancy, since billing errors frustrate everyone, but low efficacy and personal valence. Billing staff doubted they could work in teams with engineers and feared the change would cost them their specialist roles.
Lessons From Ericsson
Paasivaara et al. (2018) studied Ericsson's transformation of a large product development organization to Agile. The change was gradual, growing from pilot teams outward. It relied heavily on coaching and on communities of practice, groups of people with common interests that spread knowledge and shaped practices across teams. The organization adapted its approach as it learned rather than imposing a single framework. For Lakeshore, the lessons are to keep growing in steps, to invest in communities of practice and to treat the plan as something to revise.
The Roadmap
| Phase | Months | Focus | Condition to move on |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Consolidate | 1-6 | Claims and policy journeys stable; billing readiness work | Six teams meet sprint goals 3 of 4 times; billing efficacy improves |
| 2 Billing pilot | 7-12 | One billing team with billing staff as members | Pilot cuts billing error rework by a quarter |
| 3 Billing journey | 13-18 | Three billing teams with staff in teams | Billing errors fall; staff survey positive |
| 4 Embed | 19-24 | Funding by journey; Agile roles in job families | Annual project funding retired |
Leading the Change
A guiding coalition of the chief information officer, the claims and billing directors, the finance director and two product managers meets monthly. Each phase is led by the relevant journey product manager, with the billing director personally sponsoring phases two and three. Billing staff will be trained alongside engineers, and their specialist knowledge will be built into a billing product owner role and a billing community of practice, addressing efficacy and personal valence.
Bringing the Course Together
The plan rests on the work of earlier modules. The portfolio decisions of Module 1 continue: billing's rate filing work stays predictive, and the data center move is complete. Scrum from Module 2 and Kanban from Module 3 remain the team methods, chosen by the nature of each team's work. The shared leadership practices of Module 4 and the decision rights of Module 5 are extended to billing, with billing staff trained in both. The journey structure and light coordination of Module 6 frame the billing journey. And the improvement routines of Module 7 apply from the first billing sprint.
Risks to the Plan
Three risks stand out. Leadership turnover could remove the plan's sponsors; the guiding coalition's membership is broad partly for that reason. Billing's specialist staff may resist; the readiness work and the billing product owner role address that. And a poor year for the company could revive pressure to cut improvement capacity, the capability trap discussed in Module 7; the coalition has agreed that the ten percent is the last thing cut, not the first.
Sustaining the Change
Kotter's last error, failing to anchor change in the culture, is the one most transformations meet in their second year. Lakeshore will anchor change by moving funding to journeys, writing Agile roles into job families and promotion criteria, and keeping the ten percent improvement capacity from Module 7. The guiding coalition will report customer outcomes, not adoption counts, to the board each quarter. Those outcomes are claim settlement time, policy change errors, billing error rework and policyholder ratings of the app, alongside two internal measures, the time from idea to release and the share of improvement actions completed. At the end of the two years, the coalition will hand ongoing ownership of Agile practices to the communities of practice and the journey product managers and disband, a deliberate signal that Agile has become how Lakeshore works rather than a program it runs.
Conclusion
Kotter names the errors to avoid, Armenakis and Harris explain what makes people ready, and Paasivaara and colleagues show how a large firm actually changed. The plan builds on the course's earlier modules and focuses on making Agile last.
References
Armenakis, A. A., & Harris, S. G. (2009). Reflections: Our journey in organizational change research and practice. Journal of Change Management, 9(2), 127-142. https://doi.org/10.1080/14697010902879079
Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59-67.
Paasivaara, M., Behm, B., Lassenius, C., & Hallikainen, M. (2018). Large-scale agile transformation at Ericsson: A case study. Empirical Software Engineering, 23(5), 2550-2596. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-017-9555-8
MGT 647 Module 8 instructions, in plain terms
Aspen's MGT 647 ends with an Agile transformation plan in Module 8, usually asking students to bring together the course's ideas on methods, leadership and culture into a plan for an organization. Follow whatever your Module 8 page specifies; the insurer case reaches its end here. State the case for change. Assess readiness. Draw lessons from research on transformations. Lay out a phased roadmap with conditions. Address leadership, structure, funding and culture. Explain how change will be sustained and measured, and name the main risks to the plan. Cite change and Agile research in APA 7 form.
How this MGT 647 Module 8 example is built
Lakeshore's first eighteen months produced faster claims service and a support team that halved its waiting time, but also stalled improvement actions and decisions that waited outside teams. Kotter listed eight mistakes that sink major change, beginning with weak urgency and ending with a failure to root the change in culture. Armenakis and Harris's Journal of Change Management article summarized their research on change messages and readiness. Paasivaara and colleagues' Empirical Software Engineering article described how Ericsson moved many teams to Agile through gradual expansion, coaching and communities of practice. The roadmap's four phases are consolidating the claims and policy journeys, preparing billing with a pilot team, forming the billing journey and embedding Agile in funding and performance management. Readiness surveys based on the five beliefs are run before each phase, and the plan names who leads each part.
Where the marks sit in the MGT 647 Module 8 rubric
Transformation plans succeed in this course when they integrate earlier modules into one coherent plan grounded in change research. This example states a case for change from local evidence, uses Armenakis and Harris to assess readiness, follows Kotter to avoid common errors and draws on Paasivaara and colleagues for how a large firm actually changed. The roadmap is phased with conditions, and the plan addresses the funding and performance systems that often undo Agile. Its attention to sustaining change shows awareness that launch is the easy part. A section linking each earlier module to the plan, and a frank look at the risks to it, demonstrates the integration a capstone module asks for.
MGT 647 Module 8 help: mistakes that cost marks
Transformation plans often list steps without explaining why people would change. Address readiness: do people see the need, believe the change is right and believe they can do it? Another weakness is a big launch with no plan for sustaining change; plan what happens after the first year. Draw on earlier modules so the plan is integrated. Change funding, roles and performance systems, not only team methods. Set conditions for moving between phases. Finally, measure outcomes customers notice as well as adoption. Name the risks most likely to derail the plan, such as losing a sponsor, and say what has been done about each.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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MGT 647 Module 8 questions, answered
What does MGT 647 Module 8 usually ask for?
Aspen's MGT 647 ends with an Agile transformation plan, so an MBA paper integrating the course's ideas into a plan for an organization is typical. Read your classroom prompt.
Why do transformation efforts fail?
Kotter named mistakes such as too little urgency, too weak a leading group, too little talk about the vision and celebrating success before the change has settled.
What makes people ready for change?
Armenakis and Harris described five beliefs: that change is needed, that this change is right, that people can carry it out, that leaders support it and that it benefits them.
Where can I find a free MGT 647 Module 8 sample paper?
The example above sets out a two-year Agile transformation plan for a composite insurer.
How did a large company scale Agile?
Paasivaara and colleagues found that Ericsson grew Agile gradually, relied on coaching and communities of practice and adapted its approach as it went.