Organizational readiness is a dimension that is often overlooked by analysts when they consider moving forward with an initiative, whether it is an IT initiative or an organizational change initiative. CTG has found through past projects and research that organizations must first assess and address their capability for change before attempting to enact a change, if they wish to succeed.

In the Testbed, CTG found that agencies with a strong IT technical staff needed to focus more on support for organizational change, since they already had the technical capability. On the other hand, agencies with limited technical staff needed to focus on obtaining IT support, since that was a critical first need.

During the Testbed, CTG was able to supplement the organizational readiness of the agencies with CTG staff—whether that was in IT knowledge and training, project management knowledge or support, or business analysis and organizational change support. In other situations, project sponsors need to consider their level of organizational readiness and make arrangements to obtain the necessary support—whether it was internal or external to the organization.