The Integrator: A Change Management Framework for Achieving Agile IT Project Success

When a $145 million IT project failure pushes Los Angeles to the edge of financial meltdown, the County CEO asks Max McLellan, a harried IT project manager, aka The Integrator, for help. The County Board gives Max 30 days to identify the problem and find a solution. At first Max finds the usual missteps, but something bigger and darker beckons, an explosive source of project failure. He must do something different, rattling ghosts of previous County IT failures, uncloaking crookedness, and exposing truths that shatter careers.

With some people rooting for his failure, Max battles to fit all the pieces together with the County team, applying his proven framework to define the problem, plan a solution and execute it successfully.

It's common knowledge that barely 50% of IT projects succeed, per a 2017 Project Management Institute report. Equally well-known, approximately 70% of large-scale change management initiatives fail according to a 2017 McKinsey & Co. report. Given the challenge to overcome these low success rates, The Integrator offers a proven narrative on the organizational change framework for achieving Agile IT project management success based on the author's 45+ year client experiences and published research.

The Integrator defines change management as the single overarching methodology integrating Agile IT and project management. It does this because all projects are about change - significant organizational and personal change. The people involved - their participation in and understanding and support of these changes - ultimately determine IT projects success or failure. In fact, while all IT projects are about change, successful projects change human behavior.

The methodologies included in the framework, described in The Integrator, include:

- Change management as defined by AIM (Accelerating Implementation Methodology).

- Project management as defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI) Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) standard.

- IT management as derived from the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEEE) Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) standard.

- Agile as defined by the Agile Alliance's Agile Manifesto.

Written by a certified Project Management Professional and accredited change management practitioner, The Integrator chronicles the challenges involved in applying this framework in a real-world setting to achieve successful project implementation.

Scott Coplan is a change and Agile IT project manager, advisor, educator, author and speaker. In 1991, he founded COPLAN AND COMPANY to help communities in need with IT project management.

With 45+ years of experience of advising top government leaders, Scott successfully manages IT projects that transform or radically change the way clients deliver services. For example, Scott oversaw the largest, successful enterprise system implementation including nine financial, administrative and clinical applications at three separate Los Angeles County, California hospitals in both in-patient and ambulatory settings.

Previously, Scott was a Clinical Assistant Professor teaching master's degree students in project management for the University of Washington's Schools of Public Health, Medicine, and Nursing. Scott was also an IT project manager at Deloitte (formerly Touche Ross) and Booz Allen and Hamilton. Scott holds an MPA from the University of Washington and a BA from Beloit College.

Scott is a Project Management Professional (PMP) and Accredited in Implementation Management Associates (IMA) change management methodology, Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM). Scott is a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), Agile Alliance, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society and founding member of the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP). He is also a Fellow with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

Scott co-authored the book Project Management for Healthcare Information Technology, with David Masuda, M.D.(McGraw-Hill, 2011) currently used as a textbook supplement for university-level courses on project management throughout North America. Scott and David also co-authored several quarterly columns for the peer-reviewed Journal of Healthcare Information Management (JHIM).

Specialties: Leadership, change management, and Agile IT Project management for health care, justice, and administrative systems.