Does Your IT Department Know Change Management?

During my Pepperdine MSOD program (1995-1997), one of the professors wanted to institute a group project that involved students to collaborate on-line. Now by today's standards, that would be expected and no big deal. However, back then, this was a big deal. There was a lot of resistance and push back by many of the students. It became a really good example of how not to implement new technology.

In a column from CIO, Change Management: A Better Starting Point for ITIL by Brian Johnson, the author argues for the inclusion of change management practices while implementing IT changes. He goes on to state that change is often the reason IT initiatives take place in the first place.

In your organization, do the IT people use change management technology? Are they versed on the soft side iof IT implementation? Do you have someone with an organization development background working in partnership on major IT implementation? It always better to think through these things from the beginning versus trying to go back in to repair the damage after the fact. Your thoughts??