Transformational process mapping to theory U: A case study of a United States city government's information technology and innovation branch transformational alignment to improve business service

IT organizations continually change in order to align with and enable their business customers. This case study investigated how a local government IT department transformed their organization to improve their delivery of IT services for the city stakeholders. Ten participants were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire and more than 80 organizational artifacts were reviewed to answer the main research question: How did a United States city government's information technology department transform the delivery of their information technology services along with eight subsidiary questions designed to understand the sequence of change events. Scharmer's Theory U cognitive spaces (i.e., downloading, seeing, sensing, presencing, crystallizing, prototyping, and performing) and principles provided the theoretical context for examining how the organization transformed. The IT department established an organizational mechanism (Efficiency and Effectiveness Task Force) for identifying and implementing changes that were driven by political and environmental factors. As a result of the many efficiency and effectiveness initiatives implemented, the consolidation of IT services (i.e., people, processes, and technology) represented the most significant transformation event. The IT department instituted an implementation model for cost saving initiatives that included selecting champions as change agents, selecting members for action teams who were open to change, and following through until the results were achieved. Among the many issues facing the IT department was the extensive proliferation of duplicated IT services throughout the city with an inability to understand their actual costs. The consolidation of IT services took almost seven years to complete. It was a long process and subjected to political agendas, economic constraints, and resistance. After the consolidation was completed, the IT department's ability to sustain the transformation remains challenged by on-going political objectives and internal organizational processes. There is some evidence suggesting that Theory U processes may provide an option for IT organizations seeking to sustain IT services as the business and customer needs evolve well into the future. For this city IT department, sustainability was challenging due to the political environment of city services it enables. The IT department was unaware of Theory U processes for transformation, but may have achieved an improved outcome by directly applying Theory U transformation principles.