Critiquing a Change Effort: Nursing Discussion Guide
Three numbered parts, and the third one asks you to judge your own organisation. That is where the marks are and where most posts turn diplomatic.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 16, 2026
You are grading a change that already happened
This is an evaluation, not a proposal, and the difference decides the whole post. You are not designing a change; you are grading one that already happened, with the benefit of knowing how it turned out. The prompt numbers its three parts, so number your answer: a summary of the change and its impact on your role, the rationale and whether the intended outcomes were met, then an assessment of the management and how it could have been improved. Choose a change small enough to describe precisely. A new barcode scanning workflow, a shift-handoff format, a float-pool policy, a switch of documentation system on one unit — each gives you dates, a stated purpose and a visible result. Choosing something vast like an organisation-wide culture initiative leaves you writing about what such efforts generally involve, which is exactly the register this assignment is built to punish and the one a marker will spot fastest.
The second part hinges on a word most posts skip: intended. Somebody stated a purpose before the change began, and your job is to recover that stated purpose and test the result against it, not against how staff felt afterwards. If the stated aim was reducing medication scanning misses and the misses fell while morale dropped, say both, and say which one the change was for. The third part then needs a framework or your critique is just opinion. Lewin's unfreeze-change-refreeze is the obvious lens and works well for asking whether anyone did the unfreezing; Kotter's sequence is better if the failure was sponsorship or short-term wins. Pick one, name it, and use it as a checklist against the actual events. Then make your improvements specific — who should have been consulted, at what point, instead of a general call for better communication. A critique naming the stage, the actor and the moment beats one naming the theory.
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Describe an implemented organisational change precisely enough to evaluate it.
- 02Recover the change's stated rationale and test outcomes against it.
- 03Apply a named change theory as an evaluative framework rather than as decoration.
- 04Propose improvements specific enough to have been actionable at the time.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Turn the brief into deliverables
- 01A specific change, dated and scoped to a unit or department.
- 02Its effect on your own role and responsibilities.
- 03The stated rationale for the change.
- 04A judgement on whether the intended outcomes were met.
- 05An assessment of the management, framed by a named change theory.
- 06Concrete suggestions for improvement.
The change, the rationale, the outcome, then the verdict
The change, described concretely
Establish what changed, when, and on which unit.
Impact on your role and responsibilities
Say what you personally had to do differently.
The stated rationale
Recover the purpose leadership gave for the change.
Were the intended outcomes met?
Test the result against that stated aim, with whatever evidence exists.
The change assessed against a theory
Walk the events through Lewin's or Kotter's stages and find where it broke.
What should have been done differently
Propose improvements tied to the stage that failed.
Which change theory to critique against, and why it matters
Recommended databases
- CINAHL
- PubMed Central
- NCBI Bookshelf
- The assigned Marquis and Huston chapters
Search sequence
- 1.Read the assigned chapters on planned change first so your framework matches the course.
- 2.Get a compact, citable statement of the change model from an open reference work.
- 3.Search PMC for change-management studies in health care settings, not general business.
- 4.Look for at least one source on why change efforts fail, to sharpen the critique.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
Change Management In Health Care
StatPearls, NCBI Bookshelf · 2023
An open-access account of change management in health care, including the standard models — the framework for your critique.
- 02
Where Do Models for Change Management, Improvement and Implementation Meet? A Systematic Review of the Applications of Change Management Models in Healthcare
Journal of Healthcare Leadership · 2021
A systematic review of where change, improvement and implementation models overlap; useful for choosing the right lens.
- 03
Change management for services redesign in healthcare: a conceptual framework
PubMed Central · 2024
A conceptual framework for change management in service redesign — closer to a unit-level change than the classic models.
- 04
Implementation strategies for large scale quality improvement initiatives in primary care settings: a qualitative assessment
BMC Primary Care · 2023
Implementation strategies for large-scale improvement, with the failure modes that make good critique material.
- 05
Section 4: Ways To Approach the Quality Improvement Process
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality · 2024
A practical improvement process you can measure the actual management against.
Review before submission
Common mistakes
- Writing a change proposal when the prompt asks for a retrospective critique.
- Judging success by how staff felt rather than by the change's stated aim.
- Naming Lewin or Kotter in one sentence and never using the framework again.
- Recommending 'better communication' without saying with whom, when or about what.
Submission checklist
- Are all three numbered parts present and identifiable?
- Can you state the change's original purpose in the words its sponsors used?
- Does your critique apply a named framework step by step?
- Is each improvement something someone could have actually done?
Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read our academic-integrity policy.
Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.