Chapter 17 Practice — C17-017–032
C17-017 — Kotter Errors & Obstacles · Foundational · Recall
Which of the following is one of Kotter’s eight errors of change management as presented in Chapter 17?
A. Declaring victory too soon.
B. Using too many stakeholder interviews.
C. Creating a vision before establishing a project budget.
D. Allowing Early Adopters to influence peers.
C17-018 — Kotter Errors & Obstacles · Standard · Understand
A company has not experienced a visible data crisis in years and uses that fact to dismiss mounting control weaknesses. Which Kotter error is most direct?
A. Undercommunicating the vision.
B. Allowing too much complacency.
C. Failing to create short-term wins.
D. Neglecting to anchor change in culture.
C17-019 — Kotter Errors & Obstacles · Standard · Distinguish
A transformation is sponsored by one respected executive, but no other leaders or credible experts share responsibility and the initiative stalls whenever the sponsor is absent. Which error is strongest?
A. Underestimating the power of vision.
B. Permitting obstacles to block the vision.
C. Failing to create a sufficiently powerful Guiding Coalition.
D. Failing to create short-term wins.
C17-020 — Kotter Errors & Obstacles · Difficult · Distinguish
A program has detailed work packages, a budget and a schedule, but employees cannot explain where the change is leading or why the future state is better. Which error is most direct?
A. Allowing too much complacency.
B. Failing to create short-term wins.
C. Neglecting to anchor changes in culture.
D. Underestimating the power of vision.
C17-021 — Kotter Errors & Obstacles · Difficult · Apply
A clear, compelling Data Management vision exists, but it was presented once at kickoff and most staff cannot describe it six months later. Which error is strongest?
A. Undercommunicating the vision.
B. Underestimating the power of vision.
C. Declaring victory too soon.
D. Allowing too much complacency.
C17-022 — Kotter Errors & Obstacles · Difficult · Apply
Employees understand and support the new enterprise stewardship model, but bonus measures still reward silo behavior and local managers can block cross-functional decisions. Which error is most direct?
A. Failing to create a sufficiently powerful Guiding Coalition.
B. Permitting obstacles to block the vision.
C. Declaring victory too soon.
D. Failing to create short-term wins.
C17-023 — Kotter Errors & Obstacles · Difficult · Apply
A multi-year data-governance transformation has no visible interim results. Skeptical stakeholders say the effort is all promise and no proof. Which Kotter error best fits?
A. Undercommunicating the vision.
B. Neglecting to anchor change in culture.
C. Failing to create short-term wins.
D. Allowing too much complacency.
C17-024 — Kotter Errors & Obstacles · Expert · Apply
A new data-control process performs well in one pilot. Leaders call the transformation complete, remove the special support team, and months later most groups return to old behavior. What sequence of errors is most evident?
A. Undercommunicating the vision followed by too much urgency.
B. Failing to create a coalition followed by excessive trialability.
C. Allowing complacency followed by excessive observability.
D. Declaring victory too soon followed by failure to anchor the new approaches in culture.
C17-025 — Kotter Process, Urgency & Coalition · Foundational · Recall
Which statement best describes the logic of Kotter’s eight-stage process as presented in Chapter 17?
A. The first four stages weaken the status quo, stages 5–7 introduce new practices and ways of working, and stage 8 anchors the changes in culture.
B. The first four stages are optional if a strong technology solution exists.
C. Stages 5–7 should normally be completed before urgency, coalition, vision and communication are addressed.
D. The process is mainly a checklist for project scheduling rather than organizational transformation.
C17-026 — Kotter Process, Urgency & Coalition · Standard · Understand
Why is establishing urgency the first Kotter stage?
A. Urgency guarantees that resistance disappears once the project launches.
B. People can withhold cooperation from a change they consider unnecessary, and complacency makes it difficult to build the critical mass and leadership needed for transformation.
C. Urgency is primarily a method for defining detailed implementation tasks.
D. Urgency is used only after the first short-term win to prevent regression.
C17-027 — Kotter Process, Urgency & Coalition · Standard · Distinguish
Which condition is most consistent with a Chapter 17 source of complacency?
A. Frequent external customer feedback makes performance gaps visible.
B. Leaders openly discuss negative evidence and encourage challenge.
C. Internal measures show “success” because standards are low and the organization rarely compares itself with external performance.
D. Employees receive clear data showing a visible crisis.
C17-028 — Kotter Process, Urgency & Coalition · Difficult · Distinguish
A data breach creates executive attention. Which response best reflects Chapter 17’s guidance on using crisis to increase urgency?
A. Treat crisis as proof that successful change is now automatic.
B. Manufacture maximum fear because anxiety and urgency are equivalent.
C. Delay all change work until the crisis is completely forgotten so emotions cannot influence decisions.
D. Use the crisis carefully to make the need for change visible, while recognizing that a real crisis can also consume the resources needed for the change.
C17-029 — Kotter Process, Urgency & Coalition · Difficult · Apply
A business-unit manager wants to improve stewardship locally while the rest of the enterprise is moving slowly. What fact most determines whether the local change can succeed?
A. Whether the manager has enough autonomy to reduce local complacency and act despite enterprise inertia, or can strategically enlist senior support to reduce external forces.
B. Whether the manager is formally classified as an Innovator.
C. Whether the manager can skip the Guiding Coalition stage because the scope is local.
D. Whether the manager can replace the vision with a technical implementation plan.
C17-030 — Kotter Process, Urgency & Coalition · Difficult · Apply
Kotter suggests that a critical mass of managers must support transformation and cites 75% as a rule of thumb. How should this be interpreted in Chapter 17?
A. As a mandatory DAMA pass/fail threshold for every change initiative.
B. As Kotter’s cited guidance about sufficient managerial support, not as a universal DAMA threshold that guarantees change.
C. As the percentage of employees who must be Innovators or Early Adopters.
D. As proof that more urgency is always better once 75% support is reached.
C17-031 — Kotter Process, Urgency & Coalition · Difficult · Apply
A change team includes senior executives but lacks anyone who understands the data flows, operational processes, or stakeholder impacts. Which Guiding Coalition characteristic is weakest?
A. Position Power.
B. Credibility.
C. Expertise.
D. Leadership.
C17-032 — Kotter Process, Urgency & Coalition · Expert · Apply
A formal project steering committee tracks milestones and budget but has little peer influence outside the project. What additional structure does Chapter 17 most directly call for in a major transformation?
A. A larger project steering committee with more status-report fields.
B. A purely technical architecture review board.
C. A group composed only of the people most directly affected by the initial deliverable.
D. A Guiding Coalition with sufficient position power, expertise, credibility, leadership and cross-stakeholder influence to guide and communicate the change.