Why won't they use it? VS. why should we? successfully managing the expectations of users
Consistent and Intensive Communication
A coordinated communication plan is a good way to explain the goals, timelines, benefits, and
problems of the project. An up-to-date project Web site and a periodic newsletter are very
helpful. Frequent meetings with the key business process owners will also help move project
status information down to the ultimate users by using the existing hierarchy of the
organization. There is the potential to “over communicate” too early in the project, which can
raise the awareness level too soon leading to frustration with users who perceive the project is
taking too long to be deployed. Communicating concepts and ideas early on and then using
actual screen shots and data can mitigate this problem as the deployment date nears.
Actual Benefit Measurement
An astounding number of organizations that I have consulted with over the past two decades
have privately declared that they do a poor job in this category. After the glow of deploying the
technology fades, and the organization falls into its routine business cycle, the drive to actually
measure whether the benefits were attained also either wanes or is simply ignored.
The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) should insist that a “benefit measurement” plan be
developed and put in place. While most projects declare some level of intangible or “soft”
benefits, the tangible or “hard” benefits in the business case should be both attainable and
measurable.
Change Management Focus
My definition of change management is “how an organization goes about implementing the
human changes brought about by technology and business process improvements”.
How many efforts in the past could have been successful if the implementation plan was altered
or phased-in to take into account the “organizational readiness for change” of its users? I would
submit to the reader that many (not all) system implementations catalogued as “failures” in the
past, were due to the organization’s failure to take the necessary steps to understanding their
people, and the amount of change they could absorb.
The successful organizations that implement technology solutions with an intense focus on
change management most often do so because they have learned through their past failures.
Many organizations have learned the hard way that while the actual technology solution itself
can be superior, if the users do not embrace and utilize it effectively then the implementation
cannot be termed as successful.
Data Integrity
Too often an organization will spend millions of dollars on converting their existing paper
records into digital form, only to fail to change the business processes that will maintain this
asset. Data Integrity must be closely associated with the organizations core values and must
become part of its culture.
Information technologies can decrease the volume of errors but the real problem is often the
internal culture. Data Integrity begins with the employee that captures the data, and takes
ownership for entering it correctly.
In a utility, the focus must be on the long-term goal of getting the field/construction personnel
(or the appropriate data owner) to take “ownership” in the data that resides in the corporate
databases. For too long, a wall of distrust has impeded efficiency due to fact that the people
who update the records are not the same people who use those records in the field. The sooner
an organization can use mobile computing technology which allow the field technicians to alter
and update the corporate records, the sooner the wall of distrust will begin to crumble.
Conclusions
Organizations will continue to focus on the “bottom line” when it comes to deploying
information technology. The successful entities will learn from industry “best practices” as well
as from previous failed internal implementations. They will recognize the vital importance that
comes from having solid Senior Executive support, full implementation funding, strong project
team leadership and an unusual level of sensitivity to the culture of the proposed users of the
solution.
People do make the difference in the way expectations are both set and realized. Selecting the
people to staff a technology project has too often been performed with an attitude of “who is
available to work on this project?” The author feels that after Senior Executive support and
funding, the most important critical success factor is in selecting a strong Project Leader and
Team staff members. The degree to which a Project Team can meet project milestones, manage
budgets and user expectations could be directly correlated to a successful deployment. Having a
thorough change management strategy and implementation plan could be the difference
between success and failure.
References
The following may be useful sources of information for continued reading on this topic.
- Action Management [PriceWaterhouse Coopers]; Stephen Redwood, Charles
Goldwasser, Simon Street, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY
10158-0012 ISBN:0471-34547-4
- Managing the Change Process [Coopers & Lybrand]; David Carr, Kelvin Hard, William
Trahant, McGraw-Hill, 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 ISBN:0-
07-012944-4
- The Change Management Handbook - A Road Map To Corporate Transformation;
Lance Berger, Martin Sikora, IRWIN Professional Publishing, 1333 Burr Ridge
Parkway, Burr Ridge, IL 60521 ISBN: 1-55623-975-0
