The Secret of Successful Implementations of New Technology Solutions

You invested valuable time and effort in new systems, new software and new procedures. You hired expensive consultants, invested in project management software and methodologies, purchased topof- the-line hardware and software. After this, you can be sure that implementation of your new solution( s) will be successful, right?

TEXT VANESSA VROLIJK

WRONG!
That is, if you haven’t invested in the most crucial element of your success: your people, colleagues, employees or co-workers. The result may very likely be challenges in implementation of your solution, something that can be very painful to witness. This will be the result if you do not dedicate a substantial amount of your resources towards getting your people ready and in a confident state of mind! Whenever you start something new in your organization, it means change. Research shows that humans generally tend to resist change by nature. We don’t like it; and we try our best to avoid it. Usually not even consciously! So what does that mean in our technology driven society, especially our working environment? Times are tough, and as organizations we need to have an edge so we can guarantee our increasing efficiency and effectiveness. Having an edge usually means striving towards more efficiency: leaner back-offices, shorter waiting times, keeping our customers happy enough that they stay loyal to us taking more competition into account.

To achieve this, technology offers us a broad range of systems and applications. We research, we weigh the pros and cons carefully, and we select, after an exhaustive process, the best solution for our business. We, then, proceed to invest a substantial amount of money to implement the solution; a process that sometimes takes months or even years. Then, after all this, the project is failing; nobody is using the system. At that point, it’s important to ask why. Everybody is complaining, it doesn’t work; is it too difficult, too slow, too fast? Essentially, your people are using every excuse in the book to resist change.

Asking why something isn’t working is essentially asking the wrong question. The real question is how to work with resistance to the change within your organization, and how to lower the acceptance threshold to achieve your project goals. Start by investing in Communication and Coaching.

Communication
When?
The main takeaway is that you simply cannot communicate too much on the upcoming change! Whatever solution you may be planning to implement or have already implemented, you absolutely will need to communicate with the people in your organization. This starts as soon as you have either decided upon a solution (a new system, a new application or a new process etc.) or you acquired said solution and are at the start of its implementation.

How?
Start by communicating the basics:
• The necessity (the why);
• The desired timeline (the when);
• Their role in the change process (the who);

As the project kicks off, make sure people feel involved. Keep communication channels open. Share information like where you are in the project time wise, general progress and ‘wins’ so far. Pay particular attention to communicating how the implementation of this solution will benefit them, both in terms of effectiveness and efficiency in completing their daily tasks.

Coaching
Maybe it’s just me, but when I hear ‘Coaching’ I immediately associate it with the ‘touchy-feely’ approach to business! Basically, coddling the weak!

However, the essence of coaching entails guiding and easing the people in your organization to the desired situation and/or objective. In this case, it is especially useful and probably the only surefire method to get your people on board. The ‘Coaching’ employed here should be the guiding kind: easing your people into the new processes, methodologies and environment (virtual and otherwise).

This means creating awareness about exactly what is going to happen or is happening, what changes are expected but also what is expected, for how long, and from whom. Setting up a reward system will not hurt your cause. The reward should be appropriate to the desired objective and the scale of the project. Setting up an awareness plan is recommended: what kinds of awareness sessions are necessary, how many sessions are necessary, and who will be guiding these sessions.

These sessions are best done by professionals seeing as the sessions should trigger people, preferably from within (hence the coaching element). Without triggering people from within, the change process might not be seen as such, and the opportunity will be seen as ‘just another’ training or educational session where information is given as it were, coming from external sources instead of what you would want, which is the triggering of awareness from within.

You want people to comprehend and realize the benefits of the change, especially in regards to their work. This will generate the goodwill that you need, which will automatically lead to acceptance in most cases. Another aspect is training, any and all applicable to the new solution or system, should also be plentiful and varied: from group sessions to individual guided instructions, and using any and all tools available to engender knowledge about the new solution.

If you can afford it, depending on how far along you are in the project or how dire the circumstances are, you should hire a professional to coach your organization into the change, even though you’re seemingly going backwards. Your ‘Going Live’ might be postponed by a couple of weeks or months; but at least when you do, you’ll have your people standing at your side. At the end of the day, an organization is only as strong as the people who work in it.

When all is said and done, by involving and effectively communicating with your most important resources, the people who work in your organization, you have the key to success when it comes to implementing or introducing a new solution, system, application or process in your organization, regardless of the type, size or price tag.

Already started implementing a project?
So what should you do if you already have a failing project?
• Start communicating with your organization: organize Q&A sessions to find out where exactly the biggest bottlenecks are. You’ll notice that many of these are linked to fear and resistance.
• Find people in your organization who understand the project and feel positively about it. • Ask and Listen: Take it from there, all the while keeping the communication lines open!