5 Critical Steps to Implementation Success: Why Aren’t We Learning From Our Mistakes?

For the last 10+ years I’ve been managing client relationships and selling Change Management consulting and training solutions to organizations that want to adopt a common approach to manage change.   It continues to fascinate me that despite the increased focus and discipline applied in this field, implementation efforts continue to fail because of human factors.  Organizational Change Management as an industry has existed for 40 years if not longer.  Over the past 10-15 years it has become increasingly more common for large organizations to recognize the need to manage the human issues when implementing large-scale change (i.e. ERP or technology implementations, mergers and acquisitions, culture change, reengineering or business process change, downsizing, organization redesign, or any project that involves changing the way people do their jobs).   Much has been written about why implementation efforts fail.  Statistics continue to illustrate that approximately 80% of change efforts fail to meet budget, target dates, or key objectives. It is also well documented that the highest risk of implementation failure is on the human side, and not with the technology.  Many Fortune 500 organizations today understand that by applying a structured approach or framework to manage the human side, the chance of a successful project will substantially increase.  Then why aren’t we learning from our past mistakes?

Change Agents assigned to projects are generally viewed as being responsible for completing the change management tasks.  Often they are seen as the experts.  Plus, it’s “their job”!  This does not mean, however, that the rest of the organization is exempt from change management responsibility.   Organizations will often inaccurately assume that it’s primarily the job of the Change Agent to “do the change management stuff”.  Then when the tasks are completed and the “boxes are all checked”, the organization will magically transform into being 100% committed to the change.   This flawed thinking can lead to underestimating the levels of resistance that exist, and ultimately a failed project.  If you’re old enough you may remember the quality efforts back in the early ‘90s. Organizations would frequently hire a Quality Manager with the false belief that this one individual could solve the quality issues that existed within the organization. We now know that everyone impacted by quality improvement needs to be on board and held accountable, and the same holds true for Change Management.

Adopting a structured change management approach, and being successful in doing so, requires the engagement of a larger audience than just the core project team or a handful of  Change Agents.  True accountability for project success resides with both the Leaders and Change Agents responsible for the implementation.   However, the Leaders and Change Agents should first be educated on their roles and what is required of them to actively and effectively lead this process.  Additionally, resources that reside in the business areas where the deployment of the system will occur must also be assigned as key Leaders and Change Agents on the project.

Below are five steps that an organization can take to avoid repeating the same implementation mistakes of the past:

1. Educate the project team and broader leadership team on the Change Management framework or methodology being applied to manage the human side. This will create a common language and a common understanding of the approach, as well as a clear and consistent understanding of the roles on the project.   Leaders need to understand what they need to say and do in order to lead a successful implementation.  By educating a broader audience, individuals also will learn a repeatable process that can be used on future implementations.
2. Create an implementation “role map” which identifies Leaders, Change Agents, and Users impacted by the change. Pay particular attention to where the Leaders reside in the business areas and if any ‘gaps’ exist where project commitment may be weak, thus requiring additional attention or resources to lead the change.
3. Key Leaders must be open to Change Agent feedback on how to be better sponsors of the project. Change Agents are closest to the project issues, and they need to have an open dialog with key Leaders, along with a mutually-trusting relationship.  When Leaders are kept informed, they can then take the necessary steps to resolve implementation issues before or as they occur.
4. Don’t underestimate the level of resistance that may exist. Resistance should be surfaced and not suppressed or ignored.  Communication should be two-way and include feedback loops whenever possible, encouraging involvement and communication from affected employees and end users.  The goal of the communication plan should be to drive behavior change and surface resistance, and not just to communicate information.
5. The Change Management framework should have a heavy emphasis on reinforcing behavior change. Change Agents will need to ensure that Leaders are effectively rewarding desired behaviors as well as discouraging old behaviors.  It’s the role of the Leader to apply reinforcements, both to reward people for the behaviors that are consistent with the change, as well as to discourage them from falling back to the old way of doing things.  Reinforced behavior change is a key component to sustaining the change and achieving project ROI, and it’s the role of the Leaders to apply these reinforcements.

In conclusion, if we were to look at the items above collectively, it is my belief that the primary reason organizations aren’t learning from failed implementations has to do with the lack of leadership commitment.  If leadership commitment plays a primary role in project success, then do you believe the problem is caused by a lack of willingness to change on the part of the leadership team or a lack of knowledge, not possessing the skills or demonstrating the required behaviors to sustain the change?   What do you think?

As Gandhi said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”  This must be applied to organizations as well as the Leaders that run them.