Keeping the Change Process on Track

The 4S project will only be successful and reach the desired goals if the users adopt the new solution. The users grasp the benefits of the new system, have a positive attitude towards it and its business processes, and interact with it in the intended way. The actual user adoption can only be assessed after go-live. Nevertheless, even before go-live, you can measure influencing factors on user adoption, allowing you to identify risks and issues. A user adoption strategy documents the key performance indicators (KPI’s) that are collected in the impacted units before and after go-live. In addition, the strategy defines the process for deriving appropriate activities and assigns the respective responsibilities. Thus, the user adoption strategy sets the basis for achieving rapid and sustainable user adoption.

In his role as BriscoBikes’ Chief Digital Officer, Martin Dabrowski is interested in achieving a high user adoption. He learns that the change management team has already started working on the user adoption strategy for the 4S project. Wanting an overview, he schedules a meeting with Sandra to discuss their ideas and provide feedback.

Defining user adoption metrics and aligning them with the project leadership team is an important task for the change management team. Do you have an idea which metrics can be used before and go-live?

Take five minutes to complete exercise 27 in your workbook.

Martin invites Sandra to discuss appropriate metrics to measure user adoption and the steps to establish the user adoption strategy. Have a look at their conversation in the following video.

Systematic project risk management helps to identify, assess, and mitigate risks (and other issues) during a cloud implementation. Typical dimensions for the assessment are the likelihood of a risk occurring and, if the risk occurs, its negative impact on the project. Clustering the risks in a matrix with these two dimensions helps to focus mitigation activities on the most relevant topics. While technical, financial, legal, strategic, and operational risks are usually in the focus of the project management, people-related topics often tend to be underrated or even completely forgotten. This can lead to a lack of attention for these topics, both within the project management team and the business. Therefore, it is primarily the change manager’s responsibility to take care of people-related issues. Integrating these risks in the overall risk management fosters a holistic view of the project. It allows to identify interdependencies with other risks and helps to ensure that all risks are mitigated appropriately.

Ron is working on an update of the 4S project risk reporting for the next steering committee meeting. Carlos has the impression that people-related topics are under-represented in the risk reporting. Therefore, he schedules a call with Sandra to discuss if there are any risks or issues to be added from a change management perspective.

Change managers should be able to detect risks regarding the so-called soft topics at an early stage. What about your ability to identify people-related risks for the 4S project?

Take five minutes to complete exercise 28 in your workbook.

In the following video, Sandra and Carlos have an exchange on project risks related to change management.