Brandee Fantini – Principal and Strategy Activator Every member of the project team has a role to play in driving change, readying people, and creating the environment for successful implementation. Depending on what type of system is being implemented, you could be the primary sponsor or one of many who will be adopting the new system and related processes. You likely lead people who will be Super Users and end users. You will be impacted by the change in ways that are beneficial but likely require tradeoffs (for example: more clicks for data collection, but greater visibility and predictive analytics).
You significantly influence who supports the project team, who becomes a Super User, how training is conducted (and when), and how much time people have to prepare prior to Go Live. You’re also juggling competing priorities to meet the objectives of your department/site/function while simultaneously supporting the project.
Change management is critical for minimizing risk to your post-Go-Live productivity and ability to meet internal and external demands. The change team is your advocate, raising up the voice of the user to developers, leaders, and the broader project team. They help communicate priorities and resolve many challenges.
There will be times that the change team will ask for access or time from some of your most critical team members. The concept of “pay now or pay later” is super relevant to you. It’s hard to justify shifting people’s time and focus to something that could happen years from now (Go Live). In our experience, though, most business sponsors wish they had dedicated more upfront resources to people readiness once they get past Go Live, when lack of preparedness is most obvious and incredibly challenging to address quickly.
The change team will help you identify those who are the strongest in system usage and related processes. They can also support identifying and mitigating current process, environmental, and organizational constraints that could negatively impact Go Live. You can depend on your change team to identify risks and pursue those with the project team to ensure resolution. The change team champions the end user in all things.
The change team can also guide effective change communications for your role, as well as provide tools and messaging to make it easier. They will partner with you to find the most impactful ways to engage your team (end users). Work closely with them to explore and document specific changes and how end users will need to adapt to those changes, both with using the system and the processes that occur outside the system.
As a Business Stakeholder, your role in driving change is multifaceted. Your mindset about the system implementation will make a significant difference. If you embrace the change, recognize the reason for it, and are willing to commit resources to people readiness and the project team, you likely need fewer change resources. If you are opposed to the change, feel it is being forced on you, or have too many priorities to focus on the systems project, then likely more change resources will be needed to help you succeed at and after Go Live.
Every minute spent on people readiness prior to Go Live is a minute less your team will have to spend learning the system or finding/fixing issues after Go Live. If you invest heavily up front, there’s a high likelihood that your Go Live will be smooth and you can get back to baseline levels of productivity relatively quickly after that first dip at Go Live.
Share with the change team your expectations, concerns, and challenges. Allow them to get to know your organization and your people deeply so they can best help you succeed. While the change team is your resource in driving and facilitating readiness, only you and your team can do the work required to BE READY on Day 1.
In addition to your role as Sponsor, there are several key roles in the project team AND the change management team for driving change and systems adoption. To learn more, check out our insights on:
If you’d like to connect with our team to learn more about driving systems adoption, give us a call at 859-415-1000 or reach out through the form below.