We develop great technical solutions that should, for example, help people in organisations become more productive and engaged, gain insights and share knowledge more effectively. But is it enough to build and roll out such solutions from the technical angle? No. The organisation will only reap the intended benefits, if the people actually adopt and use those new solutions. And that does not always happen automagically, by just making them available. We need to help the people adopt the new tools and change to the new way of working.
It is not just me saying that: research shows your chances of success are a lot better if you manage the change to the new way of working. With great change management, you are six times more likely to meet your objectives. And what’s more: even if your change management is not that great at all but only fair, your are still three times more likely to achieve your goals. It is not all or nothing, so it is already worthwhile to do some change management: the better your help your people adopt the new tools and change to the new way of working, the more likely you are to meet or even exceed your objectives.
If we manage the change and help users adopt the new tools:
- The different groups of users are empowered to take advantage of the new tools. Because not everyone has the same role or the same needs.
- All the people will have the necessary Awareness, Desire, Knowledge and Ability to adopt the tool. And they will also be Reinforced to keep up the change, without reverting back to the old way of working. See the previous post about ADKAR.
- The people will be better equipped to go with the flow in future changes, because one thing is certain: the tookit and the way of working will keep changing.
- Your project will be more manageable. Prosci research shows more correlations between change management and success: the better your change management, the better your chances to finish your project on budget and on schedule. If you don’t manage the change from the people side, you will probably have to do a lot more redesigning, reworking and other redoing.
So yes, let us definitely pay attention to change management and help the users adopt the new tools.
