How Are You Defining Success

How are you defining success? Is it getting new technology launched or is it about how much it is being leveraged? Is anyone sticking around to see how employees’ mindset and behavior changed or are all off to the next project? Is leadership tracking how much changed compared to the business case or have they already shifted their focus? Success shouldn’t be defined by “implementation” but by “adoption.”

To help ensure success is focused on adoption, use something like our Change Integration Checklist tool after go live. Organizational change is a process, not an event. Just because go live is a “date” doesn’t mean the change happens overnight. No matter how well planned, implementations experience setbacks and unexpected challenges. Resistance from stakeholders is still a real possibility.

In order to assess what actions are needed to reinforce new behaviors and sustain the change, lead a discussion with your team and impacted management about the people, transition, and adoption. Below are a few items taken from our Change Integration Checklist. Like all tools, you’ll want to customize your approach and add a few more questions to the list.

1. Are leaders still championing the future state and vision?

2. Is there a safe outlet for feedback – reactions, concerns and comments?

3. Do employees have appropriate tools to be successful?

4. Are employees well trained to do their revised jobs?

5. Are we tracking and reporting measures that reinforce the new behaviors?

6. Are we recognizing early adopters and successes?

Projects are stressful and long. By implementation, most are ready to flee. However, the right thing to do is to keep the big picture in mind, fight to stick around and assess (or help management assess) what really changed (or didn’t). Only after such an assessment can leaders and managers take appropriate action to help ensure all the work and money that went into
implementation wasn’t for naught.