December 2007

Making Systems Change Visible

By: Dutch Holland, PhD

When a chemical company makes a change to its physical plant, it is usually pretty obvious. There is likely to be construction work clearly visible to managers and employees alike for weeks, if not months. When construction and testing are complete, it is rare for anyone to be surprised that the new facility is expected to be utilized.

Watching construction progress is a favorite pastime of many employees on the job. But beyond providing entertainment, watching construction progress helps employees mentally prepare for their part in any new operation. In fact, if employees see construction that is nearing completion, and they have not been trained on the new equipment, their anxiety goes up as “go-live” approaches without adequate preparation for utilization.

All of this sounds logical and simple. But things don’t’ often progress this way for an IT system implementation. In fact, the opposite is likely to be the case. For many employees, the frantic work that may be going on to prepare/construct the IT system may be invisible. And to re-coin a phrase, “out of sight, out of mind.”

Lack of visibility of progress toward system “go-live” prevents mental preparation and contributes to a low sense of urgency. Project managers who are responsible for a system startup, and business managers who are accountable for making money with the new system, don’t have to wait in the shade, however. They can take concrete actions to make progress visible.

1. Signage – simple signage (like the thermometer we frequently see for a United Way campaign) can show a moving percentage completed
2. Business Project Website – creating and maintaining a unique website just for the business project enabled by the IT system can be used to show news about progress
3. System Demonstrations - show and tell demonstrations can make the coming system real and more tangible
4. User Acceptance Testing – In this most important step, employees get to “see and feel” the system that is on the way. At this point, employees begin to believe there really is a new system on the way.
5. Work Process Training – Employees should have the advantage of two (count them), two different kinds of training: system training (system operational instructions) and work process training (using the system as part of the employee’s job.)

In summary, selling progress is an important part of the mental preparation employees must do to be thoroughly prepared “to go to work at go-live.”

To find out more about our implementing change approach, call Dutch Holland at 713.800.3663. Holland & Davis can give you success story after success story ...and suggest ways that you can engineer change.

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