Key Elements of Successful Operational Readiness
A while back we wrote about business readiness ahead of a major go-live. This included looking at things cross-functionally, contingency planning with stress testing, proving trials and early smaller go-lives, business continuity planning, training, communication, and Go/No Go Checklists and governance.
Given the uncertain times we are facing and continued technology advancement at pace with automation and AI, the pace and magnitude of change to many businesses may well exceed what we have experienced do far.
In today’s instalment on business, or operational, readiness, we pick up on four other aspects that businesses need to take into account.
-
Capacity to absorb change
When planning change, it is often driven by funding, what technology can offer and, as it should, brining forward benefit realisation. All these plans may be perfect and fully resourced, however, each organisation has its own ceiling on how much change can be absorbed.
The ceiling varies significantly and is a factor of both how used to change everyone in the business, the level of expertise of the resources involved in delivering the change and the sheer volume and pace of change. Any change requires time to be embedded and become effective before the next change can be. This is no different to an athlete trying to master too many new techniques at once.
They will be more effective in mastering some first and once these are under the belt to start on the next batch. This might seem that change is delayed but change that is not embedded erodes faster and can lead to failures with unexpected costs and a waste in investment.
A tangible example of this is building failures i.e. collapses, as a result of over speeding the delivery by not permitting legitimate curing time before moving to the next stage of construction, as in the US cases highlighted by The Constructor.
A technology rollout is no different, and failure to take into account a business’ ability to absorb the change may result in failures in delivery and service, with the knock-on cost, reputational and/or other consequences.
-
Taking people with you
As automated as a business may get, it still depends on its people to successfully process and deliver its products or services.
A manual production line depends on the workforce knowing exactly how to assemble to ensure quality. An automated production line also depends on its workforce to correctly set-up and service the robots to ensure quality.
A change that does not consider the impact on or the requirements for the workforce to do things right will ultimately result in failures. A number of examples of failed change have been highlighted by Change Management Insight. In particular, Wistia, a video marketing software firm focused on rapid business expansion.
However, leadership moved away from corporate values, resulting in employees leaving the business as a result of being ignored and the work environment becoming stressful. Without the people required to drive the business forward, performance was hit and Wistia had to invest even more to re-establish employee trust.
-
Change mapped as a journey
Given the importance of keeping people on side and the amount and pace of change within the capacity the organisation can absorb, an excellent tool is to map out what the journey of change looks like. The more the milestones on the journey are described in terms that people (employees, suppliers and customers) can understand, with the benefits to them clearly articulated the more meaningful the engagement people will have with the change.
This couples with honesty to adapt the journey based on learning, feedback from all stakeholders and a competitive landscape changing will also engender trust and greater buy-in. The journey also needs to assess and describe what is changing and whether that level of change and any falls-back or fail-safes required to be put in place are all achievable.
Remember, by taking people with you, the organisation’s capacity to absorb change also increases.
-
People, Process, Technology
Don’t forget, it is about people (employees, suppliers and customers), process and technology. We have covered the dimension of people above. In al change there is usually a heavy emphasis and focus on making the technology work, and that is right.
However, the glue between People and Technology is process. If processes are not designed simultaneously with the technology and the change on people, the delivered change may result in specific functions working well that are not joined up resulting in failures of delivery and service.
We have all had experiences of businesses we were happy with made changes and suddenly the service they provided deteriorated and rectification became harder, resulting in us shifting our custom elsewhere.
According to Forbes, businesses in the US lose $75 billion due to poor customer service. Looking at how your end-to-end process works, both internally and from the customer perspective is key to ensuring the change being delivered at least maintains and preferably improves the customer experience.
Summary
By considering these four aspects in the planning and delivery of change, any business can ensure they are operationally ready for the changes, even significant changes, thereby significantly improving the likelihood of a smooth (an uneventful) change rollout that ensures the intended outcomes are achieved, the benefits realised and importantly, reputation remains intact or even improved.
For more information on how to deliver fast effective change, contact Acceler8 Consultancy.
