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Category Archives: Change

Don’t celebrate too early

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Al Leave a comment

In past posts I’ve written about how the implementation of a new ALIM system brings change in systems (tech), processes and people, and that change management in all three areas is crucial to a successful implementation.

Thankfully, I find that many organizations assume that change management is necessary, especially when a large number of people will be affected by the project. But I’ve seen too many cases where good attempts to predict the challenges and manage the change were made, only to have projects stall weeks or months after some early success.  Some indicators are: far fewer people using the system than expected after it’s been in production for “months”. Or…while trying to expand the use of the system, every  department/project lead questions the value when you try to implement for his/her org/project.

Many times it appears to me that most, if not all, of the change management activities are front end loaded in the implementation project…which can lead the project’s leads to assume that change management is “done”. Be careful not to be lulled to sleep by early progress, and be sure to have a good change management plan for the duration of the project.

See the warning below from Dan Cohen’s book The Heart of Change.

“However, it is essential to recognize the dangers that can follow short-term successes, and to realize that the change process can still fail to take root.  It is not unusual for leaders to lose focus at this point, to celebrate prematurely and relax rather than redouble their efforts.  Thus, the challenge for leaders is…to continue conveying their drive and commitment to employees and managers in order to sustain action through full implementation of the change…”

We don’t need no stinkin’ change management

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Al Leave a comment

Funny, but I don’t agree with Dilbert on this one. Better that we do both proper change management AND have sensible strategies for Asset Lifecycle Information Management system implementations. (Click the title if you don’t see the image)

 

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-10-29/

No Fear?

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Al Leave a comment

image

People, Process, Technology…where do most of the ALIM implementation challenges come from?

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Al 2 Comments

Implementing an ALIM system brings change that impacts people, process and technology. It’s understandable that technology vendors represent their products as THE solution to all of you’re problems. I’ve seen a lot of awesome demos and it’s easy to get excited about the possibilities that today’s software tools bring.

But most will ignore the challenges in getting to the benefits the software can provide. That’s understandable right? No vendor wants a prospective customer getting nervous about the implementation challenges, so it’s not in their best interest to bring this up in the sales process.

Full disclosure/reminder…I’m a VP at Bentley Systems, Inc.

But another thing that vendors have in common is that they want their software to be used. You might assume that they’re only really interested in the sale, but they know that “shelfware” is a very bad thing. Especially today as the software business is moving rapidly to a subscription model. Years ago…ALIM system cost was very front loaded. So if a system didn’t “take” the vendor would miss out on some recurring maintenance / support revenue, but they’d banked most of the revenue from the relationship on the front end.

Not so much today…and moving quickly to a low-cost of entry and a consumption pricing model that spreads the bulk of the revenue from the relationship over a much longer time horizon. Subscription models have been around for a while, but you can thank the Cloud / SaaS for the recent acceleration that’s occurred in the past couple of years.

So it’s become even more important to vendors that the system be successful both in capability and be widely adoption. If you’re working with a vendor that’s selling a subscription, but isn’t talking about change issues…they don’t get it. And I’d question their long-term viability if they don’t begin to demonstrate quickly that they want to assist with your success by helping you overcome what might be your own internal issues.

So the question…

[polldaddy poll=6787930]

 

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