When in Doubt, Over-Communicate!

This morning started out rough from a work standpoint. Over the weekend our project team made “under the hood” adjustments to both our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system Salesforce and our ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system NetSuite. Since mid-September we finalized development scope, documented use cases, tested, and prepared for the impact of these adjustments to data flow and processes. A few users from key business stakeholder groups were involved along the way, so we thought we were ready…

Even after countless hours spent analyzing and testing effects of the changes on end users, we did not anticipate everything that could cause hiccups when we opened for business today. In fact, I personally take responsibility for not preparing specific training materials for a subset of users. Confusion on how to use other new functionality also abounded. Don’t take for granted the importance of change management! After being in the weeds of a project, it is easy to make assumptions about how end users will react when go-live day actually comes.

Upon reflection, here are my thoughts on how I’d structure rollouts going forward,

• Draw out a stakeholder matrix and constantly refer to it as the use case scenarios are drawn up.
• Exhaustively prepare screenshots, walk throughs, and any other materials which can be used for “train the trainer” and end users.
• Conduct “train the trainer” with a representative from all system end user stakeholders.
• Officially schedule end user training as part of the project plan.
• Try not to implement new functionality or changes to processes during the time of year most people take days off of work. Yes, a clean cutoff is attractive, but change management will take the hit.

Every day on the job will provide great learning experiences, and we can all hope to improve our interactions as time passes. Just remember to look back occasionally as you move forward.