Having a great change management plan in place for your digital projects is crucial for the success of your implementations.
It’s not uncommon for businesses to have the best of intentions for their digitization efforts, only for the end product to come up short.
A large number—around 70%—of companies experience digital transformation failure for their projects.
This can be for a number of reasons, but typically you can almost always point to a poor management strategy as the main culprit.
Related Post: Digital Transformation Failure: Avoiding Fatigue
Whether it’s unrealistic expectations, a lack of communication, or over-ambition, there are a myriad of ways projects can go off the rails.
That’s why businesses simply must engage and adopt a good strategy for their change management in order to achieve their aims.
Best practices of change management are primarily:
- Start from the top: Taking a top-down approach to tech implementations is important, showing personal investment from executives in projects.
- Make sure the change is necessary: Don’t bog down staff with changes that they don’t need and ensure every implementation is benefitting them.
- Minimize disruption: Avoid disrupting workplaces with a raft of big changes; you’ll risk overwhelming staff and disrupting working practices.
- Promote communication: Communicate the purpose and direction of your plans and don’t leave staff second-guessing new tech adoption.
- Accept culture change: The sooner businesses accept technology change, the better, and the more successful SMBs are the ones who embrace it instead of fighting change.
For more information about best practices in change management, see our post, “5 Change Management Strategies for Digital Transformation”.
Take a look at the infographic below for a better understanding of why change management is vital, and the issues you can face in your projects by not adopting a clear strategy.
