The system goes live on time and on budget. Six months later, supervisors still keep parallel Excel files and the steering committee is looking for the benefits promised in the business case. PlanAxion teams have watched this scene repeat itself across implementations of every size in Quebec. In most cases, the technology worked exactly as designed. The change management effort, though, had been reduced to a few announcement emails. Real change management rests on three components: communication, training and organizational development.
Projects with excellent change management are approximately seven times more likely to meet objectives than projects with poor change management. Source: Prosci, Best Practices in Change Management, 12th edition (2023)
Because implementation challenges are human before they are technical: informing teams is not enough, they also need training, tools and an organization adapted around them. McKinsey & Company reports that 70% of transformations fail to reach their goals. Communication opens the path, but it trains no one and redefines no role.
The reference figures in the field point the same way:
One honest caveat: Prosci sells change management services, and its correlations come from practitioner surveys, not an independent audit. They remain the most cited benchmark in the field, and PlanAxion’s experience on the ground confirms the order of magnitude.
From the very start of a project, clear communication tailored to each audience is the foundation of change management. A well-built project communication plan remains the starting point of the whole effort.
The expert team mandated to manage change first works to understand the business case that justified launching the project. During design, and even after, it keeps the expected benefits in mind.
These experts then identify the stakeholders the project will affect and, conversely, those who could affect the project. Each of them is met individually.
The next step is to map the changes the project brings and understand how they will affect each stakeholder. An impact matrix is then created. It anchors the change management strategies used throughout the project, built on communication, training and organizational development.
Because the share of the budget devoted to training is minimal compared to its impact on adoption and on benefits realization. Implementation challenges are more human than technological in nature, so the necessary resources must be dedicated to helping stakeholders progress until the expected benefits are realized. Training the project team is a crucial step of any software implementation.
Change management experts also support the project team’s own progression. The goal: build a high-performing, trained team as quickly as possible, moving through the five classic stages of team life, namely forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.
The role of change management does not end when business processes go into production. IT organizations often absorb heavy impacts from new system deployments, yet they are among the most overlooked groups in change management. Probably because attention goes to the business units, on the mistaken assumption that IT will simply adapt.
Part of the team must stay in place to confirm that expected benefits are realized, which often means reinforcing the principles and decisions behind the transformation. The team also supports managers through the required organizational development: moving resources, adjusting structures, fine-tuning staffing and redefining several roles.
Watch point: too many organizations launch a software implementation without an expert change management team. Many fall short of the expected level of success and say they will proceed differently on future projects. The project sponsor will need to convince skeptical managers that these resources are essential to any large-scale project.
By treating change management as a full workstream of the project, with its own experts, budget and deliverables, on par with system configuration. Before even trying to implement an ERP system successfully, clarify who will own communication, training and organizational development. In the engagements PlanAxion supports in Quebec, making that call early shapes the project’s trajectory more than the choice of tool itself. The required investment stays modest compared to the cost of failed adoption.
[Optional, to strengthen credibility: add a dated, anonymized client example provided by the team]
Change management in an implementation project rests on three complementary components: communication with each audience, training of the affected resources, and organizational development. Neglecting any one of the three compromises the business benefits expected at project close, no matter how well the system itself performs.
Because implementation challenges are mostly human. The communication plan is only the first component. Stakeholders also need training until the benefits are realized, and the organization needs support through the structural and role changes that follow go-live, well beyond the initial announcement emails.
Not at go-live. Part of the team stays in place to reinforce the principles behind the transformation, confirm that the expected benefits are realized, and support managers through organizational development, from moving resources and adjusting structures to redefining several roles.
It faces well-documented odds. McKinsey estimates that 70% of transformations fail to reach their goals, while Prosci finds that well-supported projects are about seven times more likely to meet objectives. Resistance slows adoption, prolongs duplicate data entry, and erodes the expected benefits.
