What do you do if your new technology implementation is facing resistance?

First and foremost be patient as not everyone would embrace the new technology overnight. Be willing to 1. Communicate to team effectively 2. Address concerns directly 3. Be flexible to adjust your approach based on feedback and ongoing assessment/evaluation

First, understand the root cause of resistance. Often, there's a good reason why teams aren't speeding up execution. In situations like this, pre-testing is a useful exercise, starting with initial assessments and lessons learned. Once this stage is clear, communicate the clear benefits and importance of executing such technology. Organizational super users who facilitate and support colleagues are invaluable. Maintain open communication for the required period until critical mass takes off. Track progress regularly, communicating key learnings and improvements. Appreciate first movers and champions. And remember, be a role model yourself!

Where do we begin? Cultivating a shared culture & positive attitude towards change is paramount. Demonstrating leadership, addressing the resistance through education, fostering a more empowered workforce leads to small victories!

Consider the perspective of the detractors, often it is cultural or political rather than real, there is no use changing the tech stack if the underlying issue is cultural or political. Sell the WIFM.

People do not go through digital transformation, but instead digital transformation goes through people. Hence, it is very important to understand from your impacted stakeholders why the new technology implementation is failing and user adoption and usage is low. Studies have shown that people resist change out of fear of losing control or face uncertainty. And since digital transformation is one of the biggest business changes, further accelerated during and after the pandemic, organisations must start their digital transformation journeys by addressing resistance.

Major reason of resistance for technology projects is because stakeholders or customers didn’t get the real and direct benefits of it on their processes. Recommendation is to invest time on a solid strategy for benefits calculation and how to demonstrate it on real situations. It should be focused mainly on tangible benefits as financial savings, process improvement or better user experience using emerging technologies

Building desire along the way is critical to the success of any change program. Its not only about communicating the benefits of the change, is working through all levels of leadership to build an authentic desire to look forward to the new.

I think the first step is to understand the as is scenario and then being convinced the new technology is solving the right problems. If these are ticks then it’s just a matter of communicating the advantages it brings on board in the right manner. Being Empathetic and understanding the problem is the key.

It is always important to emphasize the benefits and positive impacts of the implementation. By effectively communicating how the technology will improve efficiency, streamline processes, and enhance outcomes. Additionally, highlighting the long-term advantages and opportunities for growth can inspire confidence and motivate individuals to embrace the change.

Demonstrate new technology proof of concept from simulation data and test results. Develop charts with strategic modelling data for nett present value versus return on investment over the long term based on the findings to justify the business investment in the new technology. Clearly articulate key findings from the new technology that will benefit the business.

We should consider the different learning styles while delivering a training program or an orientation session. Scientists identified Three main types of learners (Auditorial, Visual, and Kinstethic).

Again, start with the stakeholder audience in mind. Distil exactly what they need to know, how much time they have to learn it, how they prefer to learn, when they will need to obtain that knowledge, and what they already know. Answering these questions is key to crafting a robust training strategy that not only provides a great outcome for the learners, but also ensures that there is a good ROI on development of those training resources. It is not always a one-size-fits all.

It is important to note that learning in a change management situation is multi-directional. In addition to a comprehensive training program that caters to different learning styles and paces, an active collaboration between the business team, the technology team and technology vendor is key to success.

Implement agile learning sprints for targeted, iterative training sessions. Start with a pilot group, gather feedback, and adjust training content accordingly. This method offers just-in-time learning, directly addressing users' immediate needs and reducing resistance by enhancing confidence in the new technology.

One thing I’ve found is that if it’s a brand new technology being implemented there might be deficiency of training material. So as the implementation of the technology is being done, creation of documentation itself will act as training material for the further development.

Change champions can be pivotal, and not only during new technology implementation. In my experience, a network of individuals, usually motivated and engaged, and well-embedded within their teams, will advocate for the change, encourage it's adoption, and be first to address resistance or challenges on an ongoing basis, ultimately ensuring the new technology becomes well engrained into daily operations.

The approach of identifying change champions is a brilliant one.It makes the team members who are not at the centre of the technology implementation feel part of the process as it is through the identified champions that their input is heard.Whats even better is when an idea presented through a champion is considered far better resulting in a change in part of the original plan

Change champions play a pivotal role during digital transformation. These individuals, typically enthusiastic and forward-thinking members of the team, actively champion the benefits of the new technology and drive momentum throughout the change process. They inspire and motivate their colleagues, fostering a culture of curiosity and continuous learning. By sharing their expertise and experiences with the new technology, they help to build confidence, reduce resistance, and accelerate adoption.

In my experience, the most effective Champions for new technology implementations are found among business users. They ensure that the changes they believe in gain visibility, crucial for overcoming resistance.

The best way is to monitor the changes, communicate with all contributors and adjust if necessary. Involving the team is also a key for success.

Implementing change is challenging for all involved. Success requires making the process collaborative, with shared goals. Monitoring of progress is key throughout the entire change process. Key strategies include: -Collecting detailed feedback to assess technology adoption and its workflow impact. -Encouraging open communication for sharing experiences and suggestions. -Celebrating milestones and individual efforts to maintain morale. -Involving everyone in decision-making to foster collective ownership. -Monitoring team sentiment to address resistance or fatigue. These steps enhance the likelihood of successful technology integration and adoption within the organizational culture.

In my experience, having a dedicated (or at least a portion of their time dedicated) to the post-implementation phase is critical. Rarely do things that are worth doing holistically (those big changes) stop when the implementation timeline is complete. Have someone (or a small group) response internally for collecting problems, questions, and solutions and have them actively report out (best through an expected e-mail) the ongoing results and what is still in motion. Consider it hyper-care, but lead internally.

I think monitoring the progress of any change, but especially adapting to new technology, is imperative to the longterm implentation of the change. It seems that technology is always met with trepedation and fear of the unkown. It is important as leaders to accentuate the positives of the technology as well as aknowledge the shortcomings. By monitoring progress, leaders stay involved in the change andeliminate many perceived shortcomings through training and hands on experience. If the new technology is beneficial, once it is placed in use it will prove its value. It is just important to get past the initial resistance to changing the status quo to get personnel to jump onboard.

Exactly, implementing new technology requires ongoing attention and adjustment. Continuous monitoring, feedback gathering, and adapting to the needs of the team are essential. Using KPIs helps measure progress and pinpoint areas needing additional support. Celebrating milestones not only boosts morale but also acknowledges the team's efforts, reinforcing their commitment to adapting to the new technology.

Whilst it's important to plan well for managing change, getting champions in place, having a robust comms plan and everything else you would normally consider, it's also very important to maintain flexibility. More often than not, certain elements of the technology being introduced or processes being changed will cause pressure points in the operation when it actually comes to go-live, despite efforts to foresee where there might be issues in advance. Having an effective feedback loop and ability to rapidly problem solve and adjust approach where needed is key to seeing the change through effectively and keeping people on board.

Understand how much of the company's information is being switched over to a new platform. Is your entire system being transitioned (Waterfall) or is the new tech a piece of the puzzle (Agile)? If it's a piece of the puzzle, you might see some glitches if your cloud systems aren't "talking" to each properly - which can be fixed with some back and forth with the company providing the software, but it is key to let your team know that feedback is extremely important if something is not working. Send in the screenshots or recordings, so the IT team can fully understand the problem and find the needle in the hay stack to fix the issue. More feedback is better than none.

Any technology goes to commercial is a long distance by keeping changes to uptimize the processes and method to have competitive cost with good, consistant quality to be post market. So, SWOT and several stages of gap analysis for technology and cost, and propose good processess, keep change and improvement to realize the technology into commercialized production.

Often projects are given names that reflect the software tool - the Salesforce project, the Sharepoint Project, the G-Suite project - versus business objectives. The technology is usually around 50-60% of the total effort. I suggest renaming projects for the objectives they need to meet (e.g., sales optimization) to help explain why it's needed. Secondly, leaders need to understand the "personality" of their teams. I did DISC assessments for 100 people in a technology division and found that 81% of the leaders were passive, meaning they were risk and change-averse. The CTO realized that much more effort needed to be expended in communicating, training, mentoring, and reassuring his teams for change. And this was a technology group!

Consider that the resistance may have good cause. It is very easy when delivering or promoting change to assume that any resistance is either malicious, foolish or lazy. Typically it's not. It might be emotional, as no one likes having change done to them, in which case involve those people on the process. Or it may be that your idea isn't as good as you think it is. It never hurts to listen to the resisters and understand what's driving their concern.

Create urgency, set clear expectations and goals then regroup the team towards the common goal with an end in sight all while celebrating small wins throughout the change process. The change can be difficult, time consuming but well worth it after successful implementation.

An example I have seen is - When Leaders build trust amongst the employees and encourage them to accept the digital transformation, teams across are motivated. It can be through: general organisation announcement online or offline with an open q&a forum to address and tackle user concerns. This should be a well structured session with all relevant stakeholders who will ultimately guarantee the success of the implementation. This is a Win Win technique.

After all this, if some people still not convinced, then you tell them what will happen if we don't change. Generally these pessimistic and reluctant will understand well the hard reality of staying competitive to survive in the business.