Thought Piece

This question was posed in a Business Analysts forum on LinkedIn. It's a demotivating headache for business analysts, managers, and implementation teams on the project. No matter how talented they are or how hard they work, this is a situation where the accident has already happened, and it can't be fixed within the scope of what they're being asked to do. There may be very little wrong with how the product has been chosen or implemented; but the oppressive feeling that the whole thing has been a waste is nevertheless there.
The chances are that the management have the same feeling, and they are right. To solve the problem, we would have to step back and look at the project in a different way.

It's possible that the need was imaginary. That can happen, but it's not the case I'm going to discuss here.
Instead, what I have repeatedly seen is that the business case and the product implementation are both perfectly sensible, but something is missing in between. The business case would justify a business change project, but that project has not even been proposed. What has been proposed, planned, and executed is a software implementation project, which was expected to have the same outcome, but didn't include the crucial tasks that would have met the business case.

The software project began with the help of an enthusiastic and knowledgeable sales team, with lots of case studies showing the same great results as the business change project would have. No one is lying. The software would deliver those results, if you did the business change project first. The sales team take it as read that the business has already done this, and from their point of view, perhaps it would be rude not to. After all, they don't know about the business. But from the buyer's point of view, it's not necessarily an obvious gap.

This is what happens when the software is an IT service management system, and the invisible, unaddressed problem is that the processes are confused, chaotic, or not truly standardised, and include tasks and decisions that have not been clearly identified or understood. You want service management, so you purchase appropriate software. Using the product is mandatory, so people will find a way to set it up, use it, and do their jobs in spite of it. The project is eventually completed, but the business benefits don't happen, and in the worst case the product will be declared 'unfit for purpose', which is very unjust to a perfectly good product. And perhaps the entire drama will be repeated a few years later with a different product and the same results.

Another example is the corporate social networking system, when the organisational culture doesn't allow people to say anything interesting or important to each other without management feeling threatened. If it's impossible to use the system for its intended purpose without getting into trouble, people won't.
In neither of these cases is there any good reason to 'drive user adoption' of the product in itself. But there may still be an excellent business case for the change.

In my first example, the right project is to sort out the service management processes. In the second, the right project is to create real, justified trust. After that, the business will be in a state where the software — if it's still needed at all — does a great job of something genuinely useful.


Of course, business change projects are usually more difficult than software implementation projects, and less glamourous. But much more important.

Banks are not charities. But they do calculate the lifetime value of the customer and they understand the reputational risk to themselves of the slash and burn exercises they are sometimes accused of.

That brings us to the role of the banks, so often the largest creditor and certainly the one with the most intimate knowledge of how a company is faring. We all love a stereotype and the heartless, faceless bank pulling the plug on sound businesses over a minor blip sits deep in the business consciousness. But not all banks fit this caricature. "We want to work with management of a business facing difficulties to help identify the issues and provide solutions to get them back on track," says a senior manager with a leading retail bank. "We can make the most impact when the problems are identified early. We are keen for management to be open with us."

Banks are not charities. But they do calculate the lifetime value of the customer and they understand the reputational risk to themselves of the slash and burn exercises they are sometimes accused of. Most solutions to business difficulties involve access to more funds and/or different products (hedging, leasing, factoring) and that all adds up to continued and profitable involvement for the bank.

A Repositioning Turnaround may mean divestment of a troublesome subsidiary. It may mean embarking on (yet another) cost-cutting exercise, including turning away revenue opportunities if they are not of a sufficiently high margin. It most certainly involves a first step of getting an impartial and pragmatic overview of what the problem actually is, from Turnaround Professionals who also know the kind of language with which to talk to banks. The moment you take this kind of decisive action, you're likely to discover that there's no crisis, no drama, only urgent action that must start now.

Peter Charles 2010