#1 Way to Make Sure You’re Done With Your Change

In this season of road trips, “Are we there yet?” is being uttered right now all over the country to the dismay of parents everywhere. But if the kids don’t have a map, or a countdown of hours, or some other way to track what is happening, they keep asking – don’t they? Fortunately, the destination is usually a specific place, so with some basic map reading skills and a watch, (or who am I kidding, asking Siri) the answer is easily defined. “Four more hours!”

In business, when you are undergoing a major business change, a similar phenomenon occurs. The program team (and the users you are impacting) may go through various stages of “Are we done yet?” And you will surely encounter this question from your change sponsors, “Aren’t you done yet?” as in “What’s taking you so long?”

Business Readiness is a capability that helps organizations by providing a structured approach to managing people and organizations through a change from a current state to a desired future state.

So what’s the best way to make sure you have a good answer for the question “Are we done yet?” and avoid confusion with your users or your sponsors? As soon as your program is scoped and defined, create a specific list of end user criteria that will help define “Done”. This list gets turned into a Business Readiness Survey that your user groups will complete.

Creating this survey (or multiple surveys if you have many different user groups) performs two functions:

  • It creates clarity on specifically what the end users need to do, or have complete, to be ready for the change.
  • Then by completing it, it tells the program team how close they are to being finished.

For example, ask questions such as:

  1. My staff has copies of the new XYZ forms  (e.g. ABC Input Form, DEF Reports, etc) and understands the changes.
  2. My staff understands the process to grant and deny “New Computer System” access for users (e.g.  handling turnover in personnel, position changes etc).
  3. All users in my group have received their “New Computer System” Code, or understand the process to obtain it.
  4. My staff has access to the following Shared Drive to access training materials (list shared drive or other location).
  5. ABC users have completed training.
  6. DEF Support staff have completed training.
  7. Data has been cleaned up as planned.
  8. My staff knows who to contact (e.g. Help Desk numbers) with questions regarding “New Computer Systems” functionality or troubleshooting.
  9. My staff knows who to contact for updates on the Go-Live Schedule.
  10. Plans are in place to ensure appropriate staffing during Go-Live (to deal with potential data issues).

Questions like these will help ensure that you know what “done” looks like – and can tell everyone else how close you are to it! No more, “Are we there (done) yet?”

Until next time … wishing you business readiness success!

Kirsten Jordan is a Partner at PeopleResults. She can be reached on Twitter @Kirstenkbdb. Sign up to receive her and her colleagues’ blog at Current.

Image courtesy of GalleryQui