Embracing Change Is Key to Tech Success
I think the problem is a wariness about fundamental change. Solving a small challenge with the right technology solution then moving on to the next seems much easier to manage than driving transformation more broadly.
That’s understandable, but here’s the thing: Even genuinely small problems that can indeed be fixed with the right technologies nevertheless require a commitment to change, which in turn requires managing that change throughout the organization.
Deploying any new technology solution raises several big questions, and only some of them are technical in nature.
Who will use the technology? Do they know this change is coming? Have they been properly trained? How will it affect the rest of their job responsibilities? New solutions bring daily change to the people who work with them, and the scope of the change grows with the number of users. When you’re talking about technology that affects the entire company — a new productivity suite, for example, or a new identity and access management solution — the scope of change gets quite large.
RELATED: Businesses are deploying a range of solutions to fuel modern work.
Who will manage and troubleshoot the solution? This is typically an IT responsibility, so IT team members will need to be well trained and comfortable with it. In addition, they’ll need to know where to turn when some new problem with the technology vexes them.
How will the technology integrate with other solutions? Is this new application strictly additive, or will it replace an existing tool? If it’s a replacement, will you uninstall the existing solution, or run both for some period? If it’s meant to work in concert with adjacent tools — something we see often when businesses add security solutions in particular — how well will it do that? Is it designed to run well on whatever cloud platform you’re primarily using?
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