Is 70% failure really the case?
Marketers love a bit of clickbait! If 70% of all change initiatives fail, sign me up for your product/system/training fast before my change initiative fails.
We asked some of our most experienced Change professionals to shed some light on this alarming statistic.
We discovered that 80% of all statistics, this one is made up. (see what we did there!)
Digging deeper, our change gurus told us.
What defines “failure”?
First, define what represents “failure”. For most projects, failure isn’t an option.
You can’t decide to relocate 2000 people to a new building, and because the entry gate didn’t work on day one, everyone goes back to the old building. Many IT projects are initiated because legacy software is no longer supported; there is no going back.
There is scope creep; there are risks, issues, and curveballs. All of these are expected in any large-scale project. The initiative could be delivered late or over budget, but that’s not failure; that’s reality, not failure.
External factors: The real challenges
Even if a project doesn’t get to completion, it’s unlikely to fail because of lousy change management. Our Change experts spoke of projects that weren’t complete due to external factors, where a competitor launched a product they couldn’t compete with, or a merger changed the whole IT landscape. These projects didn’t succeed due to external factors.
Buy-in: The key to success
We asked our change experts what could go wrong if change was not well managed.
The overwhelming response was a need for more buy-in from leaders and sponsors. With full support and backing from the C-suite, changes would be easier to land. Many recounted multiple ‘lift-and-shift’ IT projects where the project focussed on installing new software, but the change team were not supported in providing training to uplift capabilities to realise the benefits of new technology.
Change success vs. Project success
We heard Change success was different than project success. The project team turned out the lights and left the building when the change landed, but the Change team viewed success as increased productivity, less frustration, less stress, and more job satisfaction. Things that could only be measured accurately months after going live.
The role of metrics in proving success
Our final insights were about metrics. Change Managers vehemently refuted that 70% of all change initiatives fail, but they needed to be more specific about how they could prove the change Management part of the delivery was successful. Those using our ChangePlan platform were at an advantage as they had access to multiple dashboards with rich metrics to validate success. Those without software relied on a survey, a pat on the back and a post-implementation review that would never be read.
We’d love to hear from you. Have you ever been involved in a transformation that failed? Do you agree with these statistics? Let’s chat.
