Thoughtful Transition Management..the neglected art.

I find it thoroughly amazing many technology organizations still seem to forget or neglect the the most fundamental aspects of transitioning technology products into the hands of their customers.  I’m not referring to the technology bits and bytes about how to move code into production or fire up a new storage device, I’m talking about the act of thoroughly setting user expectations, delivering just the right about information to them and lastly, preparing the support staff to provide great service.

Often, there is a HUGE gap in a firm between the highly intelligent technologists (application coders, database admins, telephone/voicemail engineers) and the end users.  The result is often a good product poorly received—or significantly less well received than it could have been if someone had just taken the time to think through all aspects of delivering it into the hands of a user.  I think this typically happens when senior management’s concern has shifted too far toward technology or cost cutting and away from the business humans at the other end of the keyboard.

The best organizations bridge this gap by involving their support staff in the delivery of new technology.  They don’t just tell them about what is happening (some don’t even do that), they educate them on both the business opportunity and solution.  When techies and their management truly consider their customers they know it makes sense to empower support staff with knowledge and tools allowing them to provide great service.  They recognize support groups often know the customers better than anyone and leverage that relationship to communicate salient points about what is coming down the road.  Whenever possible, they employ support staff to develop and deliver training materials and execute desk-side transition steps when they are necessary.  How better to prepare and educate a helpdesk for a new product than to involve them in the deployment and training?  For organizations with a high rate of technology churn, constant application changes or high touch, business-urgent users this delivery process is best managed by a dedicated person or team focusing on consistency and congruity of each transition step across projects.

I get it that ITIL processes cover this topic but only to a degree.  I believe there is a certain common sense and empathy that no framework can meaningfully outline.  Technology organizations do well when they thoughtfully consider exactly what the end user will experience with technology change and engage the support organizations early in the project.  This attention to detail fundamentally matters and is absolutely a service differentiator.  For me, doing this is a “Duh.”

This post was prepared by Charles Kling, Associate Partner at Harvard Partners.

He can be reached at charles.kling@harvardpartners.com