How do you overcome resistance to change when implementing project management software? That is a common implementation hurdle to overcome. No matter how evident the problems may be, people naturally want to keep things the way they always have been. At least until the pain of doing it the old way is so great that they want to change.



I will not go into a detailed exposition on dealing with change because there are many resources that have been dedicated to that. I will simply offer up a few tips on how to deal with this issue when implementing project management software.

Communicate Often
We hear about communication all the time, but it is very important to communicate often, especially if you have a culture that is resistant to change. People tend to believe the grapevine, make things out to be worse than they really are, and fail to see real benefits. Good communication will help to alleviate some of this. A common mistake I see is that communication only happens when you need something from someone. For example, people are informed that they need to attend training without any forewarning or background communication. I believe that communicating early and often is a good thing. Let people know what's coming and what they can expect. How will it make their jobs better? What exactly is expected of them. Hold a brown bag lunch session and give people a preview of what is coming. Send out a weekly or monthly "newsletter". I'm sure you can come up with some good ways of getting the word out.

Use Phases
Sometimes we have a tendency to do too many things at once. People quickly get overwhelmed when too much is changing at one time, or too many things are thrown at them. Take it in phases. As much as possible, introduce new processes in phases. Keep things simple, and don't try to do more than you really need to do.

Understand Different Adopters
You will most likely have different types of adopters. Some people will be eager to get into the new technology and processes. Others will come if they need to, and still others will come "kicking and screaming." Find those people that are eager to adopt the new system and use those people as allies, educators, and evangelists.

Incorporate Enough Training (but not too much)
Training is important. It will help people be more comfortable with the new system. We recommend training people on processes along with the tool so that they are not just learning features of some system, but how to use this new technology tool to perform specific business processes. This will also help to prevent too much training (training people on features that they really don't need to do their jobs).

Accountability
This is not a popular word, but sometimes you simply need the management support to hold people accountable for the new processes. There is a saying that goes "what gets measured gets done". If people are not getting measured on adopting these processes, there will be a big tendency not to change and adopt them.

What can you add to the list? Comment or email them to blog@teaminteractions.com