Is it you, or is it me?

A lot of projects fail despite all the effort put in them. This article will target transformation projects, having one of the highest failure rates, and dig deeper through the crust of a gigantic budgetary drain in order to find major reasons for the soring numbers.

Transformations are usually executed by third party vendors, supported by internal teams. In any case, starting from a legacy system, with years of instilled business logic into its core, is a game changer.

It all starts with a decision to take the company to the next level, and transform the internal systems to serve longer strategic terms. And goes into strategizing, planning and implementing the transformation.

So why failure rates are high?

1. Under estimation

This is a co-joint issue between the company and vendor teams.

Internally, they perceive transformations as a quick endeavor and fast deployment. They tend to wait for the vendor timeline, without considering the agony revolving around UAT, QA & QC, internal risks, existing system(s) maintenance, operational work, and much more.

Externally, vendor teams miss to highlight the fact that such projects, if not fully planned at the start, will have a recurrent impact on the baselines (cost, time, etc.).

Before vendors submit their tenders, they would need to go into a detailed discovery phase of the business, logic, workflows, and customizations needed for the subject transformation. Some will say that this might be a lost investment; however it is not, this analysis phase should be a preliminary one, aiming to converge the selection of vendors. For this phase, the customer will be submitting their business workflows and logic with the help of experienced functional managers, industry experts, and change management personnel, clearly showing the scale of the transformation. If the vendor(s) require more information, they can ask for it.

The result of such phases is a tender document from the vendor with their way of tackling the endeavor, and handling the transformation. Subsequently, this will be followed by choosing a vendor and going into a detailed analysis and planning phase before getting the customer sign-off and kicking-off the implementation.

2. Miss-perception of the needed work

Change management does not only revolve around handling change requests. A big part of it targets the needed work to go from where the company is, to the point it wants to be, and it goes beyond that to deliver and maintain the outcome.

Unfortunately, defining the high-level scope is perceived to be by many a correct way of kicking-off the transformation, missing to realize that this kick-off needs to start after thorough planning and blueprinting of the project. Details are defined during planning, covering the required business workflows. Internal teams need not to assume that the implementation teams know the tiny bits of the business.

“Take your business to the next level, and endure the sweet burden of success” PgMCerty.

Success is a burden that companies carry, and that they need to feed continually.

What happens in such situations is that a lot of projects do not have a clear responsibility matrix, where individuals are held accountable for success.

If we take the example of a new recruit joining your team, it takes him or her between 3 to 6 months to understand and align with the business. So, what makes the vendor team any different?

Bottom line, embrace the planning and initialization phase; it will set you to success!

3. Suggesting and adopting change

Business units are thought to be reluctant to change, but in fact what they need is someone to show them the advantage of change. This role has three entities involved in it:

• Vendor teams: with enough experience and industry knowledge to suggest changes based on best practices.
• Internal change management team: which does not normally exist in organizations; however, has a major role in following up on the industry advancement, market changes, and new practices to adapt the business to.
• Individual: affected by the transformation, individuals need to take the extra mile into taking the responsibility of suggesting changes, adapting to new ways of working, and changing their business logic when and if needed.

The list goes on and on. Failure of transformation projects has multiple root causes ranging from the lack of industry experience, to changing the perception of individual employees. What we targeted in this article are only few major reasons.