The Technology Change Book

Mary Stewart, Tricia Emerson

Description

As change goes, technology implementation is as big as it gets. Technology is a breathtaking investment. It often takes significant revenue and heck of a lot of work, devouring profitability, time, focus, and energy. Why do we do it? For the huge upsides: competitiveness, survival, domination, success. This book is for anyone whose neck is on the line to deliver.

How do you make sure you deliver? The key is to get people to use technology correctly. Technology is a tool. If you can’t harness the power of the people in your organization to use that tool correctly, you’ve lost. Authors Tricia Emerson and Mary Stewart, lifetime change professionals, posed a question to themselves and their colleagues: What do you wish you had known when you started your toughest technology project? The result is The Technology Change Book.


The tools in this book will help you:

Build a case for change.

Learn how to build a change team and create a change plan.

Communicate effectively.

Measure behavior change and react appropriately.

Sujets

• Efficacité professionnelle
• Efficacité
• Coaching
• Business
• Economics
• Gestion et management
• Mentoring

Informations

• Publié par: Association for Talent Development
• Date de parution: 22 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781607285458
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

© 2013 American Society for Training & Development (ASTD)

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please go to www.copyright.com , or contact Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 (telephone: [phone], fax: [phone]).

ASTD Press is an internationally renowned source of insightful and practical information on workplace learning, performance, and professional development.

Ordering information: Books published by ASTD Press can be purchased by visiting ASTD’s website at store.astd.org or by calling 800.628.2783 or 703.683.8100.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013931623

ISBN-10: 1-56286-810-1 ISBN-13: 978-1-56286-810-9 e-ISBN: 978-1-60728-545-8

ASTD Press Editorial Staff: Director: Glenn Saltzman Manager, ASTD Press: Ashley McDonald Community of Practice Manager, Learning Technologies: Justin Brusino Senior Associate Editor: Heidi Smith Editorial Assistant: Sarah Cough Graphic Design: Yvette Tam Interior Illustration: Ramiro Alonso

CONTENTS

Preface
Foreword
Acknowledgments

SECTION 1: The Case for Change
What’s Your Problem? Making Your Case The Best Board Pitch Ever How to Budget Like a Winner How Will You Know Whether It Worked? Crickets

SECTION 2: The Team and the Plan
It’s Elementary… Lead From the Ground Up Do We Really Need a Sponsor? The Best and the Best You Complete Us Get Onto My Cloud Disruption Preparedness Look for the Union Label Chunk It The Window Target Behaviors “As Is” Is Essential to Your “To Be” The Beauty Is in the Details The Center of the Universe

SECTION 3: The Build
Too Much of a Good Thing On a Role Try Our New Flavor: Intuitive Vanilla How Do You Learn to Use a Cloud? Failing to Learn Don’t Forget the Steady State Super Users, Super Stars Don’t Just Communicate Need to Know Basis The Toolmaker’s Children Hot Potato Is a Kid’s Game Ain’t Nothin’Like the Real Thing Baby

SECTION 4: The Delivery
Five Stars Stimulus, Response Measure and React Lights. Camera. Action. Failure Is Not an Option Get the Context Right Sweat the Small Stuff Help! I Need Somebody It’s Alive Step Up ™


PREFACE

Those of us who manage change for a living are fond of saying that it doesn’t matter what the change is. Whether it’s a new process, technology, organization, market strategy, size, leadership, product, or geography—we follow the same principles to get an organization from point A to point B.

That’s true. And yet…every craft has special tools for special jobs. Technology projects have their own challenges, language, pitfalls, and opportunities. It pays to master this particular kind of change, especially when the stakes are so high.

Our consultants have many decades of experience enabling the benefits of technology by influencing human performance. Along the way, we’ve been a part of great successes for our clients. We’ve innovated and learned. We’ve seen what stalls a project and what clears the way to a win.

This is the book we wish we’d had on some of those projects. Each short chapter holds one good idea. They might give you a fresh thought, jump-start a conversation with your team, or change your perspective. It’s not a comprehensive guide or methodology, it’s a collection of our best ideas for technology change. We want to inspire you, whether you’re new to the field or a seasoned practitioner, to Step Up ™ your game.

Our book is simple and flexible. You don’t have to read front to back— turn to any chapter that interests you. Read in any order you want. Each chapter is designed to be easy to digest. Pick it up, read a chapter or two, then put it down until you have another few minutes.

There’s no more critical or fast-moving practice than technology and we’d love to advance the conversation. We hope you find a few nuggets of wisdom to make your own.


FOREWORD


Everyone experiences change. All the time, whether you realize it or not. And it’s pretty safe to say that everyone experiences technology change. After all, who among us isn’t affected by technology in our daily lives, both at work and outside of work? But not everyone is responsible for technology change. This book is for those who are.

Change is hard, and technology change is no exception. There is the actual technology itself that changes, but there is also the impact of that change on the people who use the technology that must be considered and carefully managed. Technology that “works” perfectly but isn’t understood or used properly will not yield the desired results. The people side of technology change is critical.

While no two change efforts are exactly the same, the anatomy of most technology change is remarkably similar. The Technology Change Book lays out a succinct approach to managing technology change.

Whether you are relatively new to such change or are a seasoned professional, this book provides tips and advice you will find helpful. The book is easy to read and provides practical insights taken from real-world experiences.

Nothing is more efficient than learning from other people’s experiences. After all, you get the benefit of their endeavors without actually going through the process yourself. I’m not saying that there is a substitute for experience, but if you can make your project more productive and meaningful because you learn what to do, or what not to do based upon the experiences of others, then by all means, take advantage of that.

One way to do this: Read this book. Follow the advice in this book and you’ll increase the probability of success for your technology change.

Bruce Hoffmeister | CIO, Marriott
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One winter, our team of consultants shared some downtime sitting around a table and chatting about our client experiences. We realized that this lull in our workload was a wonderful opportunity to capture the best of what this group, some of the finest in the field, knew about technology change.

The group took on the task to “riff” on their expertise. “Don’t write the basics,” Trish said. “Write for people like yourselves: short on time, short on attention, but deep in expertise.” And then Trish and Mary turned it into a book.

Our book is the result of this labor. It would not exist except for the efforts of the following contributors:

Farrow Adamson
John Graves
Jeff Harris
Matthew Hecht
Laura Hume
Ian Johnston
Mark Kinzer
Bob Kraska
Gwen Merrill
Lauren Novak
Christopher Quick
Cathy Quon
Steve Simos
Angie Waller
Mike Waller
Yvette Tam, Designer
Ramiro Alonso, Illustrator
Genevieve Shiffrar, Photographer
Ryan Brown, Proofreader

For this, our third book, we also had a great gift: the wisdom of some top executives who deal with technology change every day. Thanks to Karen Alber, Brian Berliner, Rex Carter, John Dohm, Fabien Degaugue, Chet Gandhi, Jim Haar, Bruce Hoffmeister, Ginny Lee, Pete Moran, and Steve Wilkens. Their inspiration and insights helped shape this book.

And thanks to the entire Emerson Human Capital team, for their brilliance, faith, and diligence supporting this book while serving their clients so well. Working with them remains one of our greatest joys!

Trish Emerson and Mary Stewart
SECTION 1


The Case for Change
YOU’RE RESPONSIBLE FOR ADOPTION OF A MAJOR TECHNOLOGY. ULTIMATELY, YOU AND THE ORGANIZATION ARE UNDERTAKING THIS TO ACHIEVE A PARTICULAR BENEFIT. YOU BELIEVE IN IT. WHY? WILL IT IMPROVE OPERATIONS? FINANCIAL MODELING? INCREASE REVENUE OR MARKET SHARE? HELP YOU STAY COMPETITIVE? MOVE YOU TOWARD A VISION?

HOW PEOPLE USE THE NEW TECHNOLOGY DIRECTLY AFFECTS ITSVALUE TO THE ORGANIZATION.

HOW DO YOU GET STARTED? FIRST, A MAJOR CHANGE NEEDS A CLEARPICTURE OF SUCCESS.


What’s Your Problem?




Make sure you understand the problem you’re trying to solve, and choose the right solution.
To paraphrase the idiom: When all you have is technology, everything looks like a technical problem.

Too many projects start with the answer—a new technology, an upgrade, a really sexy application—and then search for the question.

Start with the question. Where is your organization going? What does it need to get there? What obstacles are in your way?

Solve that. Find the right solution to that. And if it involves technology (which it probably will), that’s the time to talk tech.


Story
STORM CLOUDS FILL THE SKY
Once upon a time, there was a consulting firm with an IT group excited about moving to the cloud. Cloud technology was new, and the little consulting company would be an early adopter.

The organization moved all of its operations to the cloud and sold their servers. Unfortunately, the gods behind the cloud got angry and the systems went down for hours at a time. Email disappeared,and odd issues occurred that could not be replicated.

The consultants gnashed their teeth and wailed until IT returned systems to the safety of the server.

Why? IT solved only their problem—server maintenance—with a cool new toy. If they had solved a problem for the consultants—perhaps the ability to access their desktop from any device—they might have had support when they faced a non-negotiable problem: no access at all.

“Most peop