Realizing the Future of Work through “Post Go-Live” Activation
When we introduce an application at work, we aim to solve a problem. The problem is not solved, however, by making the tool available; employees need to actually use it. This sounds simple enough. Unfortunately, most companies do not have the capabilities to continuously drive use of technology after it goes live.
The capabilities exist to select, procure, deploy, maintain, patch and support systems, but if asked who is accountable to drive continuous activation post go-live, most executives will fumble the answer. This has become an epic problem not only for companies buying technology, but also for the enterprise IT software and services sector racing to sell everything in the cloud with subscription based revenue models that depend, in large part, on customers getting their employees to actively use what they purchased for them. Among industry insiders, this challenge is commonly referred to as "low consumption."
This challenge can be resolved mostly by shifting toward a collective “post go-live” mindset. To illustrate how this works, consider how I met my wife, and what came next. In January 1997, while heading home from work on the NYC subway, I saw my future wife waiting on the platform. I was inspired to take action, and once on the train, I “cleverly” asked her for a pen. The rest, as they say, is history. Sixteen years later, I still count my blessings that I didn’t take a taxi home that wintery evening. The true benefits of having met my wife on the 6th line came after the wedding, of course. As much fun as it was to date, stage the proposal (in a helicopter over NYC), get married at the Hotel Del in San Diego and celebrate our nuptials in Bali, the real dividends (and real work) came next - building a family and life together. In a sense, our wedding was our “go-live.”
In our post go-live, my wife and I have been operating a PMO 24/7, thinly staffed with 2 FTEs, trying to meet or exceed the needs of three very active customers (ages 8, 10 and 12) who don’t hesitate to file complaints when service levels drop (e.g., “What? You can’t pick me up from school because you have a call. I don’t think so, dad.”). That it takes hard work to stay happily married while raising a family and balancing two careers is not a revelation – it’s the stuff of untold songs and movies. In terms of our project plan, it took 929 days to prepare for and reach our go-live (wedding). Now we have 10,000+ days “post go-live” to realize the benefits (unless my wife takes a better offer from a competing firm!) Post go-live work streams include activating our kids into productive members of society and measuring the impact. Common KPIs include: # of mid-night ER visits, # of softball trophies, # graduate degrees, # of grand-children, etc. In the final analysis, our legacy as a couple will not be defined by the effort that went into planning our wedding, but rather, into raising our family in the decades that followed.
The calculus for value is similar when deploying digital enterprise technology. Digital has the potential to 1) enhance a customer or employee experience; 2) add productivity, or subtract inefficiency, from a process. Both of these translate into a competitive advantage. Yet, most organizations still have a “go-live” mindset that prevents them from fully harnessing this potential (to the growing dismay of Boards and vendors alike).
Most Enterprise IT Departments are measured based on how quickly applications are launched on time and on budget, a system that rewards behaviors aligned with efficiency over value creation (or user experience). Rather than drive sustained active use of new technology, it is more common to just announce the availability of a new tool on the intranet homepage and offer training. Rather than map and manage the employee experience, it’s more common to stay focused on multi-year roadmaps that do not flex to emergent workplace behaviors.
In the digital era, “go-live” is a milestone, not the mission. Realizing business benefit is the end-game. This begins no doubt with making good early decisions (which are user-centric, and design led), but most of the magic happens "post go-live." I recommend that Business, Enterprise IT and HR Departments refocus on what happens after the switch is flipped, actively monitoring and calibrating the workplace experience, and treating employees as “consumers” of that experience. This includes having the agility to introduce new technologies (off-cycle) as well as the tolerance for emergent practices and tools that may inspire new ways to work.
Taken together, these capabilities constitute a new playbook for the digital age, a Future of Work Playbook. On April 22, 2015, EY and Microsoft announced a strategic partnership, in part, to help companies activate the full value of the Microsoft cloud and productivity tools with the power of "post go-live" thinking to realize the Future of Work. You can read more about the partnership here:
Thank you for reading, and ping me if you want to learn more, or just talk shop.
Its very aligned with what we are facing now in the MENA region. Sub Saharan Africa is also entering this shift and if Telco companies are not ready to embrace this change, they will lack behind.
Captivating analogy focused on 'post go live' activities... fun to read, and make a lot of sense in any scenario!
This may be why my company (small) have Sharepoint customized for us, Google Business Apps, another custom peice of software and at the end of the day we still use email, and sometimes Dropbox, to get things done. Love the analogy. Makes perfect sense. Well thought out.
Great post thanks. I totally agree that the” Go Live” date is the beginning of the journey. I tell my customers that buying software, in my case LinkedIn Sales Navigator is like joining a Gym. To lose weight or get fit you actually have to go to the gym, do the exercises correctly and possibly get a trainer. All of this needs to happen continuously for an extended period of time to achieve proper results. Just buying the membership accomplishes very little. Borrowing concepts from Joe Galvin at Miller Heiman he once wrote that some customers seem to think buying software/Sales Navigator is like taking a diet pill. Just swallow the pill every day and you will lose weight, or just buy the software and your organization is instantly more efficient selling more services. Those types of views are doomed to fail. Customers need to invest in their investment and build a comprehensive plan that extends long after the “Go Live” date.
Yes, thanks for the comment, companies need to reward the right behaviors and incentivize change agents. They also need to recognize that activation happens both informally and formally, just as digital itself emerges in the workplace through informal and formal channels. This means building new capabilities to focus on mapping and management of the enterprise experience, among others. Relying on traditionally under-funded change management and deployment teams to activate new ways does not work. The secret sauce is creating a culture and the channels to inspire active use of technology, rather than simply showing people what it does and how to use it. These are fundamentally different end-points, and require different skills to deliver.