Any new infrastructure project represents significant change. Many organisations make the mistake of believing that infrastructure, usually in the form of a new system, will solve all their existing problems. A significant amount of capital funding is often invested and yet, once the infrastructure is in place, employees are complaining, issues are ongoing, and workarounds are occurring. So, what went wrong? What wasn’t considered?

For any change, engagement and communication is key and one of the best ways to do this is through ensuring the processes within the business support the new infrastructure project and that transition from the old to the new in the form of change management is understood.

The following questions will help you as an organisation to ensure that the new infrastructure project is accepted and used correctly:

• Is the project plan visible to all members of staff and regularly updated for reporting to key stakeholders?
• Has a change management plan been designed around the implementation and ongoing use of the new infrastructure?
• Has a change transition curve been identified for using the new system?
• Have the business processes been mapped as inputs and outputs of the new system?
• Has the data been cleansed and available for importing into the new system?
• Has the system been tested by staff?
• Are the staff aware of how their roles will change once the new infrastructure is in place?
• Have Key performance measures (indicators of success) been built into the project plans and new process
• Have all risks been identified?
• Are action plans in place to mitigate those risks identified?

At the end of the day, we are all human, we want to come to work to do a good job so we can leave at the end of the day knowing we made a contribution to our workplace. If the culture and processes are structured and supportive of the change, staff will feel engaged and want to be part of the new way of doing business.

Interested in chatting further? Don’t forget, the coffee is on us!