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Your End-Users Make your Software Successful, Not your Software | Meet the Team Series

Your End-Users Make your Software Successful, Not your Software

End-Users Make Your Software Successful

Meet the Team Cognira Series

Why utilizing organizational change management is critical for the success of your software

 

Companies spend a lot of time and resources building out their software product or service. However, it doesn’t matter how advanced or innovative your new software is, if your end-users don’t know how to use it, it won’t be successful. The reason? Digital transformation isn’t about technology, it’s about people.

 

In our seventh installment of the Meet the Team Series, Amanda Hilgers, Senior Director of Client Engagement and Delivery, dives into the importance of Organizational Change Management and provides 6 key tips to ensure the launch of your software is a success.

Meet Amanda

Amanda
Amanda’s bread and butter has always been within retail. Her journey started as an intern at Kohl’s, where she soon became assistant buyer for mens seasonal activewear. Though Amanda had a lot of passion for the corporate retail industry, she wanted to explore opportunities on how to improve the end-user experience. This led Amanda to getting her MBA within International Business where she focused on Organizational Change Management and Agile practices.
Not long after getting her MBA, Amanda started her journey with Accenture as a consultant for retail and later as a manager for business process design at Macy’s. After many years spent within retail, Amanda ventured off on a different path and became a user advocate for McKesson’s enterprise systems. With a retail and technology background, Amanda paired both her skills together and started her journey at Cognira!

6 tips for a successful software launch

The most important aspect of any software or product launch is your end-users experience. If your end-user’s aren’t happy, your software won’t be successful. Many times, people are resistant to change and the thought of a new system in place can be daunting. That’s why organizational change management (OCM) is so important for any business large or small. Here are 6 important OCM tips to ensure a successful and smooth software launch!

1. Understand your impacts up front (document the as-is and to-be processes)

Before making any changes to a process, it is important to have a solid understanding of how the process currently operates (“as-is”), and how it will look after you make changes (“to-be”).

 

By documenting and understanding your impacts up front, your organization can create a well-thought out plan that supports the end-user from start to finish.

2. Get representation from your users (no, that doesn’t mean IT)

Now that you have a plan in place, it’s important to invest in end-users that will support the business change, and later encourage their colleagues to accept and adopt the change. Known as change champions, these end-users are utilized to better understand pain points, concerns, and opportunities for the new software.

You should walk away understanding:

 

  • As-is process (how they use their tool today): What challenges they experience, what currently works really well, how proficient they are with technology, where they use the current process (at-home, in the office, both?)
  • To-be process (provide a preview of the future process): Understand concerns, what they’re excited about, and identify any missing gaps

Software supports processes, and adoption of new software is most successful when processes are fully understood.

3. Get leadership support from start to finish

In general, people are hesitant about change and if they feel that their leadership is not confident in the path forward, accepting that change becomes even harder. It is critical for any new process to be supported (and applauded) by leadership.

Get leadership brought into the goal by showing them the value of the process, and encourage them to advocate for it through various communication channels such as emails, town halls, and newsletters. Once they’ve become advocates, it’s important that they stay advocates to ensure sustainment.

4. Invest in change champions to test your system

Once your system has been built out, it’s time to pilot the tool to your change champions! This includes not only testing your system, but also testing your communications and training materials.

The end-goal is to understand if your tool makes sense to the end-user and positively impacts their job experience, along with locating any bugs within the system.

5. Have a solid roll out plan

You’ve done all the prepping, now it’s time to execute. Make sure you have a strong training and communication strategy to bring your end-users along the journey. (And remember, your leadership and change champions are there to encourage the end-users…use them to your best ability!)

Here is an example of a traditional change curve, with the objective of making your users part of the journey and helping them move from competent to proficient in the new process and tool.

6. Sustainment, sustainment, sustainment!

You did it! Yay! But wait, the journey isn’t over. In fact, change is continuous. As your users become competent, and eventually proficient within the process and software, you will need to look for opportunities to continuously improve to meet your changing business and end-user needs. Be sure to keep your change champion network intact and leadership involved in any changes!
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About Cognira

About Cognira

Cognira is the leading artificial intelligence solutions provider for retailers. Cognira is passionate about helping retailers unlock valuable, transformative business insights from their data.

 

We know retail. We love data.

 

To learn more, check out our website at cognira.com or contact us today to get started. 

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