IT change: Improving your odds

September 6, 2010
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The software is selected, the hardware is installed and the training has been delivered.   Yet 70% of IT change projects never achieve desired results.  Worse, there is a general lack of agreement on how and why technology succeeds and fails in organizations, Earlier this year I undertook a research project on the topic of IT change with the goal to improve the odds—to create successful IT change projects. dice

Building on academic research, this project focused on 5 factors of influence which work together to drive technology use in organisations.

Buyers, vendors, and even academics sometimes confuse technology acquisition with technology change—believing that selection and planning alone is enough to achieve the organisational strategy.  But, features don’t solve business problems, people do.

The reality is that 2 similar organisations can acquire 2 similar technologies and yet experience very different results.

Core to understanding these differences is the concept of ‘agency’—the people who influence technology use…the developers, designers, leaders, project managers and users.  They all come to IT change with expectations and goals. 

And, while we like to think we have control over these agents, the fact is people can be a bit…well, unpredictable.

Understanding technology use requires attention to people, their goals and, most importantly, their interactions. 

The five factors will be explored in this blog over the next few weeks…each using the following case study:

The case of the ad hoc database

 In 2004, iWork (a pseudonym) selected and implemented a new software for administration.  The system was being used by a number of similar organisations to iWork.   The software was intended to be a total solution that customers, partners, leaders, and employees could use to connect through a single application. 

However, one department within iWork did not fully adopt the technology.  Instead, they created a new technology—a database and user interface, which has now been in use for approximately 4 years.  A series of interviews conducted with stakeholders across the organisation were used to understand the factors that influenced the creation of this ad hoc database.

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