Technology and Process Change.

Successful companies are constantly disrupted as they chase the benefits of new technology. Today, the three main areas of business technology change are the move to the Cloud, Big Data and Data Security.

Companies trying to stay up to speed on each of the three have to manage a lot of change at once. An organization might have hundreds of concurrent initiatives to upgrade systems, analyze big data, or maintain infrastructure. Over 90% of the Fortune 500 are now in the process of moving some or all of their technology infrastructure to the Cloud; they are working primarily with Microsoft’s Azure, Amazon Web Services, or the Google Cloud Platform.

Based on current data, we can forecast with certainty that the move to the Cloud will dominate technology organizations and drive the demand for talent for the next decade. Many industries are putting in place new best-in-class solutions based on infrastructure-as-a-service and Cloud-based applications.

How then must an organization plan for such a disruptive change? What is the scope of budgets facing approval by senior management? What will it take to implement a whole new way of doing business using The Cloud?

The best organizations are thoughtful about technology transformation. Many perform a comprehensive study of potential solutions and chose the right technology vendor. They build a comprehensive budget based on the costs provided by the vendor for the technology.

Yet many don’t adequately budget for behavioral change, which drives most of the business case. How will your people perform with the new technology? Will roles and interactions change? What are the as-is and to-be processes? What are concurrent initiatives that might draw employees’ attention away from the transformation and impede success? Being thoughtful about technology means considering these as essentials.

A successful major technology transformation must include a strategy and budget for helping people manage the transition and perform during and after the change. Job roles and processes will change for most employees. To get the full benefits of the technology, every employee must adopt new behaviors, work within new processes, and respond to new team and organizational goals.

So how much should you budget to engineer the employee experience (otherwise known as change management)? There are several ways to estimate the investment. We don’t recommend anchoring it to the IT investment – one has little to do with the other, particularly as the cost of technology drops every year. But you can anchor it to the business case benefits: what percentage of the business case depends on your employees behaving differently? Or you can pick a reasonable amount to spend per employee, based on your particular technology and the degree of behavior change required.

The investment in employee performance is easy to justify. Around 60% of the business case for any technology change is driven by changes in behavior, while only 5% is driven by workforce optimization. Synergies, financial benefits and cost savings make up the rest.

For example, if the business case is $100 million, up to $60 million of the benefit will come from employees becoming more effective and efficient in their new roles, leading to increased sales and profitability. The budget to design the Employee Experience should be set in relation to the overall business case. Some of the most successful companies spend up to 10% of their business benefit on designing the Employee Experience. The success of the business case is driven not only by an investment in new technology, but by a purposeful investment in people and their performance.

For more on technology change budgeting, read this chapter from The Technology Change Book.

Application migration is a fact of life for businesses today. Companies commonly move application programs from one environment to another. Smart leaders include stakeholders in their migration plans.

Keeping stakeholders informed as the migration draws near is critical to the success of the project. Ideally, strong communication means everyone affected will be working to support the move. This helps the business avoid disruption and meet its objectives.

One way to prepare stakeholders for migration Go-Live is to deliver “T-Minus” communications.

My Go Live Approach

T-180 – Six months before the Go-Live, send an email to impacted stakeholders that the migration is coming. Give them the basics: the reasons, the timing and information on how to prepare.

T-60 – Two months before the migration, send another email to those affected, letting them know the migration is getting closer. Repeat the information you sent before, and emphasize preparation and help from the migration team. Most important are the migration window, IT team contact information, and any other ways to ask for support.

T-30 – One month before the migration, send a similar email. Continue to ask for questions and concerns.

T-21, T-14 & T-7 – Three weeks, two weeks and one week prior to the migration Go-Live, email again. Use any questions you have received from users to anticipate the information people might need; you can proactively answer questions for the larger group.

T-1 – One day before the migration, send final instructions to users. Remind them of the migration window and contact information.

T-1 Hour – On the day of the migration, send an email asking stakeholders to shut down any systems or applications involved in the move.

T-0 – Once migration is underway, email users to let them know the process kicked off as scheduled. This will also help you catch anyone who didn’t comply with the shutdown request.

T+ Migration Updates – During the migration, send emails to impacted stakeholders based on migration milestones. These messages assure stakeholders that the migration is proceeding as planned – it gives them confidence in the team and the process.

T+ Go-Live Complete Announcement – Once the migration is complete, send a notice to inform stakeholders that the migration was successful and the application is ready to be used again.

There are many ways to share information for a migration. This is an approach I’ve used successfully. How have you approached this type of work?

When I first heard about WannaCry and Petya, I thought they were Reddit usernames. Unfortunately for thousands of Microsoft OS users, WannaCry and Petya are not so harmless – they are the names of two major ransomware attacks that hit systems across the globe and battled cybersecurity.

Petya halted companies like DLA Piper and Oreo’s producer Mondelēz International by making it impossible for employees to access their computers. To make a long story short, computers using Microsoft had a vulnerability called EternalBlue. Microsoft released a fix for the liability in March 2017, but any users who didn’t accept that update were vulnerable. In other words, if you didn’t press “Install” when the antivirus box appeared on your screen, your computer was at risk.

Like our CEO Trish Emerson says, the first step to cybersecurity is realizing your business isn’t facing a technology problem — it’s a behavior problem. Petya did so much damage only because of an action users decided not to take. Get your employees to change their behavior (like installing security updates), and you’ve strengthened your first line of defense against cyber threats.

We created a quick and easy video series about turning your employees into cybersecurity warriors. Take the first step to safety by learning how to change behavior.