Change management is underrated

Every implementation consultant will wince in recognition:

"The vision doesn't translate from the leader to the ICs... We don't sell enough hours in discovery or design. We ask you a bunch of questions and then we start building; if we spent more time up front I fully believe we would spend less time building and redoing."

That consultant just described the $2 billion problem the software implementation industry refuses to acknowledge: we're optimizing for technical delivery while completely ignoring human adoption.

The Technical Perfection Trap

Let's be honest about how most implementations measure success:

✅ Data migrated successfully
✅ All requirements built to specification
✅ System passes all acceptance criteria
✅ Users completed training sessions
✅ Go-live happened on schedule

Project status: SUCCESS

Reality six months later:

• Users have reverted to spreadsheets for "quick tasks"

• The new system is blamed for everything that goes wrong

• Adoption metrics are embarrassing

• ROI is nowhere close to projections

• Leadership is quietly planning the next "transformation"

We built the perfect solution for the wrong problem.

Change is Hard

Here's what nobody wants to admit: resistance to change is rational.

When you tell someone to abandon a process they've used successfully for years in favor of something they don't understand, they're not being difficult. They're being logical.

As one consultant put it: "ICs aren't in love with their process, but it works. ICs don't have a resistance, but it's a huge change and there's a lot of fear there."

Their current process might be inefficient, but it's predictable. They know its quirks. They know how to work around its limitations. They know how to be successful with it.

Your shiny new system? It's an unknown variable in their professional survival equation.

Change is Emotional

Most implementations focus discovery on what people do, not how they feel about changing it.

We map current state processes in excruciating detail. We document every field, every approval step, every report. We build solutions that technically replicate and improve their workflows.

But we miss the emotional journey:

• Anxiety: "Will I be good at this new system?"

• Identity: "My expertise is tied to knowing the old system"

• Control: "I could fix problems in the old system; I can't in this one"

• Trust: "What if this new system doesn't work as promised?"

Technical discovery asks: "What do you do?"
Change management discovery asks: "How will you feel about doing it differently?"

Training Doesn't Fix It

Let's talk about the industry's favorite change management band-aid: training.

Here's how most implementations approach user adoption (if they do it at all):

1. Build the perfect technical solution

2. Create comprehensive training materials

3. Run training sessions for all users

4. Declare change management "complete"

But training assumes the problem is knowledge, when the real problem is often motivation.

One consultant described it perfectly: "We tend to do training in the form of a lot of talk AT, rather than hands-on."

Even when training is hands-on, it's usually: "Here's how to use the new system."

Not: "Here's why the new system will make your job better."

Champions Are Not The Answer

Every implementation has "change champions"—the enthusiastic early adopters who are supposed to drive organizational adoption.

Here's how that works:

• Week 1: Champions are excited about the new system

• Month 1: Champions encounter real-world problems and workarounds

• Month 3: Champions are frustrated but still trying to make it work

• Month 6: Champions have quietly gone back to old processes for critical tasks

• Month 12: Champions are actively telling people the old way was better

We expect champions to carry the change management load without giving them the tools to succeed.

Context is Key

Remember the requirements telephone game? Change management has the same problem.

Leadership vision: "This system will transform how we operate and position us for growth"

Middle management translation: "Corporate is making us use this new system"

End user understanding: "They're making our jobs harder for no good reason"

The business case for change gets lost in translation. Users see the pain of learning something new without understanding the value of why they're learning it.

Crisis of Capacity

So if change management is so important to the success of a project, why don’t we do more of it? Consultants don't have time for it.

One consultant described the reality perfectly: "Our resources are tied up with the nuts and bolts things of like, solutioning tickets and updating the story points on tickets and creating user stories and going through the approval process for user stories. When we have change management issues… nobody has time for that."

Your consultants know change management is critical. They want to spend time on stakeholder engagement, communication planning, and adoption strategy.

But they're drowning in administrative busywork.

Time Allocation is Depressing

Let's break down how consultants actually spend their time on a typical implementation:

60% Administrative overhead: Writing user stories, updating project trackers, formatting requirements documents, reconciling scope changes

25% Technical delivery: Actually building, configuring, and testing solutions

10% Project management: Status meetings, timeline updates, budget tracking

5% Change management: Understanding user concerns, designing adoption strategies, building organizational buy-in

See the problem? The most critical factor for implementation success gets the least attention.

AI Changes Everything

So how does AI solve the change management crisis? By freeing up consultant capacity to focus on human problems instead of administrative ones.

When AI handles:

• Requirements generation and documentation

• User story creation and formatting

• Test script generation

• Technical documentation

Your consultants can focus on:

• Understanding organizational dynamics: Who are the real decision makers? What are the hidden political considerations?

• Building stakeholder relationships: Which users are nervous about change? Who needs extra support?

• Designing adoption strategies: How can we sequence rollouts to build confidence? What quick wins can we demonstrate?

• Creating communication plans: How do we tell the story of transformation in a way that resonates?

A New Vision for Discovery

Remember that consultant who said they don't sell enough hours in discovery? Here's why: discovery time gets consumed by documentation, not understanding.

Traditional discovery:

• Interview stakeholders

• Document current processes

• Create requirements specifications

Time for relationship building: Minimal

AI-powered discovery:

• Upload stakeholder conversations

• AI generates process documentation

• AI creates requirements automatically

Time for relationship building: Maximum

When AI handles the documentation overhead, consultants can spend discovery time on what really matters: understanding the human side of change.

Invest in Relationships

With administrative tasks automated, consultants can invest in the relationships that make implementations successful:

Change management discovery: Spending time with resistant users to understand their specific concerns and build targeted adoption plans

Champion development: Working closely with change advocates to give them the tools and confidence to lead organizational adoption

Executive alignment: Ensuring leadership understands their role in modeling and reinforcing the change

Team building: Creating cross-functional collaboration that extends beyond the implementation timeline

Change Management ROI

When consultants can focus on change management, implementations deliver dramatically better outcomes:

• Higher adoption rates: Users are prepared and supported through the transition

• Faster value realization: Organizations start seeing benefits sooner

• Lower post-implementation support costs: Fewer help desk tickets and user issues

• Better long-term success: Systems are used as intended, delivering predicted ROI

Competitive Advantage

SIs that figure this out first will have an enormous advantage:

Traditional SI pitch: "We'll build you a great system"
AI-powered SI pitch: "We'll transform your organization—and make sure people actually want to use what we build"

Customers are tired of technically perfect implementations that fail at adoption. They want partners who understand that implementation success is measured by organizational transformation, not technical delivery.

The Future of Change Management

The future isn't about getting better at convincing people to change. It's about eliminating the barriers to change.

AI makes this possible by:

• Creating solutions that feel familiar instead of foreign

• Demonstrating personal value instead of organizational benefits

• Enabling gradual adoption instead of forced transformation

• Adapting continuously instead of requiring periodic overhauls

We're moving from implementations that ask: "How do we get people to use what we built?"

To implementations that ask: "How do we build what people will naturally want to use?"

That's not just better change management. That's change management by design.

The technology exists today to create implementations that feel like natural evolution instead of forced revolution. The question is: will you be among the first to deliver it?

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Ready to eliminate change management problems by design? See how Glossa creates implementations that feel familiar from day one—reducing resistance and accelerating adoption.