Recently I was on a “mission” to collect & analyze feedback on two different types of changes implemented by my fellow consultants in technical team. What I learned in this exercise was quite interesting and I’m sharing it here to have your opinion.
Reinforcing Change through feedback
For past few months, I was working with them in parallel to plan and execute change management activities, including communication and training, required to deliver projects jointly and successfully. The projects were completed with some (agreed) delays. After few weeks of going live, I started to get the feedback from system end-users, the practice which we implemented earlier and is well-established by now. You may see how the feedback mechanism was established here at
A hands-on experience of 3 Ws (Who, What and When) for (Services-Specific) Feedback. Anyways, the feedback I received varied as the projects themselves. Here’s a quick summary of both scenarios.
1) Changed Functionality
To facilitate shoppers in searching, comparing, and procuring products and services easily, a functionality within SRM system known as MDM catalog was implemented. Since the component provides many benefits to those involved in the procurement process, including its approval flow, we were expecting to have good feedback from end-users. However, upon discussing it with them, I realized many of them not so happy for changing the existing process. Some of them assume the new system limit their work and is not as flexible as the existing one. Though it’s not uncommon to have some resistance initially for the changes introduced, the interesting fact is change is never welcomed, at least initially. I mentioned such learning earlier at
End-Users preferring “Old-Difficult” over “New-Easy” Solution.
2) New Functionality
In addition to the above project, we also had another initiative to provide some of the FIORI based applications on mobile devices. The purpose of the project was to provide managers with flexible approval options i.e. on their android / apple devices. Since they could already approve requests through their desktop computers, introducing another way of completing their tasks was welcomed happily. The feedback, in most cases, was “Oh really! We didn’t know we could do it this way as well. Thanks for your effort”. It was quite encouraging for the team and for myself. I developed an understanding here that the ‘addition’ is easy to accept than the ‘change’. I’d appreciate if you share your experience in such scenario.
About how to get the feedback
Well, it may vary from situation to situation. I followed following steps to get required response.
- Acquired the list of people who were part of the process.
- Filtered those who were supposed to use the changed system.
- Called them, introducing myself, asking if they are relevant people and open to provide their feedback.
- Rated the solutions on scale of bad, average, above average, good, and excellent.
- Noted common points, good or bad, for a summary.
- Thanked and assured them to communicate their concerns to relevant teams and to address gaps.
Your thoughts
It would be great to hear from you about how did you go with such change management projects.
