WHAT CAN GO WRONG?

At this early stage in implementation, you would think that not much can go
wrong. After all, you have not spent much money. You have had little
opportunity to make any enemies. What can go wrong?
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Resistance to change.
People see where the plan and strategy are going.
They see that they will lose political power or organizational clout. They think it
is easier to shut it down now rather than to wait until the implementation steam-
roller gets going. In some cases, they are correct. Where can resistance arise? We
examine several sources and suggest some countermeasures. Business unit staff
may be threatened by change. The best approach is to involve them in the plan
development. This will increase their confidence. Another source is middle-level
business management. This is one of the most difficult to deal with because
many changes will restructure their jobs and work more than those of the staff.
You might try minimizing the impact and stressing the details of change. Upper-
level management may have approved similar projects in the past that failed.
Indicate and stress the low risk and confidence in change.
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The process selected for this is too large or complex.
You cannot get your
arms around the process plan. Nothing seems to work. People have a hard time
supporting something that is so large. What should you do? Segment the process
within departments and work on parts of the process. This bottom-up approach
will gain more support. How do you guard against getting less than dramatic
results since you watered the process down to the department level? After
performing the transactions at the department level, consider the overall process
across departments to show how it can be improved. This will also allow you to
indicate problems involved in interfaces.
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Management fear.
Company management become fearful and embarrassed
because of the problems now visible with the process. How could this have
happened? Who let it happen? What can be done? They may wonder what other
problems exist. Here you must proved some perspective that this happens with
all processes over time. They need work and improvement.
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Impatient for results.
The process plan and strategy appear to be okay.
However, managers want results faster. This will take too long. That is precisely
why some managers go for radical reengineering — to get a quick hit. You
should anticipate this and head it off by considering it an alternative and reject-
ing it because of the potential negative impacts. That is, good people will leave;
turkeys will stay. Without technology change, there is only so much that can be
done with the process.