A simple story about change management mistakes
Background:
Around 3 years ago I got an invitation to join a huge volunteer team serving a #worldwide #charity. I was/am very glad to have the opportunity to be (even having a small role) participant in one of the biggest movements in the world. The organization has tens of thousands of volunteers and thousands of partners serving extraordinary content for nearly six hundred million unique app users and hundreds of million website users all around the world.
After my registration, I received an orientation with a simple, clear and right to the point presentation. Then it took me less than one week to roll in and practically participate as a #volunteer in the translation team.
my job description was simple too, even I had no experience working with 2 major platforms:
1- #Communication platform (S): Project managers/coordinators publishing links (topics and assignments) on this #platform.
2- #Content platform (C): I and other volunteers translate links' content on this web platform.
I had/have joyful moments with these easy tasks which can be done on my mobile phone and I did not have other needs to perform assigned tasks.
After a few months I found some formatting or content errors in some outcomes and easily via Communication platform (S) I raised them to all levels of hierarchy in organization. They decided to assign me as an approver of content and formatting. Now, I had 2 workspaces in the Communication platform (S) and thanks to this platform, it was not only easy to communicate but also fun to stay in touch with other people with the same goal all around the world. All because I had full control on my end in the Communication #App to manage notifications, check in/out groups, mark important discussions and many other adjustments.
It was around late 2021 that the nightmare began. Suddenly and overnight the #Project managers team announced that "We are moving from existing Communication platform (S) to New Communication platform (T)"
I was excited for this new communication platform (T) because it is much more famous and popular than the previous one. But gradually I found the horrible change management mistakes are about to burst many things in problematic ways for all #stakeholders.
Change Failure:
It was a difficult #change even at the first step for volunteers to sign up in (T) and join their respected teams of languages. It was 2:30 AM the first night that I received a notification on my mobile phone. This was a notification of an announcement in one of the public channels and was the start of a long conversation in that channel in which I and other volunteers were getting notifications for every single chat. I personally tried to find a #solution and turned off notification of that #public #channel. But it did not work! The #enforced #policy won't let a mobile user manage notifications, groups check in/out and many other things.
So, I tried to silence all notifications of app (T) on my phone considering the risk of being left behind by my respected (related) channels!!
But this was not enough at all. For the chats which I was not attending to, I was receiving a summarization email every ten minutes! Now I had to deal with tons of emails. For example if the Brazilian team (in different time zone) were talking to each other, even if I was/am not a #member, I would receive summary emails around 3:00 AM.
Every morning my phone looked like it exploded with notifications of emails.
I raised this issue to Project managers and coordinators, also in the public channel to see if I can get some #help because I was thinking this is happening only to me and maybe something is wrong with my end.
I found out many people are facing the same issues and finally a project manager came up with a solution which was only possible if I had a laptop/PC!
I asked them for a mobile phone solution and they simply ignored me! Probably they were also frustrated by tons of issues and problems at that moment.
This was going on for 2 weeks and I (out of curiosity) contacted (T) app #customer #support and by this I #foundout "Our corporate policy parameters enforced are having many gaps in app (T)"
Again I tried to inform the Head of Project Managers about the reply which I got from (T) app and to my surprise, they ignored this too. I could understand from their tone that they were in a huge overwhelming situation.
Solution:
I had no choice but to mark summarization emails as spam in my mailbox and finally after one month of #chaos, I was at #peace :).
But now the biggest problem was "How to communicate with my team and my coordinators" and "#How to receive tasks"
Maybe I could find them on the Content platform (C)? And yes, this worked and I continued my tasks based on assignments in the Content platform easily and in peace.
Later on, I discovered that more and more Coordinators are using the Content platform to assign tasks to their respected teams and even just like what I was/am doing, having conversations/coordination in this platform instead of platform (T)!
According to my discussions with different teams and members, now it was clear that many volunteers and projects affected by this "Wrong corporate policy enforcement"
I got motivated to write down this #story and #analysis (based on my knowing) around 2 weeks ago when I received an invitation to join my team again on platform (S)!
Currently I am getting my assignments on the Content platform (C) and also just started to get them on the Communication platform (S) again. Now it seems everything is smooth. But it was around 1 and half year of ups and downs to volunteers and whole content teams and of course for users.
The #footprint of this unsuccessful change could be minimized by the right tools, good preparations and planning ahead of change.
During my career I faced many change situations and I have learned a lot about successful and failed changes from a simple #Accounting #software transition to a big #Sales system on an #ERP platform.
Also from above story, I personally learned some lessons and I listed them here:
Lessons Learned:
1- It is a bad idea to perform a huge change which is not necessary.
2- A project may fail because of a lack of communication plan before, during and after change.
3- Making a big change at once makes #resources exhausted and results will be shaky.
4- Ignoring the root cause of problems during change makes the #process worse.
5- Leaders should not downplay the #impact of change.
6- Lack of understanding of the change #environment, brings hassles, conflicts and failure in #implementation.
I wrote this to #share my #viewpoints and recent experience regarding #transformation of organizations and I will be very glad to learn your ideas about this.
Photo credit: Chanty.com and Zapier.com
https://www.chanty.com/blog/using-slack-alternatives/
Comments
Post a Comment