Navigating a successful IT transformation

Change in the enterprise is inherently complex, involving multiple technologies and disciplines, and requires collaboration from multiple teams or suppliers. With so many moving parts, how do you ensure that your project runs successfully whilst providing an exceptional experience for your colleagues?

Whether you’re about to embark on a Windows 11 migration or a large digital workplace transformation, there are five key principles that can help to ensure a smooth transition for any business.

Baseline Your Environment

Establishing a clear and accurate understanding of your estate is essential for ensuring your project is delivered on time and in budget. Despite its importance, many organisations still struggle with incomplete datasets or disparate data sources that lack context. This is further compounded by challenges like shadow IT, BYOD, ad hoc procurement by departments, and fluctuations in personnel or organisation structure.  

Knowing how IT is consumed within your business - and importantly, keeping that information up to date – provides invaluable insights for the decision-making process:

• Application Scope: Understanding software usage helps organisations to define the application catalogue, identify candidates for retirement, release licenses of unused software, and remove unsupported applications.

• Hardware Strategy: A concise view of hardware in the estate will guide organisations that are developing a consolidation or replacement plan to underpin their modern workplace strategy.

• Deployment Context: Viewing the deployment through the lens of the business or organisational structure helps project teams to identify quick wins and support targeted roll outs for specific groups.

• Defining the Budget: Accurately quantifying the scope of the transformation enables the project team to plan the budget with greater confidence and lower margins of error. 

• Resource Planning: Resourcing the project involves integrating in-house resources and professional services to guarantee project delivery within set timelines. Your baseline directly informs this process, helping to mitigate bandwidth limitations on internal teams and ensuring that any gaps are appropriately filled.

Verify

Your planning is only as good as the information that it’s based on, so it’s essential to validate that data before proceeding further. Without this, engineers or equipment could be sent to the wrong location, colleagues could receive the wrong applications, or important hardware could be omitted.

Web-based surveys that link directly to your management toolset are ideal to collect information from colleagues:

• Populate the survey with information that you already hold to make it easier for colleagues to verify.

• Ensure that it’s clear and concise by only asking questions that validate the information for the specific goals of the project.

• Set expectations for your respondents so they know how long they’ll need to spend completing it and when you will need the information.

• Implement an automated process to follow-up after approximately 3 days.

• Send individual surveys when it’s appropriate to your colleague. For example, participation is higher and more accurate if surveys are sent when a colleague is ready to be migrated rather than sending a company-wide survey 6 months before.

• Ensure results are centrally available to everyone on the project to aid decision making. 

Communicate

Complex migration projects often require input from colleagues on multiple occasions.  An effective communication plan clarifies the project's purpose, sets expectations for colleagues, and fosters engagement and buy-in. Consider your strategy for engaging with your colleagues, including frequency and content of communication:

• Collaborate with the communications team in advance to prepare campaign content.

• Maintain frequent communication with colleagues, offering relevant information tailored to their stage in the process.

• To improve open rates, consider sending emails as the colleague's manager.

• Track open rates and promptly follow up non-responders, preferably through automated means.

• Keep emails concise, avoiding technical jargon, and use visuals instead of lengthy text. Make call-to-action buttons prominent when your email requires action from a colleague. 

• Leverage automation extensively to ease the project team's workload and deliver an exceptional experience for colleagues.

Deploy

The deployment stage of a migration is naturally driven by technology and engineering resource. When choosing toolsets, consider also implementing an orchestration solution that can automate routine activities and trigger actions on a time, event, or condition basis, like:

• Sending reminder emails the morning before a migration.

• Removing access to systems on the evening of the migration.

• Creating new virtual machines. 

• Deploying applications stacks.

• Switching colleagues to the new profile management solution.

• Emailing confirmation when migration activities are complete.

Adopting an orchestration solution will also help to manage a phased rollout to colleagues:

• Select a small pilot group of colleagues (up to 50) that have agreed to be early adopters and provide feedback. This helps to refine your configuration, deployment process and documentation. This group should not include CxO, executives, or VIPs.

• Extend the pilot to a greater number of people (approx. 200) from all parts of the business, including a small number of senior management within IT. This will provide feedback that’s representative of the wider business.

• After a successful pilot, move to a phased production rollout. Groups could be targeted by department, geography, or device to ensure that resources are maximised and there are no gaps in the deployment schedule.

Desk-side engineers and floorwalkers should have access to a web-portal that provides important information regarding colleagues, allows status updates or feedback to be submitted, and triggers the migration.

Support

Service Desk

The Service Desk should have hands on experience with the technology being deployed and be involved with the project once a minimum viable product is ready or participate in the early pilot group. This will provide invaluable insight into the type of issues that will be encountered during the project and in BAU.

Consider holding regular meetings with the Service Desk throughout the deployment phase to collect their feedback. Their insight can be used to refine delivery and improve the overall experience for colleagues.

Colleagues

Many of the tickets created by colleagues in the early stages of deployment will be related to working with an unfamiliar system.

To help reduce the demand on your service desk, consider running a dedicated deployment clinic at a central location where engineering staff is on hand to help colleagues acclimate. Floor walkers are a great alternative for deployments that focus on specific offices or buildings.

Email is also an effective way to help onboard colleagues:

• Provide links to training resources immediately after deployment.

• For the first few days after migration, consider sending bite-sized tips to help colleagues get started with the new system.

• Check in a week after deployment and provide links to advance resources or guides that are useful once they have acclimatised.

• Not all problems are reported to the Service Desk so follow-up after 10 days with a satisfaction survey and provide an opportunity to report minor issues. This also helps to gauge your colleagues’ experience during delivery and make improvements for the next group.

Summary

Navigating a successful IT transformation necessitates a multifaceted approach that requires meticulous planning and execution across several competency domains. By establishing a clear baseline of the IT environment, validating data accuracy, engaging in proactive communication with colleagues, leveraging automation, and providing robust support mechanisms, organisations can ensure a smooth transition that maximises colleague engagement and minimises disruptions. Embracing these strategies is not only beneficial to the migration but also sets the foundation for continued efficiency and innovation in the evolving digital landscape.