Intensive workshop · People
The spreadsheet that outlived the system
Implementations do not fail on go-live day. They fail in the weeks after, while the old method is still available and nobody has the authority to close it.
- Duration
- 4 hours
- Delivery
- On site · Virtual
- Participants
- From 8 to 20 participants
- Investment
- Request a quote
Investment depends on scope, number of participants and delivery mode. We prepare a proposal at no obligation.
The problem it solves
Weeks after go-live, somebody on the team opens the old spreadsheet again to finish the day's work. The reason is a fair one: the case in front of them does not fit the new flow and the work has to go out today. The supervisor accepts it for the same reason, and with that the precedent is set.
From then on there are two truths in the building. The system holds the official record and the spreadsheet holds the record people actually consult. The data in the system degrades because every exception is settled outside it, and that degradation becomes the evidence everyone cites that the system does not work. Whoever trained the team did so weeks before go-live, so by the time the first difficult case arrived nobody remembered the procedure. Nobody lied at any point, and everyone is right from where they stand.
The company ends up paying twice: for the system, and for the manual work the system was meant to remove. It pays a third time later, when it proposes the next implementation to an organisation that already knows how this goes and manages its participation accordingly.
What it covers
The workshop works on the transition, not on the tool. It opens with a map few implementations bother to draw: every go-live redistributes visibility, control and effort, and it is worth knowing in which direction. Who becomes more exposed because their work now leaves a trace, who loses a decision they used to make alone, and who has to do more so that somebody else can do less. With that map on the table, resistance stops being a character trait and reads as what it usually is: information about a design gap or about a condition that is still missing.
The second part defines the transition window. How long the two methods coexist, what is permitted during that period and what is not, who holds the authority to declare the old method closed, and what happens to the cases that still do not fit. The timing of training is discussed as well, because training delivered far from first use evaporates, along with who should deliver it, which is rarely whoever installed the tool.
The third part is practised. Through role play, participants hold the conversation a supervisor has with someone still working the old way. It is run twice: first where the reason is a genuine hole in the design, which forces a correction to the process and a recorded exception, and then where it is habit, which requires holding the close without turning it into a personal conflict. The distinction between those two cases is the judgement the workshop installs.
The closing section deals with reversion, which is almost never announced. Participants agree what will count as adopted and how it gets verified, identify the signals that reveal a parallel record without turning supervision into surveillance, and draft their transition plan with a close date and a named owner in an action-planning exercise. One thing is conceded openly: part of the old method survives because the new one is worse in a specific case, and that case is corrected rather than argued away.
What participants learn
- Identify who loses visibility, control or time in this implementation, and what they get in return.
- Interpret resistance as information about a design gap or about a condition that is still missing.
- Design the transition window: how long both methods coexist, who closes the old one and under what authority.
- Develop a verifiable definition of adoption and the signals that show the old method has come back.
- Apply the conversation a supervisor has with someone still working the old way for sound reasons.
Agenda
- Who loses what in an implementation: visibility, control and effort
- Resistance as information rather than temperament
- The transition window: length, permissions and authority to close
- When training should happen and who should deliver it
- The conversation with someone still using the old method
- What counts as adopted and how it gets verified
- Signals of a parallel record, without turning supervision into surveillance
- When the old method is right: correcting the design instead of defending it
What the organisation leaves with
- A written map of who loses what in this implementation and what is offered in return.
- A transition window plan with a close date for the old method and the name of whoever authorises it.
- A written definition of what counts as adopted and how it is verified.
- A list of reversion signals with the person responsible for watching them.
Programme details
- Format
- Intensive workshop
- Also available as
- Workshop · Corporate training day
- Languages
- Español · English
- Includes
- Participant workbook
- Action plan
- Post-training resources
- Facilitation
- ALUD Consulting LLC — Global Business Transformation.
Who it is for
- Supervisors and line managers who have to hold adoption together after go-live.
- Leadership teams that have already lived through an implementation left half-adopted.
- Project leads who plan the go-live and not the transition.
- Department managers handed a system chosen by others and held responsible for its use.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this useful if the system went live months ago and the team still works the old way?
- It is, with an honest caveat: recovering an adoption that has already failed costs more than holding one from the start. It means reopening decisions everyone treated as settled and, in some cases, admitting that part of the design was wrong.
- Is this a workshop for the technology team?
- Not principally. Adoption is held together by supervisors and line management, because they decide what is accepted day to day. If the technical team attends alone, it leaves with a plan it has no authority to carry out.
- Does the workshop train people to use the system?
- No, and that is worth saying before anyone books. Functional training belongs to whoever knows the tool and should happen close to first real use. What is worked here is the other half: the transition, the authority to close, and the conversations that hold it.
- What do we do when the resistance comes from one person with a lot of internal influence?
- It gets treated as its own case and practised in the room. That kind of resistance is rarely settled by a general announcement; it almost always requires a direct conversation about what that person loses and what is offered instead.
Request this programme
Tell us the context and we will prepare a proposal tailored to your organisation. No obligation.
Working this inside the organisation
If this challenge will not be settled in one session, ALUD Consulting LLC works it as consulting: management consulting, human resources, strategy, organisational design, leadership development and business transformation.