Uneven adoption after go-live is rarely a sign that a change program was poorly executed. More often, it reflects decisions made earlier about how adoption would be supported, how the approach would be tailored to the environment, and how communication would be designed to achieve genuine cut-through.
Key Insights:
- Adoption and benefits realisation need to be designed into the program from the outset, with clear ownership of what happens once the project closes.
- People don’t experience change at the level of the program; cut-through depends on how well the approach addresses the pressures they’re managing day to day.
- How you deliver change messaging is part of the adoption strategy, as how different audiences consume information is as consequential as the message itself.
Most organisations follow a well-established approach to change. A change manager is appointed to develop a structured plan based on what was delivered in the past. They map stakeholders and key messages, then deliver communications and training, using all the approved templates.
The challenge is that people don’t experience change uniformly once it reaches the business. The same approach that works for one environment, team, person, may fall flat in another.
Designing for adoption requires a more deliberate focus on how change will operate in practice. That includes three main principles:
- Designing for adoption and benefits realisation beyond go-live
- Tailoring the approach to the environment
- Choosing the right mechanisms that achieve cut-through.
Build adoption and benefits realisation into the project
Adoption and benefits realisation may be in the business case for change, but it’s quite common that gaps can appear in programs once they push past go-live. Unfortunately by that time it’s too late.
Post go-live, attention moves on and there’s often an expectation that change will carry through itself. The problem is that bad impressions around adoption or not delivering benefits linger well beyond delivery.
In practice, people begin to test the change against their day-to-day work and responsibilities.
If it creates friction, slows processes down or feels disconnected from operational realities, teams will adjust it to fit how they work. The ‘make it fit’ behaviour may have an immediate impact on the project’s value drivers or erode full adoption and benefits realisation over time.
Addressing these issues after the go-live is simply too late.
Designing adoption into the project from the outset can prevent the gaps occuring by addressing:
- Who will continue supporting adoption
- How issues and friction points will be identified
- How new ways of working will be reinforced within day-to-day operations
- How benefits realisation will continue to be monitored over time.
The organisations that genuinely succeed with change formalise the role of change into ongoing adoption, borrowing from customer success models, or human centred design methods. As a project reaches its end, there’s a continued ownership of how the change is being applied in practice, where adoption is slowing and what needs to be adjusted, for example, by moving move beyond the project team to a customer success team.
Not every project requires a formal post-go-live change structure. The principle, however, remains clear. Adoption and benefits realisation need to be designed into the project itself, rather than treated as something that happens automatically after delivery.
Tailoring the approach to the environment
Most change programs are designed from the centre, with an agreed plan that formalises key messages and distribution. The assumption is that consistency will drive understanding and adoption.
In practice, too much consistency often dilutes relevance and cut-through, messages feel overly generic and corporate speak. People don’t experience change at the level of the program. They experience it through their role, their environment and the pressures they’re managing day to day. The same change can feel straightforward in one part of the business and disruptive in another. To engage the receiver, messages need to find a way to speak to them, not at them.
Effective change programs take a more deliberate approach to audience segmentation. While stakeholder groups are typically identified in most change plans, the next step is understanding how different parts of the organisation will experience the change, how they consume information and what will make the change easier to adopt. The communication mechanism itself also matters.
Consider the example of a frontline contact centre team vs corporate office staff: The pressures are considerably different and relying on broadcast email communication alone is unlikely to create equal cut-through.
Contact centre teams are typically under time pressure to resolve calls, take the next call, or have limited access to email, much less the time to review and fully absorb a written change communication piece that doesn’t have immediate operation impact or instructional value. Corporate teams are under different pressures both in terms of focus and immediacy.
Some organisations are simplifying this by grouping roles into a small number of personas. Rather than communicating across dozens of stakeholder groups, they focus on a handful of distinct experiences and design the approach around those.
It’s a relatively small adjustment, but one that makes change more relevant, more targeted and harder to ignore.
Choose mechanisms and messages that can achieve cut-through
Most change communication is written in a neutral corporate tone and distributed through standard channels. Traditional wisdom says that consistency will drive awareness across the organisation. In many environments, that approach simply doesn’t work anymore.
While it’s true that consistency and reinforcement matter, organisations will generally get better cut-through when communication is designed around how different audiences consume information in practice in order to capture attention and drive action. With so many technologies and channels available to us today, the key challenge is no longer getting the information “out there” – it’s choosing mechanisms that suit the work environment and make the change easier to engage with.
It’s an adage, but nonetheless a truth in change communications: Know your audience.
Some of your people are managing competing priorities, overloaded with information or operating in roles where they’re unlikely to engage with long-form corporate communication. Others who may be time-poor or don’t spend most of their day near a screen may respond more effectively to short-form video, team briefings or platform-based communication than a broadcast email. Distributed workforces may require entirely different delivery mechanisms again.
Depending on the audience adjusting tone, simplifying delivery or using more informal communication approaches where appropriate can have a far bigger impact. Sometimes it might involve creating more tangible or interactive experiences of the change so people can interact with it directly.
The most effective change programs we’ve seen rolled out recently treat communication as part of the adoption strategy itself, rather than a standalone broadcast activity. Messaging is being engineered to elicit an engagement not simply to inform what the project thinks they need to know.
Where the value of change is realised
Ultimately, the success of any change program can only be measured over time. It depends on how well the approach reflects the operating environment, whether communication mechanisms create genuine cut-through, and how adoption and benefits realisation are carried through beyond go-live.
Each of these elements has a direct impact on whether organisations realise the value expected from transformation efforts, particularly once projects move beyond delivery and into day-to-day operations. It either becomes the way work is done, or it becomes yet another initiative that people move past.
Whether you’re leading a project, PMO, or driving transformation, we invite you to stay informed and connected. Join the Quay Roundtable Network for access to expert insight, practical tools and real-world discussion that cuts through the noise.
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