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Lessons learned from Heathrow Terminal 5

Written by Derrick Cameron, Managing Director, Eximium Ltd

Tuesday, 15 April 2008

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6. Encourage the truth

Make sure you know the real story about how your project is going. People do not like giving bad news, so no-one will want to tell you if things aren’t looking good.

Ensure your staff can be straight with you – without fear of reprisals.

By creating an atmosphere of straight talk only, you will get to the bottom of what problems might hold you back.

Also, try and find a key informer in the team, whom you trust to give you the real story.

7. Verify the changes

A key part of any change project is controlled and thorough testing at all the stages along the way, by different people.

Testing is essential to understanding whether the changes will work and what unanticipated issues are lurking.

Your staff should also be involved in their own phase of testing (User Acceptance Testing or UAT), where they confirm that the systems and/or business processes are fit for purpose.

8. Prioritise

If testing uncovers problems - and done properly, it will - involve your senior people in prioritising which need to be fixed and which can be 'lived with'.

It can cost up to 20 times more to fix problems after launch than during development, so think carefully before putting things off.

Equally, having too many workarounds can really hinder your business, and will not help sell the benefits of the change to staff, suppliers or customers.

9. Lift off!

As the launch date approaches, review the situation. Get everyone in a room, tell them you want straight talk only and find out if the project is really ready.

If not, put it off for at least a month, longer if necessary. Do not be tempted to rush it in and 'see what happens' or you could find your business making the wrong kind of headlines when it all goes wrong.

10. Put the fire crews on standby

Allow for extra support cover when the project launches, as there will be problems - anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Put procedures in place to identify, analyse and fix problems as soon as possible.

Be straight with your customers and admit that there may be teething problems – they will appreciate your honesty. There is nothing more frustrating than being kept in the dark when things go wrong.

Recent events at Heathrow illustrate the fine line between spectacular success and humiliating failure.

When expectation is so high, there is further to fall, so follow these steps to ensure that your business change makes headlines for all the right reasons.

Derrick Cameron is managing director of Eximium Ltd, who specialise in helping businesses use their IT to solve their business headaches. He has been in the IT industry for over 20 years.

This article was first published on SME Web, the free online resource for owner managers of organisations with up to 250 employees.

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