Common Mistakes in Business Process Automation: Promises for top management, and work for operational staff

Situation

The initial goals, conditions, and configuration of the project are discussed between the Sponsor from the client side and the Business Development Manager (BDM) from the vendor side. The Sponsor wants to hear how "everything will be great" with implementing the new system, and the BDM delivers exactly that. However, top managers (who usually sponsor the project) don't always share the full picture of upcoming changes with operational staff who will later work with the new system. On the other hand, the vendor's implementation specialists (Delivery team) are sometimes not fully aware of the promises made during the sales process, which leads to a lack of mutual understanding.

As a result, the project begins to "stall," and negative feedback only reaches C-Level when the situation has reached a critical point.

Core Issue

Each participant has their understanding of the project goals and their  expectations:

• The client's top management focuses on quick ROI, resource optimization through automation, and obtaining reliable reporting for business development decisions. At the same time, top management doesn't delve into operational details and project complexities.
• The vendor's Business Development sees the task as selling the project, often promising broader or faster benefits than possible within the proposed timeframe and budget.
• The implementation team aims to deploy the system according to technical requirements, focusing on deadlines and the stated budget, but may not fully consider what both top management and operational staff actually need.
• The operational staff has to take on additional workload by participating in the implementation of a new tool with unclear prospects for improvements. No one properly explains to the client's employees why these changes are necessary and how the new system will make their work easier.

Consequences

1. Resistance from operational staff: client employees are overloaded, don't understand the system's benefits, and believe that work is only becoming more complicated.
2. Delays and budget overruns: due to "rework" and conflicts of interest between participant levels, the project may significantly exceed initial time and budget estimates.
3. Negative feedback upward: top managers receive complaints that "the system doesn't work," whereas the real problem lies in the lack of motivation to work with the system and/or insufficient staff training.

Problem Indicators

1. Unrealistic promises: salespeople willingly negotiate and agree to reduce timelines and work costs to increase the chances of closing the deal. The implementation team (Delivery) is not involved in estimating labor costs and timelines.
2. Non-involvement of future system users: people who will later work with the system don't test it, don't provide data, and reluctantly undergo training.
3. Untimely feedback collection: user feedback is collected before people have sufficient experience working in the system, automaticity in performing routine operations, and sometimes at the launch stage when there are still many bugs in the system.
4. Attempting to solve problems exclusively through the vendor's BDM: Sponsors receive negative reactions from employees and try to influence the situation through the vendor's managers with whom they agreed on conditions "upfront."

How to Avoid the Mistake

1. Unified communication strategy. Starting with project sales, establish regular information exchange where all client and vendor stakeholders understand the project goals and objectives in the same way. Discuss and manage client expectations.
2. Measurable project goals. Formulate specific measurable metrics for achieving project goals.
3. Realistic project timelines. Set achievable project deadlines. Ambitious timelines, on the one hand, mobilize teams over short distances, but over longer periods can lead to the opposite effect – fatigue, demotivation, and also poorly designed architecture, multiple errors, and oversights.
4. Timely feedback collection: Gather feedback not only when "warning signals" begin but throughout the entire implementation project, as well as several months after industrial operation. 

Join us on April 17 for the webinar "How to avoid mistakes in automation projects" — we’ll cover common mistakes companies make at various stages of automation. The webinar starts at 10:30 AM (UAE time). Full agenda and registration — via the link.