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Bev Magda, The Humane Society of the United States

It is critical, especially during tough economic times, to ensure technology projects within your organization are completed on time and within budget. But often, a significant piece of the project is overlooked in the rush to meet these goals. That missing piece is the people -- those individuals affected by the technology that is being implemented.

It's important not to forget that your organization is made up of people and, therefore, consideration for the effects of the technology change on these people is important to the success of the project.

Technology change is not new. The effects of a technology change on people are not new either. History has shown that individuals can have a profound impact on the success or failure of technology implementations. Take, for example, the Luddites, the Belgian weavers, and the Aborigines:

• In the 19^th century, British farm workers called Luddites destroyed new machinery for farming because they feared the change to the new machinery would cost them their jobs.
• Also in the 19^th century, Belgian weavers took to dropping their shoes into new weaving looms in an effort to sabotage the machinery in order to protect their jobs.
• The transition from the use of stone axes to a steel axes produced a distrust so deep that older Aborigine men would not share sacred cultural information with younger men that were using the steel axe introduced by Europeans.

Although we may not see blatant sabotage of technologies or culture within our own organizations during a technology change, we may notice some type of resistance to the new technology. This resistance can lead to such things as morale issues, absenteeism, productivity loss, and even turnover¹.

That's why it's important to consider the effects of a technology change on the people within your organization. The reaction of people who are using or are affected by the new technology has an impact on the productivity of the organization and the eventual success or failure of the technology being implemented.

Research has shown that individuals can have a profound impact on the success or failure of a project within organizations. How much individuals are on board with the project, how much training they've had, and how much people know about a technology change can make or break a project. Therefore, it's critical to mitigate the impact of the technological change proactively by using all of the following methods²:

• Leadership. Getting executive level support for the technological change is critical. It's important to involve leadership and have them openly support the change from the very beginning and throughout the entire project. Pull them in, when needed, throughout the project to reinforce their support.
• Communication. You can never communicate enough about the change. Share information with all stakeholders. It's important to communicate -- and even over communicate. Creating a communications plan can help the process. Develop a schedule of the types of communication that will occur (conference calls, meetings, e-mail updates about the project, etc.) and whom will be involved in those communications and disseminate that information to all stakeholders.
• End-user involvement – Involve those affected by the technological change or those who utilize the old and new technologies. These people need to be actively involved in the project from the very beginning to the end.
• Training & Education. It is not only important to provide training on the new system and to develop a training plan, but it's also important to educate staff within the organization about the change. People need to understand why the change is occurring and how it will affect their jobs.

Research has also shown that proactively using communication, leadership support, involvement of the end-user, and training and education leads to a faster adoption of the technology being implemented. In fact, in organizations where these methods were applied proactively, individuals learned the new technology and felt comfortable with using the new system at a much faster rate than in those organizations where these practices were not used at all or where they were used after the fact².

Consideration for the human side of technology change, which often gets overlooked when deadlines and budgets are looming, can lead to more successful project implementations and a faster adoption of the technology being implemented.

It seems so easy, doesn't it? Communicate the change, involve end-users, get leadership support, and provide training -- four simple practices to use when implementing a new technology within your organization. Utilization of all four of these methods can help alleviate the negative effects of a technology change.

¹ Grady, V., 2005, “Studying the Effect of Loss of Stability on Organizational Behavior: A Perspective on Technological Change.” The George Washington University

² Magda, B. 2008 “Increasing the Efficacy of Emergency Departments Through Systems Analysis of Enterprise Architecture: Mitigating the Impact of Technological Change.” The George Washington University.

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