Oops Did Anyone Tell the Helpdesk About Go Live
It was hours before go live and the project team was ready. Customers were aware, employees were trained, data was loaded, and interfaces tested. When the big day arrived, things started off smoothly, and then a few calls began to roll in… “Did anyone tell the help desk that we were launching today?”
While the scenario of a helpdesk completely unaware of a launch date may be a bit farfetched, more often than not there is a missed opportunity for the project team to collaborate with the helpdesk as a strategic partner for reinforcing and sustaining the change. April Callis-Birchmeier, a change management consultant, author, and speaker, includes the helpdesk as a critical stakeholder in all of her projects as a best practice and offers this advice:
Providing release notes is not enough. Most projects do engage the helpdesk as a stakeholder, but often as a minor one or even as an afterthought. A common practice is to communicate important times and dates and to provide system release notes. Done! The help desk is ready. Not so fast! It is important to recognize that the helpdesk is on the frontline, talking to employees and maybe even customers, and that basic information may not be detailed enough to equip them to provide employees and customers with effective support.
Leverage trainers to support the helpdesk. When a system launches who has had the most hands-on exposure to the system to date? The trainers! Trainers often help develop the training material, participate in testing, and of course prepare users how to do their jobs with the new system. At go live time, no one else has touched the system more than trainers have. April recommends putting the trainers side by side helpdesk personnel during the go live window. The helpdesk can’t support effectively what they themselves do not yet fully understand; teaming up the helpdesk with trainers provides an opportunity for effective and productive knowledge transfer.
Establish a post launch feedback process. Users call the helpdesk and issues are identified… The issues are then categorized by the trainers… The trainers then provide this information as feedback to the project team… The project team then addresses these issues through system fixes or additional communication and training back to the users. This post launch feedback loop, whether supported by a formal or informal structure, can have a powerful impact and increase adoption of the change.
Attention project teams and organizational change management practitioners! During your next project, don’t short shrift your help desk; rather, identify them as a critical stakeholder. Proactively engage them with the information, skills, and tools that they need to be a powerful ally in driving adoption of your change program.
Contact ChangeStaffing to learn how our organizational change management consultants can help your organization engage your helpdesk as a key stakeholder.
A special thanks to April Callis-Birchmeier, organizational change management expert, speaker and author of bestselling book, READY, Set, Change!: Simplify and Accelerate Organizational Change, for her thought leadership and for collaborating with us on this blog.