In the first instalment of our Change Management blog series, Alan Stevenson (Change Solutions Manager at Electra Learning) delves into the intricacies of change management, sharing practical strategies to help organisations navigate the complexities of transformation. Read on to discover his personal perspective on the five most common hurdles businesses face:
In the familiar race to deliver projects on time and within budget, it’s easy to focus exclusively on timelines, technical milestones, and resource allocation. But one critical building block is often overlooked—and it’s not a line item regularly found in a project Gantt chart: Change Management.
Change Management isn’t just a buzzword or a “nice to have” – It’s a strategic function that prepares, supports and guides individuals through the transition a project introduces. Neglecting it can result in some of the most frequent and expensive project pitfalls, or as I like to call them, “Pit-Fails”!
Pit-Fail #1: End User Resistance
The most state-of-the-art, sophisticated system or process can be the answer to all your business dreams, but if the end-users it’s designed for don’t embrace it, it will fail. Change Management helps identify stakeholder concerns early, creates engagement plans that foster necessary buy-in, and ensures communication is tailored to different user groups. Without it, adoption is low, and resistance is high.
Result: Delayed rollouts, underutilized systems, or technical debt and potential rework.
Pit-Fail #2: Lack of Leadership Alignment
Without structured Change Management, leaders will not be fully aligned in terms of messaging or support for the project. When staff receive mixed messages or witness inconsistent leadership behaviours or conflicting opinions, confusion and uncertainty spread rapidly.
Result: Erosion of trust, disengagement, and the perception that the project is not strategically important or poorly managed.
Pit-Fail #3: Poor Communication
Many projects rest on the belief that a single email or kick-off meeting is enough to prepare employees for change. It’s not. Change Management ensures communication that is clear, consistent, and frequent, explaining not only the “What” and “How,” but also the crucial “Why” and “Who”.
Result: Rumours, resistance, and employees filling in the gaps with their own (often negative and fanciful) assumptions.
Pit-Fail #4: Loss of Productivity
Change creates uncertainty and, more often than not, productivity dips. If not managed, it has the potential to create anxiety at all levels of the organisation. Ignoring the need to constantly set reasonable expectations just results in unwanted surprises. Effective Change Management provides the messaging, the tools and support to keep productivity at an optimum during transition periods.
Result: Drop in performance, missed KPIs, increase in avoidable errors and the potential of reputational damage.
Pit-Fail #5: Missed ROI
The full return on investment for most projects comes only when the change is fully adopted and sustained across the organization. Change Management can create focus on both qualitative and quantitative benefits in real time to allow for remediation and pivoting along the way to ensure that the benefits outlined in the business case are realized.
Result: High spend, low impact—a “successful” project on paper that fails in practice.
Building Change Management into Project Planning
To avoid these “Pit-Fails”, Change Management should be integrated from the absolute beginning of the project—not simply as an afterthought. It is critical to any project’s success that change management is brought to the table as a fundamental building block.
At a bare minimum, Change Management should be taking responsibility for the following four pillars of project success:
- Identifying stakeholders and assessing their readiness and needs
- Creating a structured communication and training plan
- Engaging leadership to champion the effective change behaviours
- Providing support to help stakeholders navigate their own change journeys
Conclusion:
Change doesn’t fail because people are unwilling—it fails because they are under prepared. Embedding change management as a core component of project planning is not essential. Without it, the risks are high, and the costs—financial, cultural, and operational—can be significant.
Successful projects aren’t just delivered – They’re adopted. That’s the power of Change Management.