Technology change management, also known as IT change enablement, is an important concept within a business IT transformation strategy. It’s the process of managing change to ensure that IT services, processes, and people can transition to new technology smoothly, with minimal disruption and risk.
Importantly, technology change management best practices exist to support faster, more frequent changes. This is key when, traditionally, managing IT transformation entails lengthy evaluation cycles or approval processes, which can cause disruption or slow-moving change.
From getting senior leadership buy-in to upskilling IT teams, technology change management focuses on enabling and empowering people within a business to adopt, deploy, and manage new technology successfully. And the biggest benefit is enabling your organization to adapt quickly to changing business needs, meet market demands, and continue to grow.
Let’s explore the key concepts and why it’s so important when modernizing your IT infrastructure as part of an IT transformation strategy.
Missing “People” From IT Transformation Projects
It’s a common issue for many businesses. Ambitious project outlines, projections for future growth, and excitement about deploying new technology can mean that decisions are made without measuring their impact.
Whether calls for change are coming from an individual in the IT team, a frustrated salesperson, or a passionate board member, it can be easy to overlook how exactly you’ll manage IT transformation across your entire team.
IT modernization projects require a lot of things. From understanding the complexities of planning, deploying, and everything technical in between. To make sure new solutions, software, and applications actually resonate with your team. People are at the heart of getting it right.
Picture your most experienced IT administrator or IT team. They’ve spent a decade mastering your legacy systems and have communicated their opinions on how to improve them. They know every quirk, and they’re the person everyone calls when something breaks.
Now you’re telling them to learn new systems: new interfaces, new processes, new ways of doing things. There’s an inevitable human, psychological impact to this change.
To overcome this, your new IT modernization strategy needs to account for:
- Increasing Support for Your Project: Change can induce anxiety because of the unknown. New processes, systems, and technology require buy-in, upskilling, and need to resonate across your teams. Teams that don’t support your project are less likely to adopt it, and anxiety or lack of trust in IT transformation projects can quietly become friction, and friction quietly becomes failure.
- Highlighting Gains: It can be easy for teams to focus on what they’re losing, because they’re familiar with current systems or the progress they’ve made, rather than what they’re gaining. That’s why it’s so important to acknowledge this and focus on concrete, relatable gains. An abstract benefit won’t land, so your IT transformation projects need to focus on the day-to-day reality of the people on your team. What are their biggest frustrations? And is there a common thread that can be found across different teams?
Choose Technology That Your People Will Love
If you’re making changes to your IT infrastructure, there are a few qualities you should look for in new tools or software that will really resonate with your team. We recommend looking for IT infrastructure that’s:
Simple To Use
Ease of use matters more than most procurement teams give it credit for. The most capable software delivers no value if the people expected to use it avoid it or work around it. Look beyond the polished onboarding demo. Request a trial environment and watch how quickly a new user can complete a core task without guidance. Is there a centralized management tool that makes the software intuitive to use? Or, is it a fully supported software, with expert help available when it’s needed most?
New software or IT infrastructure is abundant today, especially thanks to technology innovation and AI speeding things up. But check that your chosen new solutions have the ease of use and support needed to make them truly work with your existing IT team.
Easy to Deploy
Ease of deployment is one of the most underestimated costs in any software decision. A solution that takes months to deploy, requires specialist contractors, or demands significant pre-configuration will erode any licensing savings almost immediately. Scrutinize the implementation timeline honestly and ask for references from organizations of a similar size and technical maturity to your own, not just the vendor’s largest enterprise customers.
Understand what a second site deployment or a wider rollout actually involves before you sign anything. Remember, the right solutions will deploy in minutes, not months, enabling your IT teams to grow, scale up or down, easily.
Low Cost
Total cost of ownership (TCO) is rarely captured in the licence fee alone. Implementation, training, ongoing support, hardware requirements, integration work, and the internal headcount needed to manage the solution day to day all add up.
The most cost-effective solutions tend to minimize specialist dependency both at deployment and in ongoing management. If running the software requires a dedicated resource to monitor, patch, and administer it, that cost belongs in your business case from the start. Choose solutions that have a lower TCO to reduce the chance of financial headaches for your teams in the long run.
Learn More About Managing IT Transformation
Our comprehensive IT infrastructure modernization roadmap covers everything you need to know about managing changes and shifts in IT infrastructure. If you’re looking to replace legacy systems with a modern, flexible infrastructure that supports current business requirements, this is the guide for you. Read it here today.
