Managing people, not technology - People stop change

I've just read a great article by David Ollerhead published in this week's Computer Weekly. In 'Manage People, Not Technology' he talks about how IT departments need to support an organisiation through change and indeed might be the catalyst for change (paraphrasing hugely). He also writes about the importance of gaining stakeholder support and ensuring that people support the change. It might be getting boring, but those who know me will have heard me say 'People Stop Change' about a billion times.

I have worked with IT departments to deliver real change to either themselves in terms of significant processes or to their user communities, and a perennial challenge is getting focus away from the technologies and onto the impacts of those technologies for users and the business at large. Overcoming resistance to change can be hugely challenging (and interesting!), and working out where the resistance is emanating from can be difficult.

I'm in the process of putting together a training event with the working title of 'Change for Techies' to bridge the gap in understanding and promote the need to ensure that the benefits of the technology are delivered. More on that another day no doubt.