Change Management: Why Technical Success Still Isn't Enough

The good news buried in this research is that the fix is well understood, even if it's inconsistently applied: start change management and training work in parallel with technical design rather than after it, invest specifically in self-service training materials and reference guides (one ASUG respondent specifically credited developing these well in advance of go- live), and treat user adoption metrics with the same seriousness as technical cutover metrics in the program's steering governance. None of that is expensive relative to the cost of a technically successful migration that limps for a year afterward because nobody actually wanted to use the new system.

This is a discipline that shows up as much in how a migration partner structures a program as in any single deliverable. Orpington Technologies Inc., the Canadian ERP advisory and delivery firm, builds change management workstreams into its S/4HANA engagements from the very start of the program rather than as a late addition, on the view that user adoption is as much a determinant of ROI as the technical cutover itself.

A go-live weekend that closes cleanly is a milestone, not the finish line. The finish line is the day your finance, supply chain and operations teams stop describing S/4HANA as “the new system” and just call it the system — and that day is decided long before go-live, not after it.

Cite change management/training as a project risk

Cite project-staffing attention as inadequate before go-live (Horváth)

Cite too many equally-weighted objectives at once (Horváth)