Implementation Fatigue
Why Your Software Rollouts Keep Failing
It’s a tale as old as time itself: a slick demo, impressive credentials, and the leadership is all in on revolutionizing operations or how we forecast or how we conduct the LRP…and then spectacular failure.
How is it that these world-class software solutions work for everyone else but not us?
I remember the first time I saw this play out. As a senior analyst, we were rolling out Anaplan - “the only AI-infused scenario planning and analysis platform.” A great product, one that the market was adopting and our competitors were implementing.
We never made it past User Acceptance Testing.
Years later, as a transformation director, I found myself advocating for the exact same software in a Finance Leadership meeting with executives much wiser than I. The room erupted in knowing chuckles and eye-rolls. "We've been down this road before," they said. "It didn't work then, why would it work now?"
Implementation Fatigue: The Silent Killer
What they were experiencing is what I call "implementation fatigue" – the exhaustion and jadedness teams develop after one or two failed software implementations. The symptoms are easy to spot:
Teams already operating at or over capacity now asked to attend daily scrums for 8-12 weeks
Stakeholders siloed across different locations and time zones
Difficulty obtaining a holistic view of workflows
A collective eye-roll when any new system is mentioned (harder eye-rolls when you suggest a solution that was already attempted)
The bad news is that this is one of the hardest cultural roadblocks you will face in the Transformation space. The good news is that this cycle is entirely preventable and even reversable.
The Path Forward: Five Keys to Implementation Success
There are five keys to overcoming implementation fatigue. After years in the trenches, I've found these four elements to be non-negotiable for any successful finance transformation:
Recruits are better than Conscripts
The most effective fighting forces in the world are made of volunteers, not people pressed into service. Find team members who are genuinely frustrated with current processes and motivated to fix problems. They will be volunteer to attend and engage in scrums.
Limit the scope
Limit scope either by size (one business unit instead of all) or functionality (revenue forecasting before full P&L forecasting). Most software solutions paint utopian pictures—implement once and everything improves. In reality, the best approaches are pragmatic and incremental. Rather than attempting to perfect everything at once, focus on perfecting a few elements at a time. This creates momentum that builds over time.
Ongoing Support: Don’t let Perfection be the Enemy of Good
There’s an entrepreneurial axiom that I have found to be particularly relevant in digital transformation:
No product survives first contact with the customer
This means the first iteration of any product will almost certainly fall short of fully satisfying customer needs. The same principle applies to transformation solutions. They need testing, adjustment, and retesting before they're truly effective.
This reality can be disheartening if people aren't prepared for it. Set clear expectations that the process won't be perfect immediately—improvement takes time. Additionally, provide consistent support after implementation. Your team will need ongoing assistance and engagement once the system goes live.
Designate internal project management
Project management is all about balancing priorities while ensuring clear communication and accountability. While most generic project managers excel at communication and accountability, they often lack the crucial context that comes from daily involvement in your business. Your project manager (or at least someone partnering with the implementation PM) should come from within your organization, have deep knowledge of your operations, and possess the communication skills to effectively mediate between stakeholders. Without this business context, even the most skilled project managers will struggle to succeed.
Secure executive support with accountability
Leadership must stand behind their team, clear obstacles, and be ready to go to bat with implementation partners when needed. In most cases, executive support roars out of the gate and then peters out after the third steering committee meeting. Their job is to ensure that the initiative has the proper resources to be successful and to provide the proper level of air support for the implementation team to get the job done. Inside the room, they should be listening to what the team needs and then delivering and guiding with the proper sense of direction. Outside of the room, they should be protecting the team from becoming derailed by lesser priorities and cross-functional flak.
This approach isn't magic, and it won't eliminate all implementation challenges. But it will dramatically increase your odds of success and break the cycle of implementation fatigue that's plaguing your finance transformation efforts.
In my next post, I'll dive deeper into how to create SOWs that actually work and share a case study of how one team broke their implementation curse using this exact framework.
Until then, remember: fix the process first, then worry about the software.