I reached out to a colleague of mine from a previous role where the implementation of a new learning management system was rolled out successfully. Lean Thinking and Six Sigma were used within the department to identify roles and responsibilities, include all stakeholders who were involved, and document the internal processes from start to finish within the department. End-users were also involved in the process to ensure that their experience with the new system was a positive one and user-friendly. Since the end-users would be the ones to enroll in courses, view their transcripts, and load courses from within the new system; it was imperative that they be involved in the process as well.

From a software perspective, the new system was “out of the box” i.e. no new enhancements were developed. Essentially, processes were adapted to fit what the system could do without having to engage internal developers to manipulate the new software. This would ensure that any updates that were necessary for the software would not have to go through endless customization in order to update the system successfully. Our internal processes were trimmed down to ensure efficient and effective use of resources in order for end users to enroll in courses, receive pre-course work, attend courses and receive their certificates of completion. The end-user experience was very important to our department. We wanted a “best in class” experience for them.

In terms of leadership, our VP was a change agent, responsible for enabling change and promoting the change externally to stakeholders and other team leaders. From a project perspective, we also had champions of the project. They were at each meeting and ensured that the meetings were on topic, and that each team involved was represented by at least one person within that team. Each team member had a set of roles and responsibilities within the project. They were responsible for taking back any questions as well as the meeting notes to team members in order to ensure that the process made sense for each team involved. It really was the most successful team project implementation that I was ever a part of since all members were working together to ensure the successful implementation of the new LMS.

Messaging from a leadership perspective never changed, it was always consistent internally and externally to other department stakeholders. Employees were always informed of what was happening at each stage of the project. Support was always provided from the leadership team who were involved in the project. They were always happy to answer any questions that employees had with regards to the project.

The project certainly had its share of challenges, meeting deadlines, teams that were not in agreement with processes and procedures that they would need to be responsible for with the new system. There are always challenges when a large-scale change is rolled out to more than forty thousand end users. I think these were the biggest challenges, essentially team dynamics, and I think it was handled extremely well in hindsight; meetings where everyone’s voice was heard from different perspectives, communication was the biggest part of this project and when everyone was heard and notes were being taken and problems were resolved, the final documented internal process for handling end-users experience with the new system was completed. The project took about two years to complete. Even when the project was not on time or on budget, the message was always clear that the leadership team would rather get it right than roll out something that was not best in class for the end user. Leadership provided the department with a shared vision, one that made all employees feel that their small part of the process was valued and made a difference. A great story in successful change management.