If one does indeed “learn from our mistakes” then we recently have learned something. I would like to share it with you.
Many of you are familiar with the concept of “management of change”, possibly from the US legal system for process safety. I have recently learned that it is extremely hard to manage change. I have a new found respect for organisations that are successful in managing change.
For my watershed moment, the change came from our website. A bit of background:
- We are a small business. If we cannot do it ourselves, we outsource, and creating a website was something we outsourced.
- We outsourced to a new start-up. At the time, we were also a start-up. Well, that start-up failed. We cannot locate any key point of contact from the start-up with reasonable searches (granted, we did not hire a private investigator, but ….)
- Changes in other software (computer operating systems, upgrades to web browsers, etc) meant our website was becoming obsolete and clunky, and some features did not work.
- One “feature” that stopped working was an editing function. This meant we could not update portions of our website.
- We discovered this “new feature” while trying to update a page. The result was lost information (the back-up was with the now failed start-up, so no back-up was available)
It was clear we needed a change. Or changes. Some of the changes we needed were:
- New website
- New website architecture / structure / software
- (possibly) New website designer
We prepared a project document describing what we wanted, we prepared a budget, and we went to the market. And we found what many companies find – the budget was not adequate for what was desired. We decided to not increase our budget – instead deciding to expand our search of the market and found … a start-up that could do it within our budget. Yes the alarm bells were ringing but we did not hear them.
And then the schedule blew out. Not massively, but (as with most things) in small but numerous increments. Each time the schedule blew out, we decided to continue, because progress was being made, just not as fast as we would have liked.
Finally (FINALLY) we have a new website. Using WordPress (which we can edit ourselves, so one ongoing problem has been eliminated).
Based on the pain of managing a rather small issue like changing / upgrading a website, I can empathise with organisations that are trying to cause cultural change in process safety, and trying to honestly recognise what is a change that needs to be addressed. Based on our experience, it is easier said than done. Respect for the organisations that have found success.
One final thing – we have learned from our mistakes. When we expanded our search of the market, we did not increase the human resource requirements for project management. We did not make the connection of the need for more project management to manage supplier uncertainty. We did not properly vet the project management skills of the selected supplier – we only vetted the technical skills of the selected supplier.
We are happy with the end product, and we would have been happier taking a different path to get there. And we accept we are responsible for the selection of the path.
We hope you like our new website.