Problems with software implementation

Not trusting the software

If the computer system has been poorly installed or important information about how to make it work is not retained within an organisation, people can stop trusting the software.  When they don’t trust a computer system, conscientious people often setup additional support mechanisms to check and manage processes, like forms or spreadsheets.  This duplicates information and can make things take much more time than they need to.

Not trusting the process

If staff have not been consulted, let alone involved, in a system selection process they may start to feel alienated and unimportant to the business.  Sometimes staff will suspect that new software is being implemented in order to ‘do them out of a job’ – this will obviously cause them to view the whole process with alarm.

Lack of resources

Many organisations fail to prepare themselves and allocate insufficient resources to the project.  When things need an extra boost or things start to go off track, everyone is too busy balancing their ‘day jobs’ with the demands of the project to put their heads up and spot potential trouble ahead.

Living with 'old' problems

If users have not been empowered during the implementation process, they may not realise that bugs or glitches which they continually work around have actually been fixed or were due to a temporary problem. Users many not feel empowered if they do not understand how the software works together as a whole – or what it was actually chosen to do.

Lack of ownership by users

If users don’t feel ownership of a system they can become jaded and disillusioned.  If they feel that the system has been imposed upon them and don’t understand why, they won’t understand the benefits – they will only have felt the pain.