Have you ever implemented a new system, only to find that people keep going back to the spreadsheet they have been using for the last twenty years?
I have seen this many times.
That spreadsheet lived with five people. They knew every formula, every hidden column, and every exception someone had added years ago. Three departments worked with it.
Then came the new system.
It could do the same thing, only automatically and without copy-paste errors.
And yet, the three departments kept opening that spreadsheet. Not everyone. But most of them.
Why does this happen?
Because no one explained to those people what the new system was supposed to give them. Or what the company would gain from it.
Because they did not have time to build trust in it. They were not involved when it was being designed.
Because no one asked them what kind of outputs they needed, and in what format, so that the system would make their work easier, not harder.
And because they were not involved in planning the go-live either. One day, an email arrived saying that the system was launching and that they should attend a two-day training.
By the way, this is a completely reliable recipe.
If you want your spreadsheets to survive the next three systems as well, do exactly that.
Because workarounds are not resistance.
They are a message about what was skipped in the preparation.
What can be done differently is not complicated. It just needs to happen early enough:
The people who will work in the system are involved in the design. Not at the end, as an audience.
Someone asks them what they need to see and in what format. And their answer is reflected in the requirements.
The explanation does not start with system functionality, but with what will change in their Tuesday afternoon.
The go-live is planned with them, not for them.
And after the launch, someone continues to own the change.
This is what change management means.
It is not about the system. It is about the people who are expected to start working in it on Monday. Whether they understand why. Whether they trust it. Whether they were involved early enough. And whether the new way of working makes sense to them.
What spreadsheet is still surviving in your organisation?