We often talk about the importance of aligning people, process and technology as the key to delivering maximizing ROI on technology projects.  This got me thinking; when do we actually begin to align people, process and technology?  Some people think it starts when you go live with the system.  Others think it begins when you define your processes and functional system requirements.  I argue that alignment begins long before you even start gathering requirements or defining processes.  Alignment begins before you even select the technology.

 When organizations first begin considering new technologies they need to examine how well the technology fits within their organization.  They need to ask, “How will the system change the lives and behaviors of the people who will use it?”  Implementing technology changes many things – communication styles, level of visibility people have to individual productivity and performance, job roles, responsibilities, work priorities, and expectations for time required to perform work.   For example, a system that dramatically changes the level of visibility to individual performance may not fit well in an organization where the common perception is that “knowledge is power”.  However, the same system may be a most welcome addition in an organization where collaboration and openness are embraced. 

 Merger and acquisition (M&A) professionals have long known the importance of assessing the cultures, values and behaviors – in short, the “people” issues, when determining if they should merge two organizations.  Peter Haapaniemi recently published at article in the online site Business Empowered titled “Coping with M&A Culture Clash” in which he discusses the financial impact of culture clash during mergers.  He points out that the culture clash between AOL and Time Warner caused many problems and, according to a Morningstar report the failed merger cost shareholders approximately $200 billion.  Had executives paid more attention to the cultural fit of these two organizations they might have prevented this staggering loss.  Many IT project failures (or at least costly overruns) could be prevented if similar attention was given to assessing the overall fit of the technology with the organization.

 A cultural “fit” assessment that evaluates the impact a perspective technology solution will have on people and process can identify many potential problems we need to avoid.  The assessment should identify how the technology will change communications, behavior, power, relationships, and other such “people” issues.  It should answer questions like, “Will the system only require minor changes to user behavior or will it fundamentally change the nature of how people work?”  “Will individual and group relationships dramatically change as a result of the new system?” 

 Understanding the level of impact the technology will have enables us to identify the best approach for aligning it with people and process. For example, implementing a new customer relationship management (CRM) system that dramatically changes responsibilities of sales, service and marketing professionals may require substantial organizational development (OD) work to drive desired user behavior and maximize ROI.  The organization may need to align the organizational factors that influence user behavior – such as incentives and rewards, job responsibilities, performance assessment criteria, management practices and organizational structure.  During a less severe change, such as a system upgrade that changes the user interface and basic process flows, may only require users to adjust minor behavior habits.  In such a case it may be possible to gain the desired results with little or no OD work at all. 

 Finally, it is important to note that there may be differences between the cultural fit of specific vendors systems operating within the same product space.  For example, there may be differences between Siebel and SAP CRM that make one system more compatible than the other for a given customer.  Sure, we expect some similar “fit” issues with any CRM system, but we need to include vendor specific fit considerations when selecting the final system.

 A technology cultural fit assessment conducted before final vendor selection offers IT professionals numerous benefits.  It helps assess the probability we will encounter user resistance and user adoption problems.  It enables identification of major project risks relating to “fit” that are often overlooked.  It allows development of more realistic forecasts for the resources, skills, time and approach required to align the many critical organizational elements that drive user behavior.  Finally, a cultural fit assessment allows us to more accurately predict project implementation costs (including OD/change costs) and expected time frames for user adoption, which are necessary for accurately forecasting ROI.