A user reports a problem in week one and is told it is a known issue. That is the most expensive sentence available at go-live.
Most implementations go live with a list of known defects. Most organisations decide not to publish it, on the reasoning that a list of problems would undermine confidence at the moment confidence is most needed.
Users find the defects anyway. It takes about four days.
They report them, individually, and are told individually that this is a known issue.
That sentence says two things at once: we knew about this, and we decided you should find out for yourself.
Everything the programme has said about wanting to hear when something is wrong is answered by it. Reporting falls away over the following weeks — not because problems stop, but because reporting has been shown to be pointless.
And that is the real cost. An organisation only finds out that an implementation is failing because somebody tells it. Close that channel in week one and the next problem, the one nobody knew about, surfaces two years later in a benefit that did not appear.
Publish the list. In plain terms, with what is affected and what to do instead.
Chapter 14 of Built to Be Used sets out what to communicate at each stage, and what withholding it costs.
#ITimplementation #Communication #ServiceManagement
This article accompanies the book Built to Be Used.