Embedding Business Change From Day One

We talk a lot about Go-Live dates in transformation programmes. But in all my years of leading complex technology change, I’ve never seen a date change anything on its own. What actually changes things are people. It’s people that make change happen and it’s people that will make your programme a success. The organisations I work with want more than a technical implementation. They want a business transformation that also elevates the confidence, competence, and culture of their people.

My favourite mantra:

• Go-Live is a milestone.
• Adoption is the goal.
• Capability is the legacy.

This blog is about how you embed that mindset from day one in any transformation - SAP S/4HANA, digital platforms, automation, AI tooling, or wider enterprise redesign. These are methods I use with clients across industries and sectors, because when change is handled early, consistently and intentionally, organisations don’t just adopt a system, they transform the way they work.

1. Change Starts at Kick-Off

I’ve seen many programmes wait until UAT or Training to think about ‘the people side’ of change. By then, resistance has formed, engagement has dipped, and the hardest work remains. The highest-performing transformations do the opposite. They:

• Have Change at the leadership table, establishing programme team design, vision, objectives and strategy
• Treat business readiness as a core workstream, not a late-stage add-on
• Build change, comms, and training strategies during mobilisation, not after build
• Involve business leaders and subject-matter experts early in shaping decisions
• Tie change activities to benefits from day one
• Adopt modern methods and insight-driven measurements
• When organisations adopt this mindset, the programme becomes less about deploying technology and more about designing a future organisation.

2. Super Users

One of the most impactful decisions any transformation can make is building a Super User Network early, not at UAT or Training, but right at the start of your design stages. A Super User isn’t just an extra pair of hands. They are:

• Expert system users
• The voice of the business
• Collaborators for the future state design
• Change agents
• Trainers and coaches
• First-line support
• Local leaders of adoption
• Guardians of best practice

Our methodology recommends that organisations:

• Recruit Super Users early
• Backfill them properly
• Select the best people, not just the most available
• Treat the network as a talent development programme
• Involve them in Explore, Design, Build, Test, Training, Cutover and Hypercare
• Give them a structured BAU role after go-live

Super Users are the psychological anchors of a transformation. When uncertainty is high and cognitive load spikes, people instinctively look to someone they trust. Super Users become that trusted point of stability. Their early involvement reduces ambiguity and makes the change feel safer because guidance comes from a familiar peer rather than a distant project team.

They also act as powerful social influencers. When colleagues see a respected peer embracing new processes, solving real problems, and modelling the future state, adoption accelerates. This blend of trust, familiarity, and peer-led expertise taps directly into how people form new habits. Super Users don’t just support the change, they shape the environment that makes adoption psychologically possible.

Super Users then become the organisational memory of the programme. Elevate them as leaders of change so that when the consultants step away, that capability & expertise remains.

3. Change Impacts

Uncertainty activates natural threat responses in the brain, and much of the resistance in transformation programmes comes from this simple truth: people fear what they don’t understand. We can reduce that ambiguity by clearly articulating what will change, for whom, and in what way the work will be different.

Change impacts need to do more than live in a forgotten spreadsheet as a one-off deliverable. A high-performing programme treats change impacts as:

• Continuously evolving (as design decisions change)
• Persona and process-driven, not just system-driven
• Prioritised according to business risk
• Directly tied to actions

Every impact should answer:

• What’s changing?
• For whom?
• So what? (Contextualised to role)
• Now what? (What action will support this?)

Mitigation actions should be practical, owned by the business, and linked to one of two goals:

• Reduce operational disruption and risk
• Increase people’s ability to accept, transition to, and adopt the new way of working

Identifying impacts is only half the work; people also need to feel agency in the transition. That’s why each impact must go beyond describing the change to outlining what support, tools, and actions will help people adapt. When individuals understand not only the “so what” but also the “now what,” they regain a sense of control. This shift from passive recipients to active participants is one of the strongest psychological drivers of acceptance and long-term adoption.

4. Storytelling & Communication:

A new screen, a new button, a new workflow… none of that creates change on its own. What people truly care about is why something is better for them, how it makes their working day easier, safer, faster, or less frustrating. They care about the story, not the system.

That’s why effective communication in a transformation programme isn’t about broadcasting updates or explaining functionality; it’s about helping people see themselves in the future state. We use storytelling to bring the change to life: what’s changing, why it matters, and how it helps them.

Instead of technical jargon, we focus on human-centric ways of connecting with colleagues. We should run real system demos to spark curiosity before training. We take people through “a day in the life” process walkthroughs so they can picture their own routines in the new world. We run myth-busting sessions to address concerns openly and empathetically. We publish FAQs written in plain language. Super Users and managers deliver cascades tailored to their teams’ personas and contexts. And we share stories - real examples of pain points we are finally solving, or everyday moments that will become easier.

This approach is grounded in Prosci research:

• Senior leaders must communicate the why.
• Direct managers must communicate the what it means for me.

Our communication plans are intentionally designed around trust, relevance, and emotional connection. The goal isn’t just to inform, it’s to help people believe in the change

5. Training

Training is not the finish line. Training is the warm-up.

Our training approach is deliberately designed to build real capability, not temporary familiarity:

• Built by experts, strengthened by Super Users
• Training content is designed by SAP specialists and Super Users working side-by-side, grounded in real processes, real data, and real scenarios. This ensures it is meaningful, accurate, and immediately applicable.
• Role-based and contextual

We don’t drag people through generic system tours and we don’t teach people how to press buttons. Every module is tailored to the role, the task, the business process, and the outcome. People learn what they need to do their job, not everything the system can possibly do.

Multi-method

Different tasks require different learning experiences, so programmes should blend:

• Instructor-led classroom or virtual training
• eLearning, simulations, and digital walkthroughs
• Performance support in the flow of work (Enable Now, WalkMe, etc.)
• Job aids and quick-reference guides
• Floorwalking and hypercare support
• Post–go-live clinics, deep-dive masterclasses, and drop-in sessions
• Training is not a single event, we emphasise a continuous learning ethos.

Neuroscience-led

Humans are not designed to absorb everything in one sitting. That’s why we design training to follow the brain’s natural learning cycle: See it → Try it → Do it → Master it. We build repetition, spaced learning, practice opportunities, and ‘in the moment’ support into every plan.

Training helps people know what to do. Adoption helps them do it confidently, consistently, and correctly.

6. The Prosci® ADKAR Model

I advocate for the Prosci® ADKAR model to be intertwined into every transformation because it gives us a structured, human-centred way to manage change across the entire project lifecycle.

This influences how we design our communications, change interventions and training activities to intentionally build each part of ADKAR:

• Awareness: Clear messaging, storytelling, and leadership alignment
• Desire: Engagement, vision and benefits-led communication
• Knowledge: Training, demonstrations, ‘day in the life’ walkthroughs
• Ability: Practice, floorwalking, performance support, coaching
• Reinforcement: Recognition, KPIs, feedback loops, continuous learning

This is why ADKAR works: it guides not just what we measure, but what we deliver.

We use ADKAR as a continuous measurement cycle, not a one-off readiness survey. We speak directly to users at regular intervals via pulse surveys to understand how we are performing against each ADKAR element, following a structured cadence: Baseline → Measure → Intervene → Re-measure.

This gives you a rich picture of how change is landing, highlighting where awareness is low, where desire scores may indicate low motivation, how effective training has been, where capability needs strengthening, and where reinforcement is succeeding or falling short. We should use dashboards and heatmaps to identify hotspots across teams, sites, hierarchy and personas; track trend lines over time; build targeted action plans; feed insights into leadership reporting; and influence Go/No-Go decisions.

7. Leadership as Change Accelerators

Technology-driven programmes succeed when leaders:

• Communicate the why
• Provide visible presence
• Reinforce the message consistently
• Role-model the behaviours
• Cascade clear, simple messages
• Tell the story and build belief

After ensuring leaders understand the programme vision, benefits and to-be state, I always recommend additional leadership development in:

• Emotional intelligence
• Servant leadership
• Storytelling for change
• Accelerating and devolving decision-making
• How to move teams from resistance → acceptance → adoption
• How to recognise and reward the right behaviours

With coaching sessions, weekly briefings, structured manager cascades and tools to support team-level conversations, leaders become one of the strongest accelerators of adoption. When leaders own the change, the organisation follows.

8. Business Readiness

In the best programmes, business readiness is not a checklist exercise before you go-live. It is measured, continuously.

Business readiness scorecards should measure people, process, as well as systems readiness. I know you’re checking your technical build is ready, your cutover plan progress, and whether your test defects are closed. But are you also measuring these…?

• Training attendance and competency (not just completion)
• Super User confidence and coverage
• ADKAR scores
• Mitigation completion for change impacts
• To-be processes and workflows mapped
• Hypercare readiness and triage processes
• Operational risk assessments

Go/No-Go decisions shouldn’t be based on optimism or deadlines. Your decision should be based on the evidence for whether the organisation is genuinely prepared to operate in the future state.

9. Business Ownership

Change strategy should be led within the project team, but it must be owned by the business. That means:

• Super Users leading the narrative and shaping the design
• Leaders reinforcing the why
• Data owners championing quality
• Managers having the change impact conversations
• Colleagues participating actively in training and readiness

Transformation will not be successful if it feels like something that happens to the business. It has to be something that happens with the business. This shift from dependency on the programme to ownership by the business is a powerful lever for long-term legacy of change capability.

10. Lessons for Embedding Change from Day One

Start change early, involve the business deeply, measure adoption relentlessly.

1. Start early. Change begins at kick-off, not at go-live. The earlier you engage people, the more momentum and belief you build.
2. Make the business part of the design, not the audience of the design. Involve employees in shaping processes, decisions and future ways of working. Co-creation builds ownership and reduces resistance.
3. Empower Super Users as leaders of change. Recruit early, develop them as talent, and retain them after go-live. They become the continuity, the coaches, and the champions of adoption.
4. Use ADKAR as a benchmark. ADKAR is not a survey, it is a continuous rhythm of measurement and intervention. Awareness → Desire → Knowledge → Ability → Reinforcement. Every activity should build one of those outcomes.
5. Tell the story. People respond to meaning, not features. Use demonstrations, walkthroughs, anecdotes, and persona-led cascades to humanise the future state and ensure communication is two-way engagement, not just an inform.
6. Train for confidence, not attendance. Adoption requires repetition, reinforcement and support in the flow of work. Build capability, not just compliance.
7. Link everything back to benefits. Every communication, every training, every testing cycle, every mitigation action must connect back to the original objectives and benefits.
8. Make leadership visible and aligned. People look to leaders for the why. They look to managers for the what it means for me. Active leadership is the accelerator of cultural change.
9. Use business readiness as a governance tool, not a checklist. Readiness must assess people, process and support, not just system completion. Go/No-Go decisions must be evidence-based, not date-driven.
10. Leave capability, not dependency. The true legacy of a transformation is not the system put in place, but the confidence, skill, and culture built within the organisation.

When you embed change from day one, you don’t just deliver a system, you build the capability to thrive.