One of the major hidden obstacles in organizations with Technical Debt is people management for those with a vested interest in the complexity and customization. They have established their careers on building and feeding this technical debt.  The idea of removing that technical debt is perceived as a direct threat to their job stability. It is the change resistance and people issues which slow, or in some cases prevent, badly needed changes.  This is all before making the transition to Digital Business.  Is it any wonder so many digital initiatives struggle or fail to achieve desired outcomes?

Not Considering the Human Impact of the Change was Naïve

Several years ago I worked on a project at a Fortune 50 company with a major technical debt issue. Their environment was incredibly complicated. So complicated that even though I had done SAP projects for nearly 20 years it took me almost four months to come up to speed on many of the changes. At that time I was one of a rare handful of people anywhere with broad exposure to the the transaction processing requirements, customer contract interactions, and accounting requirements for this area. It was not unusual for new hires to take six to twelve months to get up to speed.

As someone who prides themselves on “hitting the ground running on day one” it took me some time to realize the SAP logo on the user interface was only for show. Vast portions of the application had been almost re-written so that this company might as well have replaced the SAP logo with their company logo.

And Then it Hit Me!

In evaluating the environment for de-customizing opportunities one very large area stood out. This was an area with many years of development and a small development team dedicated to its care and feeding. However, there was a standard solution option that would fit 80-90% of the requirement with only configuration. This solution was demonstrated to the core team as an example candidate of how to move back to standard. As the demo was nearly complete light bulbs were coming on that this didn’t need to be as hard or complicated. At that point the leader of the team for this area asked “if we change this then what are we supposed to do?” and then he said “We can’t make this change, we’ve spent too many years building this!”

I was caught off guard with the transparency of the response. Even with my experience I was naïve in not considering the human impact of the change. The people side of moving back to standard became apparent to everyone. As the awareness of the impact to the IT department spread through the group the tactics of “slow walking” and “analysis paralysis” started to spread. The lesson learned for reducing technical debt is that it is not just a business change management issue but an IT department change issue as well. Don’t underestimate the amount of change in your own IT area.

Re-Tool to be Cool!

Okay, I betray my age here. No one says “Cool!” anymore. At least I don’t think so. However, the idea is simple. The simplification, modernization, and technical debt reduction effort starts with considering the impact to the IT department. How will you handle job, function, and career changes for your employees? IT employees continue to be in demand and will be for the foreseeable future. It isn’t always the smart play to use offshore labor arbitrage efforts for your teams to handle entrenched resistance. So, how do you handle this?

1. Provide a future state vision of modernizing and simplifying
2. Define the future state skills, capabilities, and organizational model
3. Determine the level of interest for these new skills and capabilities within your employees
4. Arrange for re-tooling through training and skill development
5. Make it really easy for anyone who does not want to be re-skilled to find alternative work

Work Alternatives for Employees Resistant to the Future Direction

That work alternative item is probably one of the most important things you can do. We tend to be creatures of habit and some folks just won’t trade in skills they have developed for new capabilities. For those resources it is especially important in a non-threatening way that they are provided opportunities to work elsewhere. You might work with placement firms or headhunters. Maybe you give them a day off a week, with pay, to look for another job (with a specific end date for their current role). Pay for a resume writing service to help them brush up. Reach out to industry contacts who may need those skills. The idea is to invest a little time and effort on some type of safety net. This effort helps to keep morale up during the change while reducing toxic grapevine talk.

What ideas do you have? Reach out today or leave a comment. Have you faced similar issues and how did you deal with them?