Implementation and Delivery
Delivery is adoption, not installation
Implementation converts a future-state design into a sustained operating reality. Delivery succeeds when the process is used by the right people, in the standard way, with the intended measures, after the project team has left. Plan for four workstreams in parallel: technical (process, tools, data), people (skills, roles, resistance), organisational (governance, policy, structure) and measurement (baseline, benefits tracking).
Concepts to name
- Pilot / PDCA cycle - a bounded trial with a defined hypothesis, exit criteria and a decision gate (scale, adapt, abandon).
- Change curve and resistance - resistance is information about the design or the transition, not disloyalty; engage early adopters and opinion leaders.
- ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) - diagnosis of why a change is not sticking; reinforcement is the most frequently skipped element.
- Kotter-style sequencing - urgency, coalition, vision, communication, short-term wins, consolidation.
- Governance and tollgates - staged checkpoints with defined decision rights; a tollgate is a decision, not a status meeting.
- Benefits realisation and handover - named process owner, documented standard work, training and a post-implementation review.
Traps
"Pilot purgatory" - running endless pilots with no scale/stop decision; declaring success at go-live before adoption is measured; and confusing communication volume with engagement.
Rule of thumb
Define the handover contract before you start: who owns the process on day one after go-live, which measures they will run, and when the first post-implementation review occurs. If no name goes in the owner field, the improvement will decay.