Don’t CRM Lean into Your Organization

Can you guess what industry change the following quote is about?

"Failed implementations aren't new…even after a decade of industry advice about helping employees help themselves, executives still run head-on into end-user buy-in rejection."

Making a change to deliver projects lean is an organizational matter not a lean matter.

Any number of guesses could be correct. It is not about adopting lean approaches to delivering projects. But it could have been. Making a change to deliver projects lean is an organizational matter not a lean matter. Affecting any organization-wide change is tough, even for those who know what they are doing. Many companies are attempting a level of a change that they've never made before.
I see companies make the same mistake. They focus on the technical aspects of the underlying change without considering the human side of the change. The whole field of "change management" is focussed on being effective with whatever change is underway. With lean, change never ends.

"The process of winning over end-users doesn't end with the project go-live." Bob Stutz

I overheard someone speculating what would come after lean. I laughed. I can't imagine someone at Toyota wondering what would come next. Any casual student knows Toyota will minimize variation, un-burden operations, and eliminate more waste. In other words, more of the same. According to Gary Convis, Toyota can work on that for another 30 years.
The first quotation was from the opening paragraph of You'll Like It, by Marshall Lager, appearing in the August edition of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Magazine. CRM is "just" a computer system coupled with new procedures. Becoming lean is committing oneself and the organization to a paradigm change. Imagine how difficult that could be. (For all of you CRM folk, please don't shoot me. I implemented ERP systems. I know how challenging it can be implementing systems change.)
Next, I'll share the Five Necessary Actions for Organizational Change that we use to plan introducing lean project delivery to a company.

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