Knowledge Base · Pitfalls
What do I do when a new tool flops with my team?
Believe the data, and be willing to pull the plug: Chapter 5 of the book tells of a leader who scrapped a failing new system and re-chose with his team, landing on the simplest tool that met their needs. But check first whether the flop is the tool or the training, because Chapter 7 shows a good system killed by a knowledge gap.
Chapter 5 of the book tells the story as a leadership lesson. A service team replaced its clunky scheduling system with a state-of-the-art one after months of planning, data migration and training. On go-live it was a disaster: more complicated than the old system, and the team's key measures, response time and scheduling accuracy, got worse, not better.
The leader faced the honest fork: pour more time and money into salvaging the failing project, or admit defeat and return to the old system. He picked the honest option and scrapped the new one. The book's principle behind the decision is its Chapter 5 refrain: stay loyal to results, not to the chosen solution. A team in love with its solution ignores data telling it the truth; a team in love with results can walk away from its own work.
What he did next matters as much as the scrapping. The second selection involved the team: they named the key features they actually needed and tested several options before choosing. The winner was neither the most advanced nor the most expensive system. It was the simplest one that met their real needs, and productivity and morale rose sharply once it landed.
Before you reach the fork, check whether the flop is really the tool. Chapter 7's bank story is the mirror image: a good system killed by a one-hour webinar and no workload relief, where the failure was the knowledge gap, not the software. The two stories together give the diagnostic: if people were equipped, involved and supported and the results still worsen, believe the data and be willing to pull the plug. If they were never equipped, fix that first. It is cheaper than a second purchase.
Related questions
- How do I get people to actually use a new tool after launch?
- What is the knowledge gap in continuous improvement, and how do I close it?
- What is an operational review, and how do I run one?
Source: Continuous Improvement in the Workplace, Ch. 5 (Measuring Success and Ensuring Sustainability) and Ch. 7 (Pitfalls to Avoid in Continuous Improvement Initiatives).