The business case assumed people would use it
Every model contains an adoption assumption. It is usually the most fragile number in the case and the only one nobody tests. We do the work that makes it true: who does what after go-live, what happens to the people whose roles change, and how the organisation is told the truth about both.
- 90 days
- of measured adoption tracking after go-live
- Zero
- surprises: every affected role receives a written change statement
- Measured
- redeployment, so freed capacity appears in the benefit report
- Earlier
- union or works council engagement, before positions harden
What it looks like today
The pattern we find in almost every operation
- People found a workaround within a fortnight, because the new process did not cover an edge case they care about.
- Nobody explained what happens to the team, so the team assumed the worst and resisted quietly.
- Freed capacity was immediately refilled with new manual work, so the saving never reached the accounts.
- Managers were never told what to measure, so they carried on optimising the old metric.
- Training was a recorded walkthrough nobody watched, and the exception queue filled with avoidable cases.
- The works council was informed late, which turned a routine change into a dispute.
How we do it
The approach, step by step
- 01
Name what actually changes
For every affected role: which tasks disappear, which change, which are new and which stay exactly as they are. Ambiguity gets filled with worst-case assumptions, so we remove it early and in writing rather than reassuring people verbally.
- 02
Decide the fate of the freed capacity
This single question determines whether the business case lands. Redeploy to higher-value work, absorb growth without hiring, or reduce headcount — chosen deliberately by the sponsor and reflected in how the benefit is measured. What is not acceptable is leaving it undecided.
- 03
Design the operating model
Who owns the automation, who works the exceptions, who approves a change, what the service targets are and what the escalation path looks like at 3am. Roles are agreed before go-live rather than discovered during the first incident.
- 04
Enable before training
Champions identified in each team, trained first and given real standing to influence the design. Training is role-specific and measured by competence rather than attendance, because the exception queue tells you very quickly who actually understood it.
- 05
Change the measurement
Managers keep optimising whatever they are measured on. New team metrics are defined and published before go-live so the incentives and the system point in the same direction from day one.
What you receive
Deliverables, stated up front
- Stakeholder map with an impact assessment per role
- Role-by-role change statement: removed, changed, new and unchanged work
- Operating model covering ownership, exceptions, change control and escalation
- Communication plan and materials, including the honest answer on jobs
- Champion network with defined standing and allocated time
- Role-specific training with competence checks rather than attendance records
- Revised team metrics aligned to the automated process
- Consultation plan for works councils or unions where applicable
- Ninety days of adoption measurement after go-live
You are a fit if
- A previous automation went live and was quietly worked around
- Affected teams have not been told what happens to their roles
- Nobody has decided what the freed capacity will be used for
- There is a works council, union or formal consultation process to navigate
- The business case depends on an adoption rate nobody is responsible for
We will tell you it is a fit problem if
- The change is genuinely trivial and the small team affected is already bought in
- The sponsor is unwilling to state a position on jobs, which guarantees rumour fills the vacuum
- You want communication handled but not the operating model — the two cannot be separated
Systems we work with
Not on the list? We integrate against anything with an API, a database, a file interface or a documented import format.
Questions we get on this
Change & enablement: the practical answers
Are you going to recommend redundancies?
How do you work with our HR and internal communications teams?
We already have a change function. Is this duplication?
What if adoption is genuinely poor after go-live?
Bring us the process you already know is costing too much
Thirty minutes with an engineer is usually enough to tell whether it is worth automating, roughly what it would save, and whether the payback is inside a window your finance team will accept. If the answer is no, we will say so on the call.