Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
You've Built it, But Will They Come?
Doug is the author of the landmark book, Extreme Project Management®: Using Leadership, Principles and Tools to Deliver Value in the Face of Volatility. He works with clients who undertake projects in very demanding environments: those settings that feature high speed, high change, high unpredictability and high stress. Doug has lived in the trenches—from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to Beijing, China—with over 275 project teams with budgets that ranged from $25,000 to over $25 million. He is one of the founders of the Agile Leadership Network, an organization dedicated to connecting, developing and supporting great project leaders. He is known for his hard-hitting and humorous keynote speeches that address vital issues facing today’s project-based organizations. You can visit Doug at www.dougdecarlo.com.
Functional and technical requirements have been met. Customer testing proved they loved it. So you rolled it out and there it sits, virtually ignored like a stale doughnut. I hate when this happens. Maybe we shoulda had a better communication plan? Better training? Maybe we shoulda, coulda done…
Projects that are politically sensitive (e.g., some people will be better off, others worse off) can build up powerful resistance. Process re-engineering projects with failure rates in excess of 50 percent are good examples.
A Good Communications Plan May Not Be Enough
Satisfactory results from user acceptance testing and launching a good communications plan--long-time staples of good project management--are not necessarily sufficient to ensure adoption of the "new thing" (system, application, process, etc.) A well-executed communications plan may inform everybody and create a favorable impression for what is to come, at least among some constituencies. But not all will jump on board.
This is especially true for projects that are organizationally complex where multiple departments will be impacted and significant changes will result in how business is conducted, and consequently, in how people get work done. The fact is people resist change for any number of reasons that have little to do with how well-designed the new system or application is, how informed everybody is …
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My one regret in life is that I am not someone else. - Woody Allen |