Three-week Change Readiness Initiative
Scoped to ONE planned initiative (ERP, Microsoft 365 rollout, AI deployment, security tooling, M&A integration). Readiness assessment, adoption-failure pattern analysis from prior initiatives, change management playbook. Output is for the executive sponsor of the initiative, not the project team. Cross-functional initiatives with many stakeholder groups push to three weeks.
Who this is for
A defensible read on whether your organization can absorb a planned technology initiative.
COO
A major initiative is about to launch and you want a third-party read on whether the organization is actually ready.
CIO
A previous initiative under-delivered on adoption and you want the pattern diagnosed before the next one.
CEO
A board-committed initiative is mid-flight and the adoption story is unclear.
CHRO
Organizational change is converging with technology change and you need both modeled.
Scope
What this initiative delivers, and what it does not.
Scope is fixed at signing. Items tagged TOP are available inside the broader Technology Operating Partner retainer; the initiative alone does not include them. Items tagged with an outside source require a separate specialty engagement.
In scope
- One named initiative, scoped at kickoff
- Readiness assessment across leadership alignment, process design, role definition, training, and communication
- Adoption-failure pattern analysis from prior comparable initiatives (interviews, post-mortems if available)
- Change management playbook covering process design, role definition, training, and communication
- Risk register specific to adoption failure modes
Out of scope
- Multiple concurrent initiativesBook separate Initiatives
- Executing the change management planTOP
- Training deliveryL&D firm
- Ongoing PMO or program-management embeddingTOP
- Selecting the technology being adoptedSee the Architecture or Vendor Initiative
Inputs
What we need from you
Provided at kickoff. Missing inputs delay the initiative; they do not change scope.
- Initiative definition (what is being deployed, by when, to whom)
- Existing project plan and team structure if defined
- Prior initiative post-mortems or lessons-learned documents if any
- Three to five interviews (executive sponsor, project lead, two end-user leads, optionally HR partner)
Timeline
Week by week
Daily visibility throughout. Mid-initiative check confirms direction before the deliverable lands.
Week 1
Initiative scoping and readiness interviews
Initiative confirmed, prior post-mortems collected, three to five structured interviews scheduled and conducted.
Week 2
Pattern analysis and playbook
Failure modes from prior initiatives mapped; current-initiative exposure scored. Process, roles, training, communication plan drafted. Mid-Initiative check with executive sponsor.
Week 3 (if required)
Risk register, deeper synthesis, handoff
Adoption-specific risk register populated. Walkthrough call with sponsor and project lead. Cross-functional initiatives with five or more stakeholder groups typically use this week.
Output
What you walk away with
- Written readiness assessment for the named initiative
- Change management playbook (process, roles, training, communication)
- Adoption risk register
- Walkthrough call with executive sponsor and project lead
Honest framing
What this initiative is not
This Initiative is scoped to one named initiative. It produces a playbook; execution is your responsibility. We do not deliver training, embed inside the project team, or run a PMO. Risk register sizing is qualitative and based on interview-derived signal; quantitative adoption modeling requires longer engagement and instrumented baseline data.
If you are a portfolio company
How the work calibrates to the PE-backed seat.
Companies inside a PE portfolio operate against constraints generalist enterprise framing does not cover. Each of these shapes how the Initiative is scoped and sequenced.
- Board reporting cycle. Output is sized to land before the next quarterly board read, not the company's annual planning calendar.
- Exit window math. Decisions made 12 to 24 months ahead of exit show up at the bid. Where applicable, findings are tagged for the exit-window timeline they affect.
- Add-on integration tempo. Findings that pertain to acquisition integrations are surfaced separately so the deal team can either price them in or sequence the integration around them.
- Cost discipline by hold position. Recommendations are calibrated to where the portco sits in the hold cycle. A company in early hold has different cost flex than one 12 months from exit.
Related
Initiatives that pair with this one
FAQ
Questions buyers ask first
Why do digital transformation projects fail?
BCG and McKinsey research consistently puts the success rate near 30 percent. The cause is almost always change management, not technology. People do not adopt tools they did not help choose, do not understand, or do not see the leadership team using. The fix is sequencing. Define the outcome in operational terms. Pick a sponsor inside the business, not inside IT. Train against the workflow, not the feature list. Measure adoption weekly for the first quarter. The Change Readiness Initiative puts those four in place before the contract gets signed.
What is the digital transformation success rate?
Boston Consulting Group research finds that about 30 percent of digital transformations meet their target value and produce sustainable change. Another 44 percent produce limited value, and roughly 26 percent produce no sustainable value at all. The pattern is consistent: software gets installed, workflows do not change, the original problem persists. Preside scopes change initiatives against adoption metrics, not delivery dates, so the go-live is a milestone not a finish line.
What are the early indicators that an IT rollout is going to fail?
Three signals show up in the first 30 days. Login rates below 50 percent of the licensed population. Help-desk tickets concentrated on basic navigation. Department leaders deferring training to their teams instead of attending. Each one predicts low adoption at the six-month mark. The Change Readiness Initiative instruments those three from day one and triggers leadership intervention before the rollout becomes another shelf-ware story.
For your role
Where this initiative fits into the wider Preside view
Inside the broader program
When the initiative becomes the standing engagement
This Initiative is a one-time fixed-price engagement. The Technology Operating Partner relationship continues the work on a quarterly cadence at one of four Program tiers: the dashboard gets re-run, the savings get re-baselined, the architecture gets re-mapped, and the board gets the same format every meeting. Most clients begin with an Initiative like this one and decide on the tier after the deliverable lands.
Ready to scope this
From go-live anxiety to a documented adoption gate. Two to three weeks.
One email. Brief description of the situation. We respond within one business day with initiative confirmation or a recommendation of a better fit.
Not sure this is the right initiative for your situation? Take the four-question path-finder for a personalized recommendation.