Stage 3 · Improve · 07 · 25 min

Plan the implementation and go live

A redesign on the wall changes nothing on the shop floor. This module gets it there.

The design is agreed and the business case signed. Now the plan: who owns each change, how each new task owner, person or system, is tested before it takes on real orders, what will make people resist, and how the new process goes live without risking the customer.

What you do here: assign a single owner to each change in the plan.

One row per change, one name per row. A change owned by a committee is owned by nobody. Many owners are department heads, because the change lands in their department.

The plan also records the dependencies. The integration must be live before AI-assisted order entry, the fast-lane rules before triage can start, and the updated model before anyone is trained on it.

What you do here: decide go or no-go for the fast-lane check, based on test cases.

The fast-lane check combines the head of Engineering’s rules with AI that reads the customer’s documents. Before it decides about real orders, it is tested like a new colleague would be: on 40 past orders whose correct answer the engineers know, built from Anna’s checklist in module 2. The pass mark, agreed upfront, is 95 %.

The same test cases now train new engineers and sales clerks. A test that checks a system is just as good at checking a person.

What you do here: diagnose the first barrier for each group that has to work differently.

Change sticks in five stages, known as ADKAR: Awareness of why, Desire to take part, Knowledge of how, Ability to do it in practice, Reinforcement so it lasts. Find the first stage where a group is stuck: training people who do not want the change is wasted.

What you do here: pick the rollout that limits risk and still proves the design.

What you do here: put the go-live steps in order, from frozen baseline to the 30-day review.

Hypercare ends on criteria, not on a date: two weeks without a serious issue, KPIs stable, fast-lane overrides under 10 %. Then the process owner takes over, and the issue log moves into the normal review.

Three questions on the module.

• One row per change, one owner per row, dependencies written down.
• Test every new task owner, person or system, on cases from your experts.
• Find each group’s first ADKAR barrier and work on that one.
• Pilot with criteria agreed upfront, then roll out in phases.
• Go live with hypercare and exit criteria, then hand over to the owner.