Beyond the excellent out of home work they also opened up a phone line with some former New Yorkers complaining and it’s absolute gold. If you’re reading this please send pizza and bagels. Speaking of pizza….

The hardest part about new processes isn't building them, it's getting people to use them.

The second you say anything the questions start rolling in:

• Why are things changing?

• How will this help me achieve my goals?

• How does this work?

• Who do I talk to if I have questions?

• Does my team have to do this?

• Why can't things just stay the same?

• Will this actually help?

These are all questions I've been asked when introducing something new. Doesn't matter if it's process or tools, change is scary and people get nervous.

The easiest way to gain adoption is to make the change less scary. And the easiest way to do that is to take the time to help people understand it. Here’s how I do it:

Eight Steps to Launching a New Process

1. Get buy-in from leadership

I’m generally a “seek forgiveness” kinda guy but when you’re rolling out sweeping (possibly global) changes to your team, the last thing you want to do is surprise your boss or your boss’s boss. 

The problem with skipping this step is that when your colleagues complain about the changes—and they will—they’re going to go over your head. If your boss doesn’t have your back then you’re going to have a much harder time rolling anything out. They need to be the first line of defense and if you can get their vocal support (ex. “Hey team, Dmitry is rolling out a new process to do XYZ. I can’t wait!”) you’ll have less stress down the road because it’ll be clear that they’re supportive of the changes.

2. Tell people about the changes

This one seems obvious but all too often, you might get a two minutes for a quick announcement at an all hands or maybe just an email to share the news. I don’t care how good your elevator pitch is, it won’t be enough. You need to carve out real time and attention to address the changes directly with your colleagues including why the process updates are necessary and what the benefits are.

It doesn't hurt to address any unknowns either. No change is 100% clear from the launch so it's important to be transparent about that while still being firm that this is happening for the right reasons.

You're doomed from the start if you skip this step. This is also a great time to make it clear that you have leadership support (you do, right?).

3. Create training materials

Now that people are informed, you have to teach them how to use the new process. Write docs, record looms, set up office hours, create a slack channel, build cloneable templates, and put everything in your Brand HQ.

This step is critical for a number of reasons. The first is that it creates a centralized home that everyone can follow along with. The second is that it gives you a place to point people when they inevitably ask questions that have been answered already. The third is that you can then add all of these links to any onboarding or training materials you have to help brand new teammates know that this is the way.

For the self-starters having this documentation is perfect as they'll jump right in, but for the folks who are a bit more resistant, we move on to step 4.

4. Do a road show

This will be the most time consuming part of rolling out any new process but it's also the one that makes the largest impact.

Most teams will do a general announcement, this is good for step 2 but that won't actually get into the details because of time and because of the audience (everyone cares about different things). What you need to do is set up time with each individual team that'll be using the process and walk them through team specific examples of how to use it. This is where you gain buy-in by outlining the specific benefits to them. Spend time with product marketing talking about one-sheeters, meet with the paid team about creating ads, talk to the people team about employer brand content.

Be specific and come prepared as these smaller group sessions unlock the whole rollout.

5. Create champions

As you start gaining adoption, highlight your champions—the people using processes the right way, the ones gaining value from the tools, the teammates who get why this is happening—and put them on a pedestal! Shout them out and share their examples for everyone to see. Not only will others want to be praised which will grow your adoption but you'll also gain even more support from your champions because you’ve recognized their efforts.

These champions can help with training, onboarding, and answering questions because they're experts now too which reduces your workload. They'll also win brownie points with leadership because they're outwardly showing how adaptable they are. This behavior should be rewarded by all.

If you’re struggling to find champions, try some of these tips.

6. Collect feedback

This is important. You're likely going to get the process wrong in some places (remember no process is 100% correct out of the gate).

Don't assume you have the answers to fix it. Ask the intended audience what is and isn't working for them, and ask what they'd expect to see too. If you have champions already, this is actually a good pre-step 2 activity to make you're headed in the right direction before rolling something out broadly.

You can collect feedback with forms, bots, and in person (this is form I use for collecting feedback after launching self-service).

But like with any feedback you receive, you don't need to action on everything. A lot of feedback you’ll get will only solve for one person or one team. Your goal is to create something that benefits the entire group so be open but be objective.

7. Iterate

You've collected the feedback, right? Now use it!

The best processes evolve and grow with the team to keep them relevant. New tools, methodologies, and people emerge. More importantly, business needs evolve.

You'll want to make sure your processes keep up or they'll get abandoned pretty quickly and believe it or not, sometimes that does mean abandoning the current plan for a new one, but you won't know that unless you're collecting feedback and iterating on it.

8. Keep the team up-to-date

As you evolve your processes, as you learn about new use cases, as you create new templates or other enablement materials, make sure you keep the whole team up-to-date.

Your Brand HQ is a good place for your colleagues to subscribe or follow, but you can also use a slack channel or an email list. You know your team best so use whatever tools will resonate with them to spread the word. The most important thing is that you keep everyone in the loop as things change otherwise you’ll lose trust. Then you’re starting all over again.

You can come back to this list over and over as you iterate to ensure that you’re sharing proactively and thoughtfully. But whether it’s v1 or v100, the takeaway is the same: building processes is easy, rolling them out is hard, so learn from my mistakes.

I call February 15th, International Throw Your Marketing Plan in the Garbage Day. It’s usually the day when teams realize that their marketing plan isn’t realistic. It could be from a budgetary or resourcing standpoint. It could be due to macroeconomic conditions (did I use that right?). Regardless, all of a sudden teams realize that their plans aren’t going to work and it’s back to the drawing board.

A lot of times those plans don’t work because teams don’t have the right processes or brand systems in place. They need more people, more help, and more leverage. I’m here to help. If you’re scrambling to get your Q1 back on track, book some time with me and we’ll get you set up with the systems your team needs to succeed (then we’ll roll them out together).