How to Rescue a Slipping Implementation (Before It Breaks You)

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

How does something like that gets missed? So what was that conversation like?

a scenario where everything [: 00:01:00

That's what happened to Melissa Turley when early on in her career, she was in the middle of a massive implementation. Everything seemed to be going along fine and at the last possible minute you get. Told that there's a delay. You navigate that and then a few months later it's delayed again.

ruction and engineering, and [: 00:02:00

She's got over 10 years in senior leadership roles, and she's built and led high performing multidisciplinary HR teams across. The us, Australia, and Singapore, and is often navigating complex multi-state operations for global organizations. Her expertise spans strategic HR leadership, organizational development, and cross-cultural team building with a strong emphasis on operational excellence and talent transformation. She's the newly appointed president-elect of SHRM North State, and is committed to advancing the HR profession through collaboration, advocacy, and innovation. Melissa, welcome to the show.

Melissa Turley: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Jim: I'm looking forward to this conversation. I think it's gonna be a pretty good discussion. So let's tear the bandaid off.

What was the moment in your career where you thought, oh, this is bad. I'm gonna get fired.

as one that was particularly [: 00:03:00

So initially everything looked great. I had many meetings with my own team and the other cross-functional team members, and we all agreed that our current system was just not delivering on what we needed, so then we just weren't using it and paying for something that we had no return on investment with.

So it wasn't an issue of any resistance to change, which was great. Everyone was on the same page. We needed something to solve our problems. We needed a new system. So we worked closely together on the selection process, and we found a new vendor. We started working with that vendor and I attended all the implementation meetings and the other departments were all in the same meetings.

We were progressing nicely. [: 00:04:00

So I understood and I made some calls and we extended it several more months.

Dr. Jim: I wanna. Dig in a little bit further in terms of the process, because even when you get a, a request for an extension or a delay, that's not the end of the world.

in fact, a system that isn't [: 00:05:00

Like what did that process look like?

Melissa Turley: Absolutely. There was communication between departments and sharing the issues that we're having. One big factor was reporting, and just other modules weren't flexible, so we could use it, say 20% of the needs that we had, but it wasn't meeting all of our needs. And it was very expensive. So we did reach out to the existing provider and tried to work in with them is to see if they could tailor it to what we needed.

But each change was very expensive. To make one small change, it might be, that'll cost you $4,000 and it just still wasn't meeting our needs. So we did try to stay with that current provider, but it just wouldn't work out. So the only alternative was to seek out a new vendor, which all parties were involved.

ertain employees that had to [: 00:06:00

That helped us shortlist the top three providers that we could look at potentially changing over to.

Dr. Jim: So when I hear you describe it. From a process perspective, everything seems tight. It's truly an issue of a capabilities gap that can't be met. There is a clear pricing issue with the incumbent that any changes to get it to work within a desired future state, that's not gonna work.

Then when you're going through the selection or evaluation process, you have different. Stakeholders from all the different divisions have their input. You've built out sort of your checklist of requirements. You've gone out to market to, you've done an RFP, you have your feature set you've evaluated that, now you've narrowed it down to three finalists and you're going through the selection process.

cess gap. So looking back at [: 00:07:00

Melissa Turley: No, I think it went very well and I felt quite confident in how that process turned out and that we're all agreeing on the final vendor as well. 99% of people voted for the final vendor and we're excited to move forward with the implementation with them as well and work closely with them.

Dr. Jim: what I'm gathering from that is that you have broad based buy-in across all the different people that are involved. So this isn't a result of. Some sourpuss in the group, like dragging feet and not making it happen. So you have broad agreement there. Now you're in the implementation phase and you get this request months into the process that, oh, the deadline day is coming.

hey, we need to delay this. [: 00:08:00

Melissa Turley: Absolutely. I had a lot of conversations with my immediate team, who I worked right next to, so accessibility to myself was. It was easily accessible, so I understood what my team capabilities were as well. So I nominated change agents and they had their specialties and worked with the vendors on their areas of expertise.

But when you're working with the cross-functional teams, I didn't have as much access to those other departments, and I think there was a big communication breakdown there.

oser to our go live date, we [: 00:09:00

I was getting updates from the other departments, the vendors, and my own team, and everything I was hearing was on point. It seemed very accurate. So everyone was saying, yes, we're working on reportings. We'll get that to you. The vendor individually asked certain people, do you have any questions? And they'd answer, no.

And they consistently asked from meeting to meeting and they'd say, no, we're fine. And I was a bit concerned, wondering why they were asking some particular people why. They might have some questions and they did talk about some reporting and data uploads and things they were having some issues with, but it's something that could even be fixed later after the live date was my understanding from witnessing those things.

e when we first met with the [: 00:10:00

They were having problems as well, and so my team had to pivot and adjust to doing a lot of the data uploads themselves. But they did manage to meet their deadlines and that's why we were ready to go live on the first date until I was contacted by the other departments saying that they need an extension.

Dr. Jim: when you got that email notification in your mind, what were the known knowns that could set this thing on a completely off track?

Melissa Turley: Yeah, something that would've put created more alarm bells is employees saying that they were struggling and actually being upfront in those meetings or reaching out to me and my team and saying, Hey, I'm not really on track, but it would've been nice to hear that weeks before going live. And we could have then worked closer together and came up with different plans and help support each other to help them reach those goals, to maintain our live date.

lt like it was very reactive [: 00:11:00

Dr. Jim: at the last possible minute, you get this request for an extension or a delay which can sometimes happen. What did you discover when you probed on, okay, we can get you an extension, but what happened? What was the, what happened? Story.

Melissa Turley: Absolutely. The first date, as you mentioned, that's not surprising in a project such as this, but when it came to the request months later. To extend the live date the second time. That's what was very alarming to me, and all stakeholders were called into a meeting to discuss what was happening because.

We, we had an extension for several months. We should be there by now. And what really surprised me in that meeting, I was expecting the other departments to say they needed more time because their data wasn't accurate after auditing or there's a final report we just need to run. What really shocked me was several employees said they hadn't even logged in yet.

's not even before our first [: 00:12:00

Dr. Jim: So that's a massive miss. So there's a couple of different things that, that I'm curious about. So you're having regular meetings when it comes to the project management piece of it, because you'll have different status updates and deliverables and things like that, and. Everybody's saying everything's fine.

And then one of the things that you find out is nobody's logged in. How does something like that get missed?

Melissa Turley: Exactly, and I had to step back myself and reassess what happened to that point. And what I came up with is I thought all our communication had been with the vendor. And it was in a big group setting, and I felt like some of these employees perhaps didn't feel confident speaking up in that setting and saying, I'm not on track and I need help.

[: 00:13:00

Dr. Jim: if I'm understanding this correctly, there's an external implementation plan where the vendor is defining what needs to be done by who and who owns that? what I'm gathering from what you're describing is that there wasn't a mirrored version of that internally where all of the different swim lanes were defined.

The accountabilities and deliverables weren't defined or mapped out or owned. Am I understanding that correctly?

as very lax. And when we had [: 00:14:00

Payroll would get this done or finance would do this, so it would do that and HR would do this. What I would prefer to do in what I do now is break it down into details. You need more detailed accountability. So give a person responsible for a particular task and not just a department and a timeframe, and also way up.

What those tasks are, what's the risk of not having them done in a timely fashion? for example, auditing a program audit, auditing the data. If it says audit data and you have a department who needs to do it, and it's marked off, it's done. It sounds great. But what was audited and what was the results?

he information that's put in [: 00:15:00

Dr. Jim: So that makes sense from a hindsight perspective. But I wanna, I want to take you back to, delay one and delay two and particularly the second delay. So when you have something like this pop up, if you are the owner of the project and you're the key person on that. On this initiative when something like that gets missed, if it's me sitting in that seat. I'm gonna be sweating a lot because that's like a massive miss. So tell me about what was going through your head and the conversations that you had to have to explain how this happened because other people involved in the process that are at a higher level than you are gonna want to know.

How does something like that gets missed? So what was that conversation like?

rojects. Often you'll manage [: 00:16:00

And what I was hearing and managing, and there were managers at the same level as me overseeing their own team, and I didn't wanna overstep my authority and be managing someone else's department as well. So I think myself, ownership and knowing what was I responsible for, to what extent was it for every department, which wasn't my understanding as well.

However, the success of those other departments affected the success of my team as well.

on that second delay. I also discovered more information in that, and it was that someone in the other department had contacted our existing HRIS provider and canceled that as well without communicating. And when we started this project I was also told to step back and delegate more, get out of the trenches.

ontrol than I normally would [: 00:17:00

And I managed how I would other projects in the past, and I was then meeting with other employees one-on-one across departments then, and having internal meetings with my department and other departments to meet that goal and that next live date, which we did. But I myself rang the providers and extended our existing company and extended the incoming vendor, and that was three days before a payroll was meant to be run.

being in the trenches where [: 00:18:00

So my management style completely changed as well.

Dr. Jim: So there's two different things that's happening right now. So one, you have the project that's been delayed a second time. And you have to set up, a firefighting mode to get it back on track. And then you have this cancellation bit that's happening with the existing ven with the incumbent that was canceled without your knowledge.

So you have to solve that fire. But you're operating under the instructions that you need to. Be more strategic versus hands-on or granular in, in the effort. So you have a lot of these different competing things that you're going that, that are happening all at the same time. So you have to triage those things and solve those.

ds-on to extremely hands off [: 00:19:00

Melissa Turley: that's where I set up then change agents in the other departments as well. So I was working with particular contacts in those departments while we worked through these urgent matters. So instead of having a whole department meeting, we narrowed it down to. Pairing up certain employees with other department employees to work closely and help each other and with the [00:20:00] vendor, and putting in more strict and well defined dashboards as well, so where people can update information more immediately instead of waiting for meetings to give updates.

So things like Google Docs, Gantt charts, that sort of thing. And just breaking down who's doing what when, and making sure that we had regular meetings and held those people accountable. So they knew Thursday, three o'clock, this meeting, these are the five top things we need to have done to make this happen.

And that was that different level of control as well. So change agents, dashboards, and also celebrating wins. We need to, we had to celebrate the wins of those that had done their jobs as well in time. And that helps with the transparency builds accountability, right? And so we also, celebrated those that had achieved their goals and.

well for all staff as it is [: 00:21:00

Everyone's saying the they're all on track, everything's going great. And I felt comfortable to pull back then and concentrate on other projects. But I had to change then at that time when I had to get back in the trenches. But I had to find time as well and be intentional about setting that time aside.

So one book I'd read was called Deep Work by Cal Newport, and he speaks about the importance of finding focused and uninterrupted work. And so I took that on board and I had to shut my door and prioritize these things at that time to make sure that these vendors were contacted and contracts extended.

Everything else had to just be put on hold.

alked about was the level of [: 00:22:00

Or was this sort of the first big implementation that the organization had gone through?

Melissa Turley: I would say it was the first big. Project that was implemented. There was a lot of employees had been there 10 years or so, but I hadn't worked on a cross-functional team with these particular employees as well. So it was all very new and many people in their career don't have the experience or opportunity to go through implementing A-H-R-I-M-S.

For example, you can go into an organization, be there for four years and move to another one. You may learn a new program. But you're not necessarily the one transitioning or implementing a new one, and so it's not something I've done in every position in my career either. So I think that had a lot to contribute to the ebbs and flows and the performance and the changes of our implementation date.

hat we're all learning as we [: 00:23:00

And document that and then reflect on it. If you have a similar project like this in the future, that hopefully we could prevent those things from happening again and take a risk management approach. I think spend more time to plan and assess, what's the consequences of these particular tasks not being met in a timely manner, and break it down to stages as well.

Dr. Jim: Yeah, I mean I think I think all of those steps are good, and I think probably the starting point, whenever you're looking at any sort of large implementation like this, and this is for somebody else that might be listening in, is. You need to do a maturity assessment of the organization.

g something like this? Do we [: 00:24:00

Melissa Turley: Yes, I agree. I agree. I think spending more time, whether it's a day or a few hours, is plan and take that risk assessment and see where you stand. What's the skill sets of your current employees? Do you need an external consultant? Do you have references on the current vendor and feel more confident that they can really help get you through this process.

rted on the vendor selection [: 00:25:00

Melissa Turley: You certainly need to have the involvement of the right stakeholders so you would not exclude it, for example. Or payroll if it's their main system, and just have HR involved. You need to look at who should be involved and do you need all of those people involved. And then selecting, as I mentioned earlier, with change agents have one representative from each department who's then has accountability for following up with their own department and team as well on helping them reach their goals.

Have more communication internally across departments, team building, trying to spark conversations. I felt a lot of this process was we're segregated, a lot of the departments, and I think we could have spent a lot more team building at the beginning to bring everyone closer while we're all on the same page.

confident and safe to speak [: 00:26:00

So having that, assessing your risks, prioritizing your tasks, I love doing Gantt charts. Splitting 'em up, say into four stages and color coding them and prioritize those tasks in each section. And when you complete those sections. Celebrate those as small wins. I think that's motivating for employees and do a team building event.

It may be donut day or ice cream day, or ax throwing day, if you feel like to get rid of those frustrations with implementing such a system. And so I think there's a lot of planning that needs to be done at the beginning and don't look at things that seem visibly. Okay, drill down on details. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

hired for a reason. They're [: 00:27:00

To help with success. So I think a lot of the setup, like you said, the framework and if you've put in a project like this before or another department and they've done an assessment of what went well before, pull on that information. See if you can learn from that. Don't reinvent the wheel. Try and reach out to other companies who may have implemented a system and see if they have a framework you may be able to tailor.

And there's lots of AI products too. And with your dashboards, you can put Excel spreadsheets into, there's a site called the bricks.com, which is another resource that you could use. So there's so many things there. Now, we didn't use Google Docs at the time, at the beginning. These are things that would've been a lot better than just spreadsheeting.

So technology now has helped a lot with these processes.

e moving way faster than you [: 00:28:00

Melissa Turley: Yes, I would certainly step back and spend a lot more time planning and have a more realistic go live date. I think we had false hope and were so excited from hearing, it's like a sales pitch, from a vendor and we were so frustrated with our current system. I think that was a big motivating factor as well, that we just couldn't wait to get rid of our current system and move to something else that would make our day-to-day work lives a lot easier.

re your realistic timelines. [: 00:29:00

So we're all on this happy moment. We're all on board. Again, no resistance to change is a good thing, but then it could be counterproductive in some ways where we may not have spent enough time where we didn't. I feel spend enough time planning and looking under the hood a bit closer, and we were just looking at what was evident in front of us as being too optimistic.

And unfortunately it backfired in many ways. So I think there's a lot I would change. I would definitely ask more questions and document more and drill down on responsibilities to help with accountability and understand what my role was as well and to what extent, and reach out to the managers in those departments and try and help where I could.

But that time was a problem as well, and I would certainly be more. Involved because of the consequences of that sort of job. That project was important. Okay.

at I think about when you're [: 00:30:00

Melissa Turley: Yes. I think that's where once you've selected your vendor, you should have a pre-project planning meeting and not with your vendor. Initially. You should have it internally with the key stakeholders. And establish who will be doing what, including myself, what's my accountability? Am I, is my accountability across all departments or just my own?

And so that's important, and then that helps give me the authority. Visible authority in other departments to be able to reach out and not feel like I'm encroaching on their space or, you don't manage my department. And not that I wanted to do that, it's just more of a helping them succeed part and working together.

be working towards a common [: 00:31:00

Let them volunteer and take accountability themselves of what they're going to do. And that's where I think you get more buy-in and then track it from there and hold people accountable, but then celebrate those small wins as well. People need to be engaged and rewarded as you go.

Dr. Jim: Yeah, I might be off base, but when I hear you describe what happened, I think some of these problems that popped up can come from a discomfort of getting into other people's kitchens, like you've said several times, you don't wanna overstep your bounds or you don't wanna micromanage somebody else's group.

eddling. When you're looking [: 00:32:00

Am I off base in reading that?

Melissa Turley: You are absolutely right and it was also in line with the feedback I received from my manager is to step back and start delegating and get outta the trenches. So that was also a reason why I wasn't as proactive and getting involved in both my own department and the other departments. So that was partly why I took that route, that leadership route as well.

Yes, and it can be to the extent of my perception too, I don't wanna overstep that. I've also been told to step back, so it was very conflicting for me to try and get a project managed correctly without being able to manage the way that. I've done it in the past and trying to follow some feedback.

ink about that person that's [: 00:33:00

That will set them up for success when they're taking on this major implementation for maybe the first time in their career.

Melissa Turley: Yes, I would say step back and take a look at the big picture. Be curious, ask questions, and drill down on details, and don't be afraid to ask for help. Reach out to other managers. And also reach out to your employees and collaborate. They have so much to offer and they're there to support you as well.

And so you get buy-in with change management when you collaborate, but you also need to reach out to those. Other managers and not be afraid of any pushback. Don't be afraid that if you don't know how to do something or you're struggling, we all need help at some stage, and it ends up worse if you don't ask for help now.

hink that's something that I [: 00:34:00

In this case, we had the vendors. Communicating mainly in these group settings, but I think some people may feel embarrassed if they're overworked and they can't meet these goals and they don't want to tell a vendor and their manager in the meeting, oh I haven't done the job that I told you I'm on, on track with.

se early before you get to a [: 00:35:00

And it's best to know about these things sooner. Just take a deep breath. Don't put too much pressure on yourself either. I think being a leader, you really need to take care of yourself. There's a book I read called Let Them by Mel Robbins, and it's called the Let Them Theory, and she speaks about just letting people be who they are, but let you be who you are as well.

It's the most powerful thing in leadership is to just let them and step back. And don't take on all the burden that's not yours to carry and relinquish control. It's okay. You can only focus, refocus your energy and lead with clarity and peace on the things that you can control. So that's probably the best advice I could give and learn from your mistakes.

We're not perfect, but ask for help from other people that have experience in it before, and that's the best part about experience is you get to have an opportunity to. Make mistakes and learn from them.

people want to continue the [: 00:36:00

Melissa Turley: Absolutely. They can reach out to me on LinkedIn. It's Melissa Turley in Redding, California. You should be able to find me out there. I'd love to hear from anyone.

Dr. Jim: I appreciate you hanging out with us and sharing this story. And I think it's a really important one for a lot of reasons. I think when I think about this conversation, there's a few things that I want to emphasize, and I think the first is don't rely on your assumptions.

And don't rely on your assumptions being the right assumptions when you're looking at big initiatives like this. One of the things that I think everybody needs to understand when they're taking on big initiatives of any type, regardless of your experience level, there's a handful of things that we need to understand.

project doesn't go sideways. [: 00:37:00

So when you combine both of those things the instinct. Could be to move faster than you need to move to sort out all of these different issues. And that's where you get into trouble. So the biggest thing that I take away from this, and it's consistent with a lot of different change initiatives, is that in order to pull these things off well you really need to be. Mindful and intentional about slowing down the process on the front end of it and making sure that everything is spelled out with a degree of detail that makes you uncomfortable to get this done. And I think the big thing that I pull away from this conversation is that there may have been. An unwillingness to be uncomfortable on the front end of the process that led to blind spots that ended up catching people flatfooted.

armchair quarterbacking this [: 00:38:00

Make sure you leave us a review on your favorite podcast player and subscribe to the show and then tune in next time where we'll have another leader hanging out with us and sharing with us the stories and the mistakes that they made that ended up actually helping them hit fast forward on their career and their transformations.