So, things didn't go quite as planned. Milestones have all been extended, the budget has blown through its contingency and your people are exhausted. What now?
I've sat in this exact spot as a leader. I do not miss it. It is hard, emotional, and the team feels as if they have failed. The truth is that these moments are exactly where a reset becomes possible.
If this is where you are right now, it does not mean you are failing at digital transformation. It is a very normal part of the journey, even for the most experienced leaders. The question is where you go from here.
The instinct, when a programme is struggling, is to add. More training. Another vendor workshop. A revised plan with tighter dates. I understand the impulse. It feels like you're doing something. But more activity on a programme that has lost its way just produces more activity.
Before you add anything, pause and ask a harder question: what were we actually trying to achieve, in plain language, for the business? If you can't answer that in one sentence without mentioning the technology, you've found the real problem. It was only ever a technology project.
I remember a steering committee where every update was focused on the platform: go-live dates, module rollouts, licence counts. When someone finally asked what the programme would change for the people in the business, the room went quiet. Including me. That silence is the pattern I have seen again and again since, and it all starts in a very similar way.
So, stop talking about how fantastic the technology will be, even if that's true. Reconnect the delivery team and the rest of the business to outcomes people can see and recognise. Then check back in a month and ask a simple question: what do you believe this programme will deliver for you?
Once the story is reconnected, a few shifts make the difference:
👉 Find the smallest next win, and ship it. Rescue doesn't come from a bigger relaunch. It comes from proving, quickly and visibly, that things have changed and are now working. Then share it. Momentum is a story people tell each other in the corridor, and you need those stories to rebuild buy-in before you need anything else.
👉 Fix who owns adoption, not just who owns delivery. Most stalled transformations have a project manager and no clear leadership sponsor. You need both. One focuses on day-to-day delivery. The other is accountable for the impact on the business. They are different jobs, and the absence of the second will make or break the whole thing.
👉 Bring the sceptics back into the room. The people who have lost faith in the programme, or criticised it openly, are your best diagnostic tool. They've voted with their feet. Ask them directly how things are going and what you should still be doing differently. Not in a survey. In a conversation.
Every stalled transformation I've seen shares one thing. Somewhere along the way, the story shifted from what we're trying to achieve to what we're trying to install. Rescuing it rarely means starting again. It means getting back to the original story: why we are doing this, why we believe it will benefit you, and why it matters to the business.
Here's my reflection for you this week: if you had to explain your transformation in one sentence, without naming the technology, could you? And could your people?
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