Carragee Consulting

Change management fail!

I unilaterally decided to leave my 3.5 yo daughter’s strider bike behind after our summer in MN.

She’s a strong and capable kid with a new pedal bike in CA and I was too cheap to bring her balance bike back because I felt she didn’t need it anymore.

The problem is that she’s too good at her “racer bike” without pedals and the coaster breaks on the pedal bike are setting her back from the lightning speed she is accustomed to ripping around the neighborhood.

I know that in the long run she’ll want to adopt the pedals and the expanded range of her new orange bike, but the transition time feels like an eternity and an unfair setback for a kid who is used to only steady progress on nearly every front.

I’ve been part of enough software roll outs to know that I should have approached the change management differently for a less irate and more successful adoption.

1) include the users in the decision process (since you’re so big and strong can we give your bike to a little kid just learning?)

2) frame a vision of the future and ensure the benefits of the transition are understood (you’re going to be faster and be able to ride more places when you learn this new one!)

3) acknowledge and account for the decrease in productivity during the transition period (budget longer to get to daycare)

4) accept relapses are inevitable and the new process or tool may not be universally better (the strider is way lighter and easier to tuck under your arm or onto the stroller when she quits)

5) use social positioning and benchmarks (look at how these older kids use their pedal bikes)

Any other best practice parenting/ software rollout advice?!