In November 2024, McKinseys Alex Panas (the global leader of industries) and Axel Karlsson (global leader of practices and growth platforms) wrote:The tech opportunities for todays organizations are alluring. Businesses are racing to capitalize on the proliferation of technologies like generative AI, and with more data at their fingertips than ever, the potential to transform the business through tech seems vast. But companies looking to make digital hay need to play their cards right, otherwise they risk falling into the same traps that befuddled business leaders of yore faced with earlier digital disruptions.Pana and Karlsson cited digital missteps like not having a clear vision for a digital project or overestimating a projects ultimate economic return to the company. But there are two other ground floor caveats that also are requisite for digital project success: The new technology must be seamlessly integrated into company business processes; andthe users must be trained to successfully use it.The goal is total digital assimilation into the business. That digital assimilation is hard to attain if the business processes that use the technology dont work right, or if employees get confused with the new technology. At this point, the project sputters and the blame game starts, often with the burden placed on IT.Related:Why is this? Isnt it the job of HR or user departments to train employees and to redesign business processes so the business flows can work with new digital technology? And, isnt it ITs job to stick to technical tasks, like developing, integrating, testing and deploying new digital technologies so that users can use them?Thats the general idea in theory, but all you have to do is to walk up to a bank teller or a clerk at a hardware store counter whos struggling to put your transaction through. As they struggle, they will tell you, Its the system.How to Deal with the 'Its the System' ProblemI still find CIOs today who will consider a digital project complete and successful if delivered within budget and timeline. They wash their hands of it and dont consider it their responsibility if users later struggle with the system. Or, maybe the new system renders an internal business process painful or unwieldy. Unfortunately, taking a position like this can cost a career!Digital transformation expert Eric Kimberling talks about why CIOs get fired and says that CIOs can become captivated by the technology itself, focusing on its bells and whistles and cool features, while ignoring the organizational and human dynamics of a transformation. Related:He goes on to say, CIOs sometimes assume that if technology works well from a technical perspective, it will automatically work for the business ... However, this assumption may or may not hold true. The best CIOs I have worked with are actually those who possess limited technological knowledge but possess a deep understanding of operations and the business they work for. They recognize the value and importance of the human and organizational aspects of change.CEOs and boards see this, too. Thats why they expect their CIOs to be as strategically and operationally on top of the business as they are on the technology. Its also incumbent on CIOs to assume more active roles in the human and business sides of digital project deployments if they want to avoid the its the system blame syndrome.The CIO Role in User EducationUser education and business process design isnt the forte of most CIOs, nor of IT staff for that matter. How can CIOs and IT engage more substantially in digital projects to ensure that systems work well in business workflows and that knowledge transfer to employees has occurred?Digital assimilation should be the goal of the CIO and the project team. If a digital system is to be assimilated into the business fabric of the company, it must meld well with business processes and be intuitively simple for workers to use and understand. Seamless business workflows and optimal ease of use should be ground-level goals of the user-IT project team, and it is the CIO who should push this idea. It is not enough to proclaim a project complete and successful just because it meets the timeline and comes in under budget.Related:Project tasks should reflect business processes and ease of use goals. If a business process needs to be redesigned to accommodate new digital technology, tasks should be assigned for developing the workflow, doing the business workflow walkthrough, documenting it, testing it for all routine operations foreseeable exceptions and debugging it until it runs cleanly. If this sounds a bit like the design, develop, test-and-deploy sequence of traditional IT application development, it sounds that way because it is. Developing, testing and revising business process flows, and usability should have equal billing with getting the software done.New business processes using digital technology should be pilot tested. Before new software is deployed, its tested in a system environment that emulates the environment the software will run with in production. The same should be done with new business processes that incorporate digital technology. The new tech and business process should be run in a pilot environment that emulates the live business environment where users will be operating. This is the only way you can really see the business issues and fix them for a smooth project cutover. The CIO should collaborate with other C levels. Launching new business processes and tech, and ensuring that employees have the skills to use them, is everybodys business. However, its especially the business of the user area executive and the CIO who should be co-sponsoring the project and energizing their teams. When both parties and their staffs are aligned with the on-the-ground strategy of making sure the tech works, and that users know how to use that tech, theyll not only finish the project, theyll fail-proof it.