To overcome resistance from IT staff during a legacy systems upgrade, strategic engagement and transparent communication are key. Begin by involving them early in the process to gather input and foster ownership; for example, hosting collaborative planning sessions can make them feel valued. Providing comprehensive training builds confidence in the new system. Addressing concerns openly helps build trust and ensures everyone is heard. By implementing these strategies, you not only ease the transition but also strengthen team cohesion. How might you apply these approaches in your next tech upgrade?

Engage and involve the IT people throughout the process… From solutioning, evaluation, and selection so they are part of the decision, the design so they can provide their inputs and feedback especially if they are the experts of the legacy system, to the build and test so they have a hand in the change and finally making the transition so they can take ownership after to deployment and transition to production support. This will also require an extensive change management and training for the new system and processes.

Les résistances sont souvent liées à une peur. Et en particulier, pour les experts informatiques, à la peur de perdre une sorte de "pouvoir" lié à cette expertise. Pour vaincre ces résistances, il faut les impliquer dans le projet et les faire monter en expertise sur les nouveautés technologiques qu'il apporte. J'ai eu à le faire plusieurs fois avec des personnes dont tout le monde me disait qu'elles ne changeraient jamais et ce sont elles qui sont devenues les "moteurs" du projet.

Eu acredito que tentar compreender a preocupação por muitas questões (medo de comprometer a segurança, falta de treinamento, interrupç~ies no serviço), engajar a equipe de TI desde o início do processo, focar na colaboração onde a TI é vista como parceiro estratégico e ter sempre a cominicação clara sempre. Dessa forma, ao adotar uma postura de escuta ativa, transparência e suporte contínuo, é possível transformar a resistência em uma oportunidade de melhoria conjunta.

Resistance occurs whenever the party in question perceive the incoming change as causing more problems which will result in unnecessary burden on their end. To avoid that, we'll need to start identifying pain points both from the user of that system and also from IT staff as system maintainers. The system upgrade plan should then be built upon the premise of making life better for everyone involved. Make sure feedback loops are set up and transparent every steps along the way. Entrust system ownership to the IT staff and expose them to other requirements and stakeholders so that everyone is on the same page. Make them part of the journey to reach the goal. Instead of 'overcoming the pushback', make them the drivers of the change instead.