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A programme can go live on time, within budget and still fail to change the way a business operates. The difference often comes down to the people responsible for making the technology work and making the change stick.

The new platform is live. The project team has delivered against the deadline and the business has invested heavily in the technology. But six months later, teams are still updating the old spreadsheet, managers are relying on familiar processes and the promised improvements have yet to materialise.

The technology works. The business case made sense. So what went wrong?

Two roles are central to this challenge: the technical lead responsible for making the solution work in a live business environment and the change lead responsible for helping people adopt it. They have different responsibilities, but both are needed to turn a technology investment into a lasting business outcome.

Why technology rarely decides the outcome

Digital transformation is difficult to deliver successfully, even when the technology itself is sound.

Gartner's 2025 CIO and Technology Executive Survey, which gathered data from 3,186 CIOs and technology executives across 88 countries, found that on average only 48% of digital initiatives meet or exceed their business outcome targets. The organisations with the highest achievement rate, where 71% of initiatives hit their targets, were those where business leaders co-owned digital delivery with IT rather than simply sponsoring it.

Bain & Company's 2024 research paints a more challenging picture still, finding that 88% of business transformations fail to achieve their original ambitions. Bain linked success closely to talent and in particular to how organisations staff the roles that matter most to the transformation.

These figures measure different things and should not be treated as directly comparable. They do, however, point to a consistent challenge: delivering a technology programme is not the same as achieving its intended business outcomes.

A platform can be technically sound and still fall short if it does not fit the way a business operates. Equally, a well-designed solution can struggle to deliver value if people continue using existing processes or do not understand how their roles need to change.

That is why transformation needs more than technical delivery alone. It needs people who can make the solution work and people who can help the organisation work differently because of it.

Hire one

The technical lead: making the solution work

The technical lead is responsible for turning the intended solution into something that works in practice. That means more than overseeing implementation or ensuring the technology meets its specification.

The role involves understanding the business problem, making sound technical decisions and ensuring the solution can operate reliably within the organisation's existing environment. This may include navigating legacy platforms, integration challenges, data requirements, security considerations and competing business priorities.

Gartner's findings reinforce this. The organisations achieving the strongest results were those where technology and business leaders were jointly responsible, accountable and involved in delivery, rather than IT delivering against a brief handed over by the business.

The implication is that technical decisions cannot be made in isolation from the outcomes the business is trying to achieve. A solution may meet its technical requirements but still create friction if it is difficult to integrate, maintain or use within existing workflows.

A strong technical lead helps bridge that gap. They need to understand the intended outcome, identify potential constraints early and work with the wider programme team to ensure the solution is fit for the environment in which it will operate.

When assessing candidates for these roles, businesses should look beyond technical knowledge alone. Relevant delivery experience, the ability to navigate complexity and an understanding of the wider operating environment are all important considerations.

Hire two

The change lead: making the change stick

Even when a solution works as intended, its value depends on whether people adopt it.

A new platform can introduce different processes, responsibilities and expectations. Employees may need to learn new ways of working, managers may need to change how they lead their teams and established processes may need to be retired. Without support through that transition, people can revert to familiar habits.

This is where the change lead plays a central role.

The role is focused on the people side of implementation: understanding who will be affected, preparing teams for what is changing, equipping people with the knowledge they need and helping leaders reinforce new ways of working. It also involves identifying resistance, gathering feedback and addressing issues that could prevent adoption.

Prosci's Best Practices in Change Management, 12th edition, published in 2023, drew on research involving more than 2,600 practitioners. It found that 88% of projects with excellent change management met or exceeded their objectives, compared with 13% of projects where change management was rated poor.

These results show an association between effective change management and better project outcomes. They do not prove that change management alone caused the difference and the findings are based on respondents' reports of their own projects. However, they underline the importance of treating adoption as part of delivery rather than something to address once implementation is complete.

Leadership involvement matters too. BCG's research found a gap between executives' perceptions of leadership engagement and the commitment they saw from middle management. While three in four executives felt leadership engagement was good, only one in three reported committed middle-management engagement.

That gap matters because managers often play a practical role in translating a programme's objectives into day-to-day behaviour. If they are not engaged, equipped or given the time to support the change, adoption can become much harder.

The change lead needs to work with those leaders, not simply communicate updates to employees. The objective is to help the organisation move from understanding what is changing to consistently working in the new way.

Why is change capability at risk of being overlooked?

When a programme comes under pressure, the focus often shifts towards immediate delivery requirements: technical milestones, implementation dates, system readiness and budget. These are visible, measurable and difficult to ignore.

The work involved in preparing people for change can be harder to quantify. Its benefits may become apparent over time, as adoption improves and new processes become part of business as usual. That can make it more difficult to protect when budgets or timelines are challenged.

Whether change leadership is actually the first role to be cut will depend on the organisation and the programme. It should not be assumed to be true in every case. But it raises an important question for transformation leaders: when delivery pressure increases, are the people responsible for adoption given the same priority as those responsible for implementation?

McKinsey's Global Implementation Survey 2022, published in June 2023, found that large-scale transformations lost an average of 42% of their expected value during later phases. The research also found that organisations upgrading talent as part of their transformation were twice as likely to sustain their goals.

The findings highlight the importance of maintaining the right capabilities throughout a programme, including during implementation and the transition into business as usual.

This is not an argument for adding roles to every programme regardless of need. It is about understanding what expertise is required to deliver the intended outcomes and ensuring it remains in place for as long as the work demands it.

If a programme depends on people changing how they work, change capability should be considered in the delivery plan from the outset. Leaving it until the end risks treating adoption as a separate activity rather than part of achieving the business case.

What should businesses look for in each hire?

The right combination of skills will depend on the programme's complexity, the technology involved and the scale of the change. However, a few practical questions can help hiring teams assess whether candidates have the relevant experience.

There is also a question for the programme as a whole: who owns the benefits case after go-live? Technical delivery, change activity and business ownership need to work together if the expected outcomes are to be realised and sustained.

These questions are starting points rather than a universal checklist. The right assessment will depend on the programme and the responsibilities each role is expected to carry.

A question for your next transformation

Technology delivery and change leadership solve different problems. One helps ensure the solution works; the other helps ensure the organisation can use it effectively. Neither should be treated as a substitute for the other.

For businesses planning a major transformation, the challenge is to identify the capabilities needed across the full lifecycle of the programme and resource them accordingly. That includes thinking beyond go-live to the point where new systems, processes and behaviours need to become part of everyday operations.