If you were one of the first 10 people who purchased my book, there's a factual error in your printed copy.
I caught it at editor stage, months before launch. Somewhere in the publishing process I must have reverted versions, and the error I'd already killed went to print. You spend tens of hours (not quite a hundred) combing over this stuff. The error survived anyway.
What a wood duck!
My own book argues, and change management circles broadly agree, that the go-live is not the change. And there I was, launching that exact book, thinking: "Okay, it's published, it's out there, it's done."
But it's not "out there". You have to promote a book. You have to keep it findable and correct.
Daniel Kahneman described two modes of thinking: System 1, fast and intuitive; System 2, slow and deliberate, the one that checks the work. My launch ran entirely on System 1.
The euphoria of the milestone is the exact risk condition — maximum investment, maximum excitement, minimum System 2.
Sound like any go-live you've attended?
"It's published" is not "it's out there"
I'd done the editing, so I figured the words were ready. I hadn't understood what a typesetter actually does until Fernanda Buccelli got hold of the pages. Same words; suddenly a book. The ebook taught me the lesson a second time: a properly typeset ebook is a different product from words poured into a Kindle file.
And that factual error? Fixing it meant reconfiguring the typeset and pulling the book down from sale for five days. It's corrected now.
Then the quieter list. The website needed updating. Pragma, my AI change advisor, needed to be live with the book and carrying the correct sample chapter. All the little things, every one of them on the far side of "done".
But let's talk about you: if you're leading a complex change right now: are you striving for "done", or for "effective"? I've written before that go-live is not the finish line; it's roughly the halfway point of the human side of any transformation.
Not for lack of information
In fairness to me, this is my first time publishing a book. I was always going to make some rookie errors.
But I had all the guidance there. Publishing guides everywhere, and a professional lifetime of telling other people to plan past the launch. It's not for lack of information. It's the decisions you make in the moment.
I got excited about the culmination of my life's work...and ironically my own change practice went out the window! I should have been thinking in terms of the full launch process. I'd have made a client do exactly that.
It's the same reason certifications alone don't make a great change leader. The exam tests your information — never your decisions in the moment.
What does your program's version look like? Probably not a reverted file. Probably the benefits case nobody re-opens after the launch party, or the support roster that ends a fortnight after cutover. It's the risk that rarely makes it onto the risk register, because the people writing the register are the ones holding the champagne.
In better news: the people who have read it are really enjoying it. And one more item off the quieter list — my Goodreads author profile now exists. If you've read the book, your review would be much appreciated.
Your go-live is coming
Everyone's in the "sprint to Christmas" now.
Go-lives stacked through November, celebrations already pencilled in, everyone striving for "done", to feel smug on their Summer break.
Somewhere in your program is the equivalent of my reverted correction: something already fixed that will quietly un-fix itself while everyone claps. Go and find it now, while the slow brain is still running.
The full argument (aka: the one I wrote down and then didn't "live" myself) is Pragmatic Change, out now.