Why most transformations stall in month nine

Most change programmes do not fail on the day they launch. They fail quietly, months later, when the first results come in and the organisation turns its attention to the next priority. We wanted to know when that happens and why.

What we looked at

Over two years we followed 40 transformation programmes in companies with between 500 and 20,000 people, across logistics, banking, healthcare and retail. Every month we asked one question: is this programme still changing how work is done, or only reporting that it is?

The stall has a pattern

In 26 of the 40 programmes, progress dropped sharply between months seven and eleven. The plan itself was rarely the problem. In almost every case, three things happened at the same time.

• The first results arrived, and leadership attention moved on to the next priority.

• The programme team, built for the launch, was disbanded or moved to other work.

• Ownership of the new way of working had never moved to the line managers who run it every day.

The plan was finished. The change was not. Nobody noticed the difference until the numbers slipped back.

What the other 14 did differently

The programmes that kept going were not better funded or better designed. They treated the handover as part of the work, not as the end of it.

• They named a line owner for every change before launch, not after the programme closed.

• They kept a small team in place for twelve months, not six.

• They measured how work was being done, not only the results it produced.

Three questions to ask in month six

1. Who will own this change when the programme team leaves?

2. Which number tells us the new way of working is still in use?

3. What will the board look at in month twelve, and who will present it?

A transformation is not finished when the plan is delivered. It is finished when nobody remembers the old way of working. That usually takes longer than the programme budget assumes, and planning for it costs far less than starting again.