My company migrated from Marketo to Pardot a few months ago. We had been using Marketo for about 10 years, so it was a big change. Here are some high-level tips to keep in mind for change management and implementation.

1. Identify your stakeholders

Who from your company or partners needs to stay in the loop and when?

Use a RACI matrix to keep track of who’s responsible, accountable, who should be consulted, and who should be informed.

A good project manager knows everyone who should be involved and when.

An executive sponsor can help with faster decision-making.

2. Predict the risks

A post-mortem is about reviewing the outcome of a project and what went well or what could have gone better. A pre-mortem is having that review before the project even kicks off. By brainstorming and speculating on what could go wrong, you can prevent it from happening.

3. Communicate often

Err on the side of overcommunicating. With the hustle and bustle of the day, people forget things.

Share updates in different ways, whether it’s vocally in a meeting, writing via Slack, or through Loom video recordings.

Share why the change is important to each type of stakeholder. What’s in it for them? And how will it impact or improve their workday?

4. Document as much as possible

To keep people in the loop, and enable them to find answers themselves, document the changes and procedures.

5. Define the timeline

People like to know when they should expect things to happen. Not everything needs to be set it stone, but to provide some direction, it’s important to share a timeline. It helps with resource management and creates clarity.

6. Provide training

With any new technology, there is a learning curve. No matter how intuitive it is, there is still some level of training required, even if it’s self-serve training by reading documentation.

Sum Up

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. These are high-level tips for implementing a project and managing change.

In a future post I’ll share some more detailed, nuanced tips on my experience migrating from Marketo to Pardot.