Anyone who has tried to introduce a new system or process knows the challenge is rarely about the technology. It's about people, the change management process.

At Riff, our founders have been responsible for rolling out new systems in mid market companies. For example, getting 100 guys in a lead and zinc mine to use "the cloud" wasn't exactly a walk in the park. We get it.

Whenever a new system is introduced, leaders worry:

“People won’t use it.”
“They’re used to the current process.”
“Change management will be hard. Let's wait until we have more time” (we all know that'll be never)

When it comes to the current process for most BAU decision types, we need to be honest about what that looks like for team members:

• Teams messages or calls to work out what the process even is.

• An email.

• A meeting.

• Someone searching SharePoint for an example form or business case.

• Drafting the details from scratch.

• More emails.

• Asking who needs to approve.

• Chasing them - in more emails.

• Approval buried in a thread that is never getting filed.

(You're over it just reading about it).

That’s not a process people love. It’s a process people avoid.

And as scrutiny on spend tightens and expectations around speed increase, informal decision-making won’t hold up much longer. If you can't look back on the year and in 10 minutes, understand why $ went out the door and what the impact was, you need to address the change management as you improve processes, rather than use this as a reason to push out any change for another 12 months.

How We Support Change Management

1. Start with a few high-friction processes everyone complains about today

Don’t roll it out everywhere and say Riff is for every decision you ever need approved (it can be, but ease in).

Pick one decision type everyone already finds painful:

• New hires

• Software purchases

• Innovation spend

• Unbudgeted opex

If it’s already frustrating, improvement feels like relief, not change.

2. Show the time saving with an example

The biggest barrier isn’t resistance. It’s starting.

With Riff, your team goes from a blank page or an old form to a structured draft business case in minutes.

They don't need to know how to prompt well - Riff prompts them
They don't need to speak finance - Riff translates for them
They don't need to be great at writing a business case - that's what Riff is there for

Seeing is believing.

Once someone experiences how quickly an idea they have becomes a credible first draft they're proud to share, adoption takes care of itself.

3. Highlight the accountability on leaders

A lot of delays sit with leadership. Often that's due to out of control inboxes or a lack of information. The request isn't decision ready and giving that feedback or asking questions just feels too high friction for anything that isn't urgent.

Your team definitely wants that improved. Position Riff as a way to keep leaders accountable too.

• Leaders are invited directly into the decision chat

• All context is there

• The system tracks turnaround time

• Nothing gets buried in inboxes

When leaders respond faster, everyone wins.

4. Sell what’s most annoying today

Don’t sell “AI transformation”.

Sell:

• No more chasing for approvals over email and Teams

• No more writing business cases from scratch

• No more questions asked at the end after you've already wasted time

• No more meetings that run an hour over just to get on the same page

If you remove the most irritating part of someone’s workflow, they’ll adopt the solution.

5. Invite people to shape the system

Nobody likes a top-down mandate. Acknowledge that the people closest to the work and the pain should help shape how we solve it with new tools.

Let team know they can provide feedback on:

• Which decisions live in Riff

• What the templates should look like

• How easy it is to use

• What they wish it did

Riff is a curious and fast team that actively invites feedback.
We reply within 24 hours, often within 30 minutes.

When people feel part of the design, they support the outcome.

6. Time-box an experiment

Pick a two week period and tell people to try it.

Two weeks.
Real submissions.

Then gather feedback from what people have actually seen and felt - not assumptions.

When people know it’s a test, not a permanent imposition, they lean in. They experiment. They give input.

And most of the time?

They don’t want to go back.

The Truth About Adoption

People don’t resist better systems.

They resist pointless change they had no influence over.

If the current process is slow, ambiguous, and frustrating, replacing it isn’t disruption, it’s progress.

Change management becomes easy when the alternative is email chaos, forms from 2019 on SharePoint and managers saying they want a business case and nobody knows how to deliver.

And that’s exactly what Riff is designed to fix.