At Hyperion, our honest answer to that question is often a hard pill to swallow for the client. Because if we’re completely honest: if you still have to ask yourself at this point how you’re going to get traction, it’s actually already too late. Why a successful digital product shouldn’t be ‘pushed’ but ‘pulled’, and why the trash can is sometimes the right next step, read on for our analysis.
The myth of the ‘push’
Many organizations still approach innovation as a linear process: Idea → Build → Roll-out (Push). They invest heavily in change management and internal communication campaigns to convince employees to use the new tool.
But in reality, digital adoption works differently. A truly successful pilot project barely needs that “push.” A pilot project should scale itself through pure value creation.
The signal you should be waiting for as a Business Director or IT Manager isn’t an approving nod from the steering committee, it’s the impatience of the user.
The ‘pull’: the sound of success
What does a successful pilot sound like? It sounds like users tugging at your sleeve. In our podcast, we recently described it like this:
“Wow, it’s so great that this works now! But couldn’t this also fit into that other flow? Because that would really save me time. And couldn’t the invoices roll out automatically from there too?”
This is the golden moment. Users aren’t just asking for the tool, they’re asking for more.
- They see the value.
- They want it to integrate into their daily reality.
- They become ambassadors to their colleagues.
If that “pull” is missing, if you hear silence after the test phase, or worse, if you have to force people to log in, then you don’t have a scalability problem. You have a value problem.
The ‘sunk cost’ trap: daring to throw it away
Say you’ve built a technically perfect product, but that ‘pull’ never comes. What do you do then?
The human (and business) reflex is: fix it. We’ve already spent so much budget and hours, we can’t go back. We invest a bit more in training, tweak the interface a little, force adoption through policy.
At Hyperion, we advocate for a more painful but healthier approach: dare to look at the trash can. Sometimes you have to be willing to say: “This isn’t working. Get rid of it.”
That sounds like destroying capital, but it isn’t.
- The lessons are the value: you’ve learned what doesn’t work. That knowledge is crucial for the next attempt.
- Stop the bleeding: keeping a system alive that no one has embraced, and forcing it to scale, costs far more in maintenance, licenses, and frustration down the line than pulling the plug now.
Start over. Build something new. Use the lessons, not the code.
The lifeline: business accountability
Is it always the fault of the product or the software? Certainly not.
Sometimes we see clients where the solution genuinely holds up, but the organization freezes up. There’s fear of change, or priorities are unclear. At that point, our role shifts from “IT partner” to “strategic advisor.”
That’s when it’s time to, figuratively, knock on the Business Director’s table. The discussion shouldn’t be about features or bugs anymore, but about accountability.
“Look, we built this together because we thought it was a good idea. Do we move forward or not? If we want to make this successful, it’s no longer an IT project, it’s a business responsibility. You need to show ownership now.”
Without that “Business Sponsor” who sticks their neck out and says “From now on, this is how we work, and here’s why,” even the best software will die a quiet death.
Seek out the resistance
Innovation isn’t a straight line. It’s a process of discovering, failing, and daring to confront.
Working on a pilot project and unsure about the next step? The litmus test is simple: listen to your users. Do you hear enthusiasm and demanding new questions? Then it’s time to scale. Do you hear silence? Then be prepared to face the confrontation, whether with your product or with your management.
At Hyperion, we don’t just build tomorrow’s digital solutions, we also dare to ask today’s difficult questions. That’s how we build your digital future.
Listen to the full discussion
Want to hear Koen Everaert, Daan De Cat, and Tjel Breeur dig deeper into the dynamic between business and IT? In this podcast episode, they discuss unfiltered why some projects fail and how an organization takes ownership.