You know the feeling. A meeting is going smoothly until someone casually mentions something, and suddenly the room feels heavy. It’s the moment when everyone realizes this solution isn’t going to work, or at least, not in the way they thought. That’s the essence of surprise in complex implementations—it’s not about a lack of preparation or skill; it’s about the fact that knowledge, no matter how thorough, will always reveal something unexpected.
Surprises are inevitable. No matter how much planning, shadowing, or knowledge transfer happens, the nature of project work is that some gaps will remain. The question isn’t how to avoid surprises entirely, but how to minimize them, prepare for them, and turn them into opportunities for growth.
1. Knowledge Sharing Beyond the Conference Room
Clients often come into a project thinking that if they share everything in meetings, the implementation team will have all the information they need. But no matter how many detailed PowerPoints or documents are shared, surprises will still happen. Why? Because no matter how much information is transferred in a formal setting, the nuance of how a business operates day to day is missing.
Day-to-Day World Immersion
The key to avoiding surprises is real-world immersion. Shadowing—not just observing but truly experiencing the operational environment—is critical. It’s about going beyond the artificial environment of a conference room, where processes can be discussed in theory but never truly understood in practice. Nuance lives in the day-to-day details: how a system is used under stress, how people interact with it when there are urgent demands, and how exceptions are handled. These are the types of details that get lost in knowledge transfer.
But clients also need to adopt a mindset that goes beyond mere collaboration. Business analysts and system implementers need to be treated as integral parts of the team, not as external consultants who are given a list of tasks. They need to become embedded in the operations, understand the business from the inside, and ideally, become experts themselves. This level of adoption doesn’t happen overnight, but it should be the goal early on. The faster analysts can understand the intricacies of the business, the fewer surprises will arise later.
Embed Redundancy
Clients should also realize that all knowledge transfer is imperfect. The more complex the system, the more likely it is that gaps will emerge later. Rather than fearing this, clients should build redundancy into the project: asking questions, inviting shadowing, and encouraging real-world interactions early in the process.
2. Lavendel's Role in Navigating Surprises
At Lavendel, we understand that surprises are not a failure of planning but a natural consequence of knowledge acquisition. As the technical experts, our role is to anticipate where surprises are likely to happen and mitigate their impact. One of the core ways we do this is by setting clear constraints early in the project. While tools like Pricefx offer immense flexibility, that flexibility can lead to scope creep, misalignment, and miscommunication if not kept in check.
Discovery and Foundation Workshops: Building Strong Foundations
One of the most critical steps Lavendel takes to avoid surprises is through our Discovery and Foundation Workshops. These aren’t just meetings—they are deep dives into your business. We push hard to draw out every detail, every corner case, and every challenge that may arise.
The workshops are about more than just transferring information; they are about exploring the unknowns. We ask the uncomfortable questions, challenge assumptions, and even encourage clients to find the dissenting voices within their teams. This process helps ensure that we uncover the marginal exceptions and edge cases that could otherwise cause a surprise later.
Workshops allow us to engage every part of the organization, from the frontline workers to the decision-makers, and this inclusion gives us a holistic understanding of the business. This deep engagement early on is key to minimizing surprises down the road. The Foundation Workshops aren’t about ticking off boxes—they’re about building a thorough, realistic understanding of what the project needs to achieve and identifying the possible pitfalls before they happen.
The Power of Constraints
By deliberately designing within boundaries, we create a focused framework that allows the team to be innovative without drifting away from the core goals. Constraints also help keep surprises manageable. They ensure that everyone—clients and implementers alike—has a clear understanding of what is feasible and what is a stretch. Surprises often emerge when expectations are misaligned, and a project starts veering off course because people believe the system can do everything.
We also know that simply outlining constraints once is not enough. Communication is a process, not an event. Important points need to be revisited and re-explained in different contexts throughout the project. Even if something seems clear early on, team members will often get swept up in the excitement of new possibilities and lose sight of initial expectations. As experts, it’s our job to remind clients—and ourselves—of the boundaries we’re working within.
A Special Relationship with Pricefx
Lavendel’s exclusive focus on Pricefx implementation gives us an advantage when surprises do arise. We have a close relationship with Pricefx, not just as users of the software but as partners who actively work with their team. When an unexpected challenge surfaces, we don’t just troubleshoot on our own. We pull Pricefx directly into the process to help resolve issues, understand the software’s evolving capabilities, and shape future planning. This collaboration ensures that our solutions aren’t just short-term fixes but part of a long-term strategy that aligns with the software’s ongoing development.
3. The Silver Lining: Embracing Surprises as Opportunities for Growth
No matter how much we try to prevent surprises, the reality is that knowledge always comes with them. As you learn more, you inevitably uncover things you didn’t know at the start. Surprises are a function of the learning process, not a reflection of poor planning. And once we accept this, we can start to view surprises not as setbacks, but as opportunities for growth.
At the heart of any successful implementation is adaptability. A project is rarely successful because everything went exactly to plan; it’s successful because the team knew how to pivot when the inevitable surprises arose. The ability to adapt comes from focusing on the bigger picture. In the long run, no one will care if every single bell and whistle was checked off a list. What they will remember is whether the system works, whether it makes their job easier, and whether the company is better for it.
Surprises are also where the best innovations often come from. When a project hits a bump, that’s often when you discover the next big idea. A successful launch is not the end of the road—it’s the platform from which future ideas can grow. Each surprise reveals a layer of insight that wasn’t available at the start, and it’s that insight that propels teams toward new solutions and more effective systems in the long run.
Rather than fearing surprises, successful teams expect them and embrace them as part of the process. The key is not to react with panic but to respond with curiosity and creativity. Surprises can lead to breakthroughs, and every bump in the road is an opportunity to learn, improve, and push the system toward even greater success. This mindset sets the stage for long-term value and continuous improvement, far beyond the initial implementation.
Surprises emerge from the friction between how a business thinks its system should work, how Lavendel understands the technical implementation, and how Pricefx can deliver on those expectations. But this friction isn’t a bad thing—it’s a natural part of the process. It’s where the real learning happens and where the most valuable insights are uncovered.
