How do you measure whether a technology change worked?

Choose two numbers before you change anything and measure the same two afterwards. Without a baseline you have only impressions, and impressions reliably favour whoever chose the technology. Two numbers and one observation about what people stopped doing is enough for any small business project.

The baseline is the step that gets skipped, because at the start of a project everyone is focused on the change rather than on measuring the thing being replaced. It takes very little: time the task honestly for two weeks, count how often it goes wrong, and write both down. That fortnight of boring observation is what turns the later conversation from an argument into an answer.

Pick measures that match the actual goal rather than defaulting to hours saved. If the point was speed, measure elapsed time from request to completion. If it was accuracy, count errors or rework. If it was cash flow, measure days from job completion to invoice sent. If it was customer experience, measure how long people wait or how often they have to follow up. Hours saved is the easiest measure to reach for and often the least relevant to why you did it.

Then measure at the right moment, which is four to six weeks after go-live rather than in the first fortnight, since early numbers capture people learning rather than the new normal. And be willing to act on a bad result: diagnose whether the change was wrong, the implementation was poor, or the training never happened, because those need different responses and abandoning a sound change over a training gap wastes everything spent so far. If you want the baseline agreed before the work starts, call 1800 456 567.