Lessons Learned on the Journey Zero Disruption: How to Build Buy-In Across the Organization

How to build support for DEX across the organization 

The practical challenge is not simply knowing that DEX needs to become part of the operating model. It is getting enough people across the organization to use DEX, trust it and see its relevance to their own work. 

That process develops by connecting DEX to problems that matter to different teams, demonstrating its value in terms they understand and gradually widening ownership beyond the initial group. 

The experiences of Paul and Timothy point to several practical lessons for building that buy-in and support.  

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Lesson 1: Accept that not everyone will see the value immediately 

The first step is not assuming that every team will immediately understand why DEX matters. 

Different teams will approach employee experience from different perspectives. Application owners may be focused on system performance, security teams may be prioritizing risk, and business leaders may be more concerned with productivity and the knock-on customer outcomes.  

This usually means that the value of DEX will not be equally obvious to all of them. 

“You’re going to have a breadth of people, both at the operational level and at the leadership level, some are going to look at this and go, ‘Man, I wish I’d had this five years ago, ten years ago,’ and they’re going to be all in. You’re going to have others that are not as excited.” 
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⁠- Paul Tabor 

That is not necessarily a barrier to progress, but a reminder that buy-in can’t be assumed and that IT leaders need to be selective about where they begin. 

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Lesson 2: Focus on those with urgent problems to solve 

The solution to lesson one is not to persuade every team that DEX matters in the same way. It is to find the teams already dealing with problems that better visibility could help them solve. 

At Gilead, the team used DEX data during live incidents to give application owners and incident command teams a clearer view of what was happening. They could identify the number of affected users, understand the scope of the problem, and direct the investigation towards the right team. 

Because of this approach, DEX was not introduced as another reporting layer that nobody needed or asked for, it immediately helped teams resolve issues efficiently. 

“These app owners are on these calls and like, ‘Wow, that’s really cool. That’s great. How do I get a piece of that?’” 
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⁠- Paul Tabor 

This highlights how IT can build buy-in by showing, rather than telling. It gives leaders the ability to not have to show other teams what DEX can do in the context of their own work. The use case will vary, but the principle remains the same: make DEX useful to the audience in front of you.  

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Lesson 3: Translate technical results into business outcomes 

The case for DEX becomes stronger when IT communicates its results in terms that the wider business can understand.  

At Centene, the team tracks measures including time to detect, time to restore and impacted user minutes. These metrics connect technical performance to the experience of employees and the business. 

If an issue is detected within 15 minutes rather than an hour, for example, IT can demonstrate that it has returned 45 minutes of productivity or enabled the problem to be resolved more quickly.  

These measures are not limited to internal IT reporting. At Centene, they are shared with senior leadership  on a weekly and monthly basis. 

“We share those all the way up to the CEO today on a weekly and monthly basis. They’re asking for those metrics because they’re very relatable, they’re easy to translate, and they really do show an outcome on the work that we’re doing,”
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⁠– Timothy Donovan 

Leadership buy-in is essential to getting DEX off the ground, and leaders are more likely to engage when the value is immediate and relevant to their priorities. This means technical results need to be translated into outcomes that leadership can understand and act on. 

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Lesson 4: Turn early adopters into internal advocates 

Once a team has experienced a clear benefit, it can help make the case to others. 

Early adopters are valuable not because they can promote DEX on behalf of IT, but because they can demonstrate how it applies in their own area of responsibility. An application owner using experience data in an incident will be more credible to another application owner than a central DEX team describing the same capability or win themselves.  

This is how adoption begins to spread beyond the teams that initially championed it. From here is where the central team’s role gradually changes. Instead of being the only group able to interpret and act on DEX data, it becomes responsible for enabling other teams to do so. 

“That spreading it out, being willing to share that information and share the tool, I think has really helped us succeed.” 
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⁠- Paul Tabor  

That provides a significant step in operational maturity. DEX is no longer dependent on a small number of specialists, and instead more teams have the access, confidence and context to use it as part of their own work. 

“You’ll be in a meeting one day and somebody will go, ‘We didn’t see that,’ and somebody else will say, ‘What, you’re not in Nexthink?’ You’re just like, ‘Okay, we’re there.’”
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⁠– Paul Tabor 

At that point, DEX is no longer something one team is trying to promote. It has become a capability that other teams expect to use. 

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Lesson 5: Keep momentum focused on what comes next 

Wider adoption does not mean DEX has a fixed role within the organization. The technology environment will continue to change, and new sources of friction will continue to emerge. 

That means IT leaders need to keep asking where the next opportunity lies, what the data is revealing and how the organization can act on it. 

As Timothy puts it: “Every reactive problem is a proactive opportunity.” 

Every incident gives IT an opportunity to learn something about the digital environment. The value comes not only from resolving the immediate issue, but from understanding why it happened, identifying patterns and using those insights to prevent similar disruptions in the future. 

“Change is going to be constant, and curious teams and curious leaders drive very strategic questions, continuous learning – all of those aspects which will be key in order to keep up with the pace of technology and the pace of change.”
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⁠- Timothy Donovan  

This ongoing cycle of questioning, learning and acting is what keeps DEX relevant as the organization changes. 

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What operational success looks like 

The lessons from Centene and Gilead point to the same conclusion: operationalizing DEX is not about getting people to adopt a platform. It is about helping teams across the business use better insight to solve problems, make decisions, and reduce friction. 

Solving an immediate problem may open the door to DEX, but its value grows when that insight starts shaping decisions beyond the team that introduced it. That requires IT to explain what the data means, connect it to business priorities, and help others act on it. 

“Curiosity without action is just a thought. Drive that curiosity into action.”
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⁠- Timothy Donovan 

In this way, DEX reflects a wider shift in IT’s role. Technology teams are no longer responsible only for maintaining systems and resolving technical issues. They also need to understand how technology affects people, communicate that impact, and help the organization respond. 

DEX makes that connection visible. It shows IT what employees are experiencing and gives the wider business a clearer view of how technology affects performance. 

That is what turns DEX from an implemented platform into an operational capability. 

Watch Zero Disruption Expert Insights: Operationalizing for Success for practical advice on building and sustaining a successful DEX strategy.