by Landon Taylor Nelson

The Moment That Set It Off

We launched a new delivery setup: one integration for every channel, labeled pickup shelves, updated item names and modifiers, and throttle times tuned to the line. Staging looked clean. On the floor, the gaps showed. Third party orders arrived with generic items, modifiers collapsed into notes, and routing sent hot tickets to cold stations. Labels did not print for drivers, expo paused to translate, and production bounced between screens. The design was sound. The rollout did not meet the floor where the work happens.

“Change is only real when guests feel the improvement and the team forgets the old way.”

Why This Phase Exists

Phases 1 through 3 give you clarity, cost, and design. Phase 4 turns that design into daily work without chaos. Implementation and Rollout exists to reduce risk, protect service, and make improvements stick. The goal is simple: ship the change, prove it in real shifts, and hold the gains.

“We execute change with you, not at you.”

What Implementation & Rollout Is (And Is Not)

This phase is not a vendor handoff or a mass email. It is a practical plan to take a working design into production with calm, speed, and adoption.

What it is

• A runbook that names owners, timelines, and acceptance criteria
• Configuration, programming, and QA against real menus and paths
• Training that fits the floor: short, visual, repeatable
• A pilot that proves outcomes before wide release
• Floor support during go live and a short stabilization window
• A light change control rhythm so updates do not break what you just fixed

What it is not

• A big bang switch with no fallback
• Training by osmosis or a single long meeting
• Rolling changes across units without a pilot or success criteria

How We Run It

1) Define outcomes and acceptance criteria
Ticket time, error rate, uptime target, adoption metrics, and the exact reports you will use to verify success.

2) Build the runbook
Tasks by owner and date, go live timeline, fallback plan, and the messages you will use with managers and vendors.

3) Configure and QA
Menu data, routing, schedules, and integrations tested with real items and real flows. Fix the mismatches before anyone sees them.

4) Pilot on one unit or one daypart
Prove the outcomes in a contained setting. Capture what confused the team and correct it before rollout.

5) Train for how people actually work
Shift cards, 90 second clips, quick huddles, and side by sides. No binders that never leave the office.

6) Go live with floor support
A visible lead, radios on, a clear escalation path, and a simple way to log issues. Close the loop before the next shift.

7) Stabilize and document
Lock in final configurations, archive the old way, and publish the two or three artifacts people will reference in real life.

8) Verify and hand off
Check outcomes against acceptance criteria. Hand ownership to the right roles with a cadence for future updates.

“Plan in the office, prove it on the floor.”

What Implementation & Rollout Tends to Reveal

• Configuration differences by unit that no one documented
• Menu names, PLUs, or modifiers that drift between systems
• Printer or KDS maps that live in one person’s head
• Training gaps that show up as the same question on every shift
• Integrations that silently fail and rely on manual backfill
• A lack of change control, so updates ripple differently across locations
• Promotions that break routing or naming in predictable ways
• Reports that exist but do not match what the floor sees

Proof Without the Hype

A casual group moved from paper tickets to KDS while consolidating delivery channels. We set acceptance criteria, piloted at one unit, rebuilt routing, and trained with short cards and on the line coaching. Go live ran clean. Remake rate dropped, ticket time at peak fell by two minutes, and support tickets decreased week over week. No heroics. Just disciplined rollout.

Signs You Are Ready for This Phase

• Recent changes created confusion during service or drove comp spikes
• Your team restarts hardware as part of a normal shift
• Menu updates land differently by unit and no one can say why
• There is no written go live plan, fallback, or owner list
• Training lives in tribal memory rather than short cards or clips
• The same questions appear in every pre shift after a change
• Promotions or seasonal menus regularly break routing or naming
• Managers export and reenter data to make new tools work
• Vendors push updates without clear notice or release notes
• Acceptance criteria for “done” do not exist or are not measured
• Issue logs are informal, and problems repeat across shifts
• A pilot never runs, or runs without clear measures
• Change control does not exist, so fixes drift over time
• New tools are requested to paper over problems configuration could solve
• Staff are unsure who to call when something breaks during a rush
• Fallback flow for outages is not practiced
• Rollouts happen on Fridays or holidays because the calendar is full
• Go live communications do not reach all roles or shifts
• Training attendance is inconsistent, and there is no follow up
• Post rollout reviews are skipped, so lessons are lost

These are a few of the signals. Every operation shows them in its own way, but the pattern is the same: good ideas that stumble in execution.

What Changes After a Clean Implementation & Rollout

Rollouts feel predictable. Teams know what is changing, why it matters, and how to do it. Menu updates render the same everywhere. Routing matches production. Training is short and useful. Issues are logged and closed. Adoption is measured. Service gets faster and quieter, and the improvement holds.

Why It Sits Fourth in the Method

Assessment shows the work. Cost Analysis prices it. Systems Optimization designs the fit. Implementation and Rollout makes the fit real in daily service. Skip this step and you pay for the same fix twice.

Want a Hand?

If you want a calm, disciplined rollout, we can build the runbook, set acceptance criteria, pilot, train, and support go live with your team. If you prefer to start on your own, begin with a one page plan, a short pilot, and training your people will actually use.

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