User Adoption Insights from Tri Tuns

Appreciate your employees? Get creative in showing you care

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 21:53:00 GMT

Let me know if this one sounds familiar. When at happy hour, do you or your friends typically spend time talking about the latest dumb thing that happened at work, how clueless the boss is, or how demoralized people are with their jobs? Not exactly a “happy” hour, is it?

I have several friends who work for organizations that have great missions that are very meaningful to my friends. They work hard and regularly put in extra effort because they believe in the mission and they take pride in their work. And yet, they don’t feel that their contribution is acknowledged, valued or appreciated.

Employees want to know that they are valued

It is not enough just to value the work of your teammates and employees. You need to let them know that they make a valuable contribution. You need to align your words and actions so that they internalize the feeling of being appreciated.

Words are great, but actions are better

Many leaders – from the CEO down to front-line supervisors – actually appreciate the contribution of their team. They may even say the words. But they don’t often show it. You need to demonstrate that you value the contribution of others.

Small gestures make a big difference

Demonstrating that you appreciate your employees does not require major time, efforts or expense. Sure, there is a time and place for big awards, cash gifts and bonuses. The problem is that these big ticket appreciation gestures are expense and happen quite infrequently. People appreciate them at the time, but then this feeling of appreciation quickly fades and needs to be renewed.

If you want to keep people motivated, you need to let them know that you are paying attention to the little things they do that make a big difference to the organization.

For example, do your people stay a little bit late to finish something up or stop what they are doing to help a co-worker with a problem they can’t fix on their own? Do they put in just that little bit of extra effort in a meeting or on a deliverable just because they care? Oh, and don’t forget the person who helps protect you from yourself by saying “no” when you are going off-course or taking on too much.

Get creative in showing you care

Acknowledging all of these small contributions is a great way to show that you are paying attention and that you value your co-workers, teammates, and direct reports. But what should you do?

Get creative! For most people, the act of acknowledge their contribution is more important than what they may actually receive. If you have just a couple dollars or a few hundred, you do a lot to demonstrate you care.

Technology can make all of this quick and easy. For example, using the free app Treater, you can instantly send friends a cup of coffee, free drinks, or a night out. And since you can do it right from your smart phone, you can do it while sitting at the airport, while waiting for your next meeting to start, or when waiting at the bar for your friends to arrive. It takes so little effort for you, but makes a big difference to your employee.

Want to go the extra mile? If you can find something that fits with their personal interests it not only shows that you appreciate their contribution, it also shows that you have taken the time to get to know them as a person. Does the person always comment that their kids make a mess? Why not go to Living Social and send them a free house cleaner? Are they a Civil War history buff? Why not get them a carriage ride on the Gettysburg Battlefield?

The point is, taking a few minutes to thank people on a regular basis and show them you care is quick, painless, and goes a long way to helping make them happy and productive. Oh, and it feels pretty good to put a smile on someone else’s face. Try it, you won’t be disappointed!

Things to think about

What are all the ways you make small acts of appreciation for the little things your employees do every day?
How could you use small gestures to acknowledge the little things that people do to help adopt to changes (new systems or processes) in your organization?

How can you get other leaders in your organization to routinely acknowledge the little contributions of their team members?

Is it in the system? Require IT use at each project approval stage

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 04:00:00 GMT

The other day I was talking with a woman at a large non-profit that is trying to improve their enterprise knowledge management efforts. She said that they are using a CRM system and SharePoint to manage information related to all of their internal projects. The CRM is used to track all of the people involved and track key activities and SharePoint is used for sharing and storing all project specific knowledge content.

The problem, as you would expect, is that very few people were using either tool. Sure, there were some pockets of success, but for the most part each individual or team would just do their own thing. Obviously, this did little to preserve knowledge and make it accessible for future use.

She needed help and asked me what she could do to increase effective use of the systems.

Do you have different approval stages for your business projects?

When we were talking about how they manage their internal projects, she indicated they have various formal project reviews and approvals required for a project to proceed to the next stage. The reviews are primarily to manage quality and were required in order for the project to get funding. But they didn’t actually check to see if internal processes were followed or if people were growing the institutional knowledge of the organization.

Make complete & accurate IT use a condition for project advancement

One of the easiest things you can do to help increase effective IT user adoption is to integrate it into the workflow and approval process of your normal work activities. This can apply to internal projects as well as sales reviews.

To be effective, define very specific, measurable system use requirements that must be met in order to gain approval.

This could be things like requiring all related contacts and accounts (specify required fields) are entered, that all major pre-requisite activities are entered (specify required vs. optional activities), and that any required documents are entered.

Also, make sure that all naming conventions and status fields are correct. This is not just an opportunity to make sure information is entered, it is also an opportunity to maintain the quality of the data.

Include timely system use in individual performance reviews

If you want to encourage regular, timely use of your systems (instead of just ensuring data is entered immediately prior to an internal project review), think about including a quick audit of created dates as part of your project approval process. If an individual did not enter the data within required timeframes -- and thus deprived other people the ability to make use of the data in a timely way -- you can identify them and then take appropriate action.

For example, I know of a sales professional at one organization who made his numbers, but didn’t enter the information in the required timeframes. As a result, he was ineligible for a major sought-after reward, namely attending the President’s Club celebration.There are lots of ways you can encourage (or discourage) effective system use as part of your regular business processes. How can you do it in your organization?

No idea where to start? We can help you Quick Start

Cloud IT User Adoption Services

Find out more for free with a 30-minute consult

{module_contentholder,70295}

Would enterprise collaboration software fix Congress?

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Have you ever noticed how many organizations jump to deploy software in hopes it will fix large organizational performance issues? They hope that providing tools - like SharePoint, CRM, ERP, and myriad social sharing systems - that enable collaboration will actually result in improved collaboration.

But spending a lot of time and money on a technical solution alone will not fix an organizational and people problem.

Don’t be silly. Nothing will fix Congress.

Regardless of your political views, the US Congress is a shining example of an organization which does not embrace collaboration.

There are deep differences in values, complex rules and processes that prevent collaboration, a complete lack of accountability, and misaligned incentives. (Let's be honest, most elected officials’ primary concern is their own personal career and desire to win re-election.) This means there is never a shortage of poor performance and finger-pointing.

In short, there are complex levels of organizational dysfunction that no amount of technology alone will fix.

Deploying enterprise collaboration software doesn’t mean your enterprise will collaborate

Enterprise collaboration technology does have the potential to add great value to your organization, and, in many organizations, it does just that. However, it is important to recognize that in order for people to actually change their attitudes and work behaviors to embrace collaboration requires that you look at the people and organizational realities - the actual social (non-technical) systems operating within your organization. If you don’t address these social (non-technical) elements no amount of technology will improve your organization.

Before your invest in collaboration software, ask yourself how your organization is like Congress

Before you even begin to define requirements and evaluate software tools, make sure you ask yourself, “How is my organization like Congress”? Identify all of the people, organizational, process, policy, and operational elements that will drive or prevent actual collaboration. Make sure you have mapped out a strategy – with resources – to address these elements. If you don’t know how to do it, be sure to get help from qualified experts.

Sounds like a lot of hard work? It is. And not many people have the knowledge, understanding and experience in addressing the non-technical aspects of collaboration. But if you don’t correctly handle these elements, your collaboration technology effort will fail before it even begins.

Don't know where to begin? Get a quick start!

Started and now need to rescue your project?

Receive our bi-weekly newsletter full of useful IT user adoption information

Image courtesy of Dave Granlund and www.DaveGranlund.com.
All image rights belong to the artist.

IT User Adoption – a Question of Motivation

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 20:13:00 GMT

This famous clip from the movie Office Space is a quick reminder of one of the most commonly overlooked issues when implementing IT systems – motivating people to work. And sure, Initech is a fictional company, but it actually resembles a lot of organizations with which I have worked over the years.

In this scene, the employee Peter Gibbons tells the efficiency consultants how his organization approaches motivation and the impact it has on his work efforts. Does this sound like your organization?

Watch video here.

How do you motivate people to use your IT system?

Whenever you implement an IT system, look at all things affecting employee motivation. Sometimes there are issues with compensation and incentives. Other times the management may actually be demotivating employees.

As Peter says, “I have 8 different bosses right now…so that means when I make a mistake I have 8 different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only motivation – not to be hassled.”

Would WIIFM motivate this employee?

Convention wisdom (which is high on convention, and low on wisdom) often says that when implementing an IT system you should try to “sell people on what’s in it for me”.

Do you think trying to sell Peter on WIIFM would work in this case? Of course not. There are bigger issues that need to be fixed here. And unless these other items are fixed, WIIFM will not work.

So, what will you do to make sure you have motivated people to use your system? Please share your thoughts and experiences with us on the Customer Success Practitioners group on LInkedIn.

{module_contentholder, name="CSM LI Group - version 2"}

Turn Your Project Around

IT user adoption for the cloud

Jump start your project with a Quick Start Strategy

Learn more on IT User Adoption in the cloud

Watch out, SaaS vendors…your customers have a BS detector!

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:36:00 GMT

In the olden days (you know, about a week ago), before the rise of cloud computing, software vendors could use a lot of big words, slick demos, and fancy marketing props to entice people to buy a system. They were selling hope.

Sales are easy. Customer Retention is hard.

And many vendors are feeling the pain. The above video from Adobe does a great job of highlighting the issue. SaaS systems, with low upfront fees and the relatively easy ability to switch to a completely different system, enables customers to learn for themselves what your system can deliver.

Subscription pricing means you need to prove your worth. Everyday.

The impact: every time you have a renewal sales discussion, your customer immediately knows if you are BSing them or not. And they won’t tolerate BS.

Ensure your customers' success if you want to keep them.

What this means is SaaS vendors need to ensure they stop BSing customers and start ensuring their success. Make sure your customer has achieved measurable business value from investing in your system. To do this, evolve your sales, implementation, and customer management processes.

Help customers address the two biggest issues they face – namely, driving and maintaining full, effective user adoption of the system AND realizing the clear, measurable business benefits. If you can’t do this, your only choice is to try to BS your customer.

Good luck with that.

Do you have a Customer Success Management program? If not, why not? If so, how has it affected your customer churn?

Please share your thoughts and experiences on the Customer Success Practitioners group on LinkedIn.

{module_contentholder, name="CSM LI Group - version 2"}

Develop a CSM Strategy

Discover CSM Resources

Sign-up for our Insights newsletter

“We don’t care. We don’t have to.” …uh, yes you do.

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:39:00 GMT

Do you remember this Saturday Night Live advertisement skit with Lily Tomlin as a phone company employee?

I remember watching this clip when I was a kid and laughing because it was so true. Back then, the phone company was the only game in town. And they knew it.

Customer choice means vendors need to care

Now, just a few years (ok, decades) later, these same phone companies are struggling to reduce customer churn. They are (finally?) realizing that things have changed and the customer now has more power in the relationship. And customers are not afraid to use it.

SaaS vendors need to focus on keeping customers...

Like phone companies, SaaS vendors – or any vendor selling on a subscription basis – realize that reducing churn and keeping customers for as long as possible is essential to their success. Unlike the phone companies of yesteryear, they can’t hold customers hostage and just expect the money to keep rolling in.

…but what do they need to do to reduce churn?

Many organizations recognize the need to retain customers, but they are not sure how.

The secret is simple. If you want to retain customers, make sure they:

1. Are getting value from your product or service, and

2. They enjoy their experience with your organization

If you can do that, you will keep them. As soon as these two things fall short, your customer will leave.

Focus on customer success to reduce churn

Many companies have invested in improving the customer experience and increasing customer satisfaction ratings. Now they to focus on making sure customers are getting full value / benefits realization.

For many organizations, this means creating a Customer Success Management program. Customer success is not account management or even customer service. It is all about helping the customer achieve the measured benefits and ROI that is meaningful to them. It requires different methods, tools, and activities than before.

Do you have a Customer Success Management program? If not, why not? If so, how has it affected your customer churn?

Please share your thoughts and experiences on the Customer Success Practitioners group on LinkedIn.

{module_contentholder, name="CSM LI Group - version 2"}

Develop a CSM Strategy

Start a CSM Program

Discover CSM Resources

Differentiated Customer Success Management (CSM) Services

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:20:00 GMT

When speaking with Customer Success Management professionals they consistently tell me they provide different CSM services depending on the customer. Even basic customer segmentation has allowed them to prioritize their efforts and adjust their services to meet the specific needs of different customer groups.

Not all customers are equal

While all customers are important, they are not all equal. Some customers are more profitable. Some require more support and take more time. Some customers start small, but with a huge potential lifetime value, whereas others may have limited potential.

When developing your CSM program, make sure you understand both the needs and the potential value of your different customers. And then, prioritize accordingly.

Differentiate B2B or B2C

You will need to adjust your Customer Success Management approach to meet the unique needs of B2B and B2C customers.

• B2B customers often have less individual control and discretion when it comes to the systems and tools they use. In addition to individual user habits, you have to navigate a plethora of organizational issues, including internal business processes, incentives, policies, procedures, technical and data quality issues.

• B2C customers tend to have a high degree of individual control and discretion when it comes to using your product or service. You may need to help them develop new habits that involve regular, sustainable use of your system.

Delivering B2B CSM services is more complex than B2C, but the revenue amounts at stake often make it a priority.

Differentiate size & budget

It will take some experimentation to determine the optimal size and budget for your CSM program. The type of CSM services you deliver will influence the number of customer success management staff you need. It will also affect things like the amount of travel (face-to-face) service vs. the amount of remote (web and phone) service.

Many CSM programs start relatively small and then grow as the customer base grows. When you building your CSM program be sure to include plans for how you will add additional capacity as your customer base changes and as their needs – and your software - changes.

Change your methods based on customer need and value

You can help customers be successful with your product or service in many different ways. For some customers, it may make sense to provide services that are largely automated and uniform. For others, especially those with a high potential lifetime customer value, you may need to provide more hands-on, customized CSM services. And, as your customers grow, you may need to adjust the level of service they receive.

Everything You Need for Success

Check out these great resources to help make your Customer Success Management program the best in the industry.

CSM Strategies

CSM Training

CSM Program Development

CSM Resources

5 Things to Include in Your Customer Success Management (CSM) Strategy

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Increasingly, investors and SaaS leaders are recognizing that customer retention is essential for their success. As a result, they are rushing to build Customer Success Management (CSM) programs that will help their customers maximize IT adoption and ROI from their systems.

However, they are facing significant challenges because Customer Success Management is new to most organizations and they are not sure exactly how to get started or what to do first. They don’t always know that right question to ask, how to allocate scarce resources, or how to prioritize their efforts to get the best results.

Investing in a CSM strategy will save you time & effort

The first place to start is to create a CSM strategy and road map. Your CSM strategy should identify exactly what you are trying to achieve, define how you will achieve it, specify who will make it happen, and provide a clear road map moving forward. Your CSM strategy will help develop a shared understanding and vision for what you are trying to achieve. It will also enable you to move forward with confidence while allowing you to avoid costly pitfalls and mistakes that can threat your CSM program before it even gets going.

So, how do you create an effective Customer Success Management strategy? Here are 5 things to help you get started. Keep in mind that this is often an iterative process, and decisions you make later on may require that you revisit some of your earlier decisions.

1. Define your goals

Not surprisingly, the first step is to figure out exactly what you want your CSM team to do and the results they need to achieve. This will set the goalpost from which you will determine the specific staffing, services, tools and methods you will need in your CSM team. It will also help you identify the budget you will need to allocate for building and maintaining your CSM capabilities.

2. Define roles, responsibilities and org structure

One of the first questions people ask is what exactly should the CSMs do and where do they fit within the organization? Should the CSMs be responsible for sales and renewals, or just for driving customer IT adoption and satisfaction? Do they report to sales? Do they report to customer service? Sales? And what authority do they have when it comes to working with other departments internally (like sales, product management, professional services, customer support)?

3. Develop CSM methodology, tool and processes

Once you have figured out what you are trying to achieve and how you will work internally, identify the specific tools and processes you will need to make it happen. This may involve internal-focused tools, such as having a way to identify and report on actual customer-use of your system, and externally-focused tools, such as creating a CSM consulting methodology / toolbox that you use when working directly with your customers. You may require a combination of tools such as IT systems (like the one offered by Apptegic), spreadsheets, presentation slides, email templates, report templates, and other such things that enable your CSM team to deliver a consistent, effective, high-quality CSM service.

When building your CSM strategy you only need to identify and prioritize the methodology and tool development requirements. You don’t actually create all the tools until after the strategy is finalized since it may go through a few iterations before you have final agreement on how to move forward.

4. Recruit and develop exceptional staff

Identify how you will recruit and develop exceptional staff. This may include identifying a high-level profile of the types of temperament, skills and required experience levels you will want for your CSM team. And, it should outline how you plan to quickly on-board the CSM staff, train them, and ensure they are able to get up to speed quickly.

Just a quick word of caution: at its core, CSM is about driving IT adoption of systems. In order to be effective, CSMs need to understand the root cause of IT adoption problems and have a firm grasp of the proactive steps you can take to increase adoption. This is knowledge and skill that, generally, are in short supply. You may need to provide additional training and development to help your CSM staff learn the skills they need to be fully effective in this role.

5. Manage the roll-out (internally & externally)

Introducing your CSM capabilities requires changes both internally to your organization and externally with how you interact with customers. Both can be major transitions and you will want to map out in advance how you will manage these changes.

For your internal roll--out, consider how introducing CSMs will change the way existing staff perform their jobs. Have you changed the job responsibilities of sales and service staff? Will having the CSM team impact revenue and renewal targets for sales professionals? How will you go about informing people about the new service? Introducing the CSM function will kick off a domino effect of changes to all other parts of your organization.

For your external (customer) roll-out, be careful how you introduce the CSM function to both new and existing customers. Take care to ensure you set accurate expectations about what the CSM team will – and will not – deliver to customers. Also, you may want to consider if you want to pilot the CSM effort with select customers before rolling it out to everyone.

CSM Strategy

CSM Resources

{module_contentholder,70295}

Does your Customer Success Management (CSM) approach remove barriers to IT adoption?

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 05:00:00 GMT

When I speak with the leaders of Customer Success Management (CSM) programs they often ask about how they can make their program more effective for increasing customer renewals. This leads to a discussion about the focus, methods and tools they use to deliver their CSM service.

More often than not, it becomes clear that the CSM tools and methods they use are part of the problem.

At its core, CSM is about helping customers adopt your system

The purpose of Customer Success Management is to help your customers fully adopt and maximize the value they receive from your software or service. Many times, the root-cause issue that needs to be addressed is that people are simply not adopting the system – which is almost never a technical issue. If the CSM team can maximize and sustain effective user adoption, the value to the customer (and renewals to you) will follow.

So, how do you maximize IT adoption?

How does your CSM team identify all barriers preventing adoption?

Many people assume user adoption is 100% discretionary effort on the part of the end-user. This leads them to focus all of their efforts on trying to help the end-user know how to use system and see how it will make their lives easier.

The reality is quite different. User adoption is not entirely at the discretion of the end-user. There are many non-discretionary factors that can make users unable to adopt the system - even when they want to use it!

Almost every IT project on which I have participated (like, 99% of them) there have been some organizational or system-related issue that actually prevented people from using the system. These issues fell outside the users’ span of control and required action on the part of management to resolve. Yet management was unaware of these issues or how they prevented system use.

In order to be effective, your CSM methodology needs to help customers identify barriers to IT adoption. But how will you do it?

Do you know how to identify potential IT adoption barriers?
Does your current CSM methodology actively uncover all barriers that affect IT adoption?
If not, how will you change your approach?

How do you remove barriers to IT adoption?

Once you have identified barriers to adoption, how will you make sure your customer takes action to remove them? Sadly, driving and sustaining effective IT adoption is not a core capability of many client organizations. Even if you are able to help your customers identify barriers to adoption, it does not mean that they will know how to resolve them. You may need to help.

Change your CSM approach

Like most initiatives, your CSM capabilities and approach will need to mature over time. Initially your CSM team can be successful just helping customers get minor increases in adoption and ROI. However, to maximize customer renewals and, if possible, expand accounts, you will need to adjust your approach to help customers fully resolve their IT adoption issues. To do so, you will need to expand your knowledge regarding the root causes of IT adoption and the most effective methods to influence it.

Free cSM Resources

learn about user resistance

30-minute consult

{module_contentholder,70295}

Customer Success Management (CSM): Your Critical Path to Customer Renewals

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 05:00:00 GMT

SaaS vendors – or any vendor that sells on a subscription basis – know that retaining customers is critical for growing revenues and ensuring the overall prosperity of their organization. The challenge is that historically companies have focused on the initial sale and building new relationships. Renewals werenice, but not the top focus area.

Most companies have a process for closing the initial sales

Over the years, I have worked with lots of great sales and service organizations when they were implementing CRM systems. We spent a lot of time mapping out sales stages, defining sales activities, and building sales tools.

What was clear is that they have invested lots of time and money in creating a sales organization that knows what it is doing and can close deals. That is, they could close new deals.

But what about retaining customers?

But they don't have a plan for what happens next

The rise of SaaS and subscription pricing means that customer renewal processes need to evolve too. SaaS vendors need to identify what needs to happen to make the customer choose to renew year after year. And they need to look at this from both their perspective and the perspective of the customer.

The image below shows the typical approach many SaaS companies take with renewals. Vendors tend to focus solely on the initial sale and then waits for the renewal period to come around. Sure, they will provide some customer support and will focus on maintaining the relationship with the buyer, but they do little to ensure the customer is getting value from the system….which is the main criterion on which customers base their renewal decisions.

Typical SaaS Renewal Process

And they lose a lot of customers at renewals

The problem is this: the customer has a different renewal process.

That is, driving effective and sustainable user adoption and (therefore) getting measurable value/ROI are on the customers’ critical path for renewals.

If they don’t achieve these two things, they don’t renew. Period.

IT User Adoption & ROI are critical path for customer renewals

Including Customer Success Management activities after go-live is critical to renewals

Sustaining user adoption and achieving measurable ROI has always been the Achilles’ heel for IT projects. Prior to SaaS software, these problems fell 100% to the customer. Now, for the first time, the SaaS model means the vendor has a vested interest in helping customers solve these problems.

So, what is a SaaS vendor to do to help customers? Establish Customer Success Management (CSM) teams to help ensure customers achieve their goals and renew they software.

Quite simply, profitable SaaS vendors recognize CSM is on the critical path to customer renewals. And they must continue to provide CSM services over the life of the customer relationship, for once, a customer stops getting value from the system, and they stop renewing.

6 Reasons Why Every SaaS Vendor Needs a CSM Strategy

7 Things Cloud Vendors Need to Do to Retain Customers

Receive our bi-weekly newsletter

Do You Have a Customer Success Management (CSM) Program? You should.

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 05:00:00 GMT

If you are like most SaaS vendors, you have a great product that is developed, implemented and supported by a team of gifted professionals. You can win new sales. Everything looks rosy.

But you have a problem. You keep losing customers at renewal time. And this is costing you big-time!

Customer Retention is Key to SaaS Vendor Success

The SaaS business model, with its low upfront costs and low, regularly scheduled payments means that SaaS companies need to keep customers longer in order to profit. Every customer that cancels their subscription – or even reduces the number of licenses under contract – has a dramatic impact on your bottom line.

The simple truth is you cannot have a successful SaaS business if you have high churn.

The impact of customer churn is cumulative and drastically underestimated

According to the resources developed by SaaS Capital, customer churn has a cumulative impact on the vendor. Not only does it decrease revenues in the period during which the customer cancels their subscription, it also reduces all future revenues.

For example, in their webinar, “No Churn: Keep Customers & Improve Your SaaS Company Valuation”, showed a comparison of two companies, one with a 95% customer retention rate and the other with an 80% retention rate. After 5 years, the company with a 95% retention rate had revenue that is 40% greater and a growth that is 50% higher. By year 10, revenue is 80% higher and growth rate is 2.5 times faster.

Recurring revenue is critical component of SaaS company valuation

With customer churn having such an impact on revenues and growth, investors are now looking very closely at customer retention when calculating SaaS company valuations. According to SaaS Capital, business are traded on a multiple of revenue (not EBITDA) and, “recurring revenue is a better proxy for future cash-flows than current income.”

Customer Success Management programs reduce churn, increase revenues

Given the importance of reducing customer churn, it is not surprising that you’re focusing efforts in this area. Effective CSM programs can help you reduce churn. And if your customers are getting more value from your systems, they are more likely to increase the number of licenses they purchase. All of this adds up to increased revenue for you.

Now the problem… how do SaaS vendors deliver the elusive customer success?

Sounds great, right? There is just one hitch. How do you create and deliver effective Customer Success Management programs?

This opens up a lot of questions.

What tools, methods, skills, and resources do you need to facilitate customer success across your entire customer base?

How will you build this new capability?

How will you integrate this new service into your existing business model?

Resources to help with your Customer Success Management efforts

Once you realize that you need a Customer Success Management program, you then need to figure out what this looks like and how to build this capability in a quick affordable manner. If you are not sure where to get started, check out these resources:

Tri Tuns Customer Success Management service can help you quickly assess your CSM needs and develop a strategy for moving forward. We can also partner with you to execute your strategy.

Sign-up for our Customer Success Management email tips and insights.

Check out The Hotline Magazine by Mikael Blaisdell. Mikael is a widely recognized thought leader in the Customer Success Management space and his events and writings reach a large global audience.

{module_contentholder,70295}

Flashback: Is Your IT System a Dreamliner? Risk, Governance & ROI Revisited

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:40:00 GMT

What a difference a year makes.

In November 2011, I wrote a blog post titled, “Is your IT system a Dreamliner?” discussing how revolutionary advances in technology also introduced new risks that need to be monitored and managed. I also wrote, “Do you think Boeing is going to monitor these risks and take action to mitigate them? You bet they are."

Looks like I was right.

While I am sure Boeing would rather have avoided all the problems they currently face with the 787 Dreamliner, I bet they are very thankful they had the structures, processes, and people in place to effectively manage the problems that have emerged now that their planes are actually being used.

Are you prepared to manage a crisis with your technology?

In my earlier article, I wrote:

“When implementing new IT systems, many organizations focus on getting the system live, but ignore what happens once it is in production. The value of your system – and the risks – only is introduced after the system is live. And they continue over the life of the system. This means that you need to manage the value creation and risk mitigation over the life system.”

This is what happened with the 787 Dreamliner. The plane went through extensive testing and government approval processes, yet the unexpected problems only emerged after the plane was live and being used on a daily basis. Just like with an IT system.

Boeing faced new risks when introducing new technology into their aircraft. Organizations face new and unexpected risks when introducing new IT systems. However, unlike Boeing, most organizations do very little to prepare for and proactively manage their new IT risks. And they do so at their own peril.

Do you have the right governance plan in place?

Implementing new systems – regardless of whether it is a proven cloud enterprise system or a custom-built application – introduces new risks and uncertainty into your organization.

For example, “social” applications, collaboration systems, and CRM systems all alter how your staff interacts with each other, with customers, with vendors, and with the public at large. You now have new risks that someone will release sensitive information, say the wrong thing online or fat-finger their touch screen and create a major public relations issue for your organization (can you say “viral”?).

When this happens, you need to have the right team and protocols in place. Do you?

What should you do?

Before you write a single check for a new IT system, map out exactly when you will get your ROI from the system and when new risks will be introduced. By doing this first, you will see that all of the benefits – and risks – happen after the system is live. And that they will continue over the life of the system.

Then, make sure you have people in place who have the formal authority, responsibility, tools, and resources they need to manage all the risks that will emerge over the life of the system. These same people should also be responsible for ensuring systems are fully adopted by end-users and that the organization realizes its full ROI goals.

Where to start? Two tools that can help.

When I talk with people about managing risk and user adoption after a system is live, they typically see the need for doing this. And they typically have no clue about where to begin. They need help.

1. Start with a user adoption strategy and team. By first understanding the issues you face and then identify the methods and infrastructure you need to address them. I recommend that you develop a user adoption strategy. And then consider a tool like MyUserAdoptionPlan.com to help implement the strategy and support your users.

2. Then, add risk and governance tools. There are a lot of risk and governance tools out there that can help. The one that we like best is the suite of tools from Confident Governance. This tool-set, which is built on the force.com platform, is fast and easy to configure and provides a wide range of capabilities to help you define and implement your risk and governance policies. Also, it has very affordable pricing and is within reach of most organizations.

Don’t let your IT system be a Dreamliner

You have invested a lot of time and money in your IT systems. The right systems can take your organization to new heights of success. And it can all go away with just one unexpected problem.

Don’t wait to manage your IT risks. Get started today.

Read: Is YOUR system a Dreamliner?

Get a Quick Start Strategy

Schedule a demo of MyUserAdoptionPlan.com ?

8 Factors to Review BEFORE Investing in CRM

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 11:37:00 GMT

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced new rules for mortgages that will take affect in 2014. An article on CNBC.com reported eight factors the CFPB requires lenders to examine before making a loan. We have previously identified that lenders (and others) should treat their CRM investments with the same care and scrutiny that they do when making loans to others. So, here are 8 factors that you need to consider before investing in CRM systems.

1. Expected ROI over the life of the CRM investment

Don’t just look at implementation costs or total cost of ownership (TCO). Make sure the expected return and lifetime value is both positive and significant enough to warrant the time and effort required to implement and maintain the system. Perform a scenario analysis to weight the expected ROI to adjust for different levels of user adoption. Will this still seem like a good investment if you don’t get effective adoption?

2. Current level of user adoption of existing systems

A good guideline to follow is that just switching to a new system without any focused plan to drive and sustain user adoption of the new technology will result in the same or lower levels of user adoption of the new system. Quite simply, if you have low user adoption today, chances are good that you will have lower user adoption tomorrow, regardless of the IT. (User adoption is a people-based issue.) That is, unless you do something to address this problem.

3. Impact of future changes to users’ jobs and performance requirements

Implementing a CRM system doesn’t make users' jobs easier – it fundamentally changes the jobs. A new CRM can alter job responsibilities and how people spend their time. It changes the skills and competencies they need. In short, it changes performance expectations. Understand the extent of the changes to users jobs and then determine what you need to do to address these changes.

4. Identification of all drivers and barriers to IT user adoption

All too often we see that there are barriers to adoption that prevent people from using the system – even when they want to use it! These organizational barriers take many forms and they lie outside the users ability to control them. Executive action is required to address these items, yet often executives are not even aware that they exist, let alone know that they need to take action.

5. Formal assignment of responsibility, authority and accountability for ROI

A senior executive needs to be formally charged with ensuring the CRM investment is a success. This needs to include some very real reward or consequence (such as a major impact to their compensation) for hitting or missing ROI goals for the CRM investment. If you don’t have this, you are sunk.

6. Identification of resources & budget required to drive initial user adoption

Stop thinking that you only need training! Training is necessary, but insufficient, for ensuring CRM success. You need a plan for how you will quickly align users behavior and job performance (using the CRM tool) with organizational goals. If you are only focused on training or go-live focused change management, you are in for trouble.

7. Plan and budget resources for sustaining user adoption over the life of the system

The ROI on a CRM investment is just like the ROI on any 401-K or other financial investment: returns can be up one year and then down the next. So, put a plan in place for how you’ll monitor your CRM ROI and then make adjustments as necessary to get the returns you need.

8. Defined approach for ensuring the CRM system stays relevant

Change doesn't just happen at go-live. Your business will change. Your customers will change. Your workforce will change. The economy, regulatory environment, and competitive landscape will all change. Make sure that your CRM system continues to evolve as your needs change.

Sub-Prime CRM? What IT Needs to Learn From the New Mortgage Rules

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 05:00:00 GMT

A recent article on CNBC.com reports that lenders will face new rules for extending credit in January 2014. The rules are an attempt to prevent breakdowns in the financial industry and help ensure that organizations be repaid when they lend money.

There are many lessons here for IT departments (and, arguably, the organization as a whole) before it invests in a CRM System.

New 2014 mortgage rules require lenders consider customers’ ability to repay a loan before extending credit

Yup, at the crux of the regulations, is the idea that lenders need to make sure they will be paid back for any money they lend – before they lend it. Hmmm, that's a bold concept.

You would think that organizations would not need to be told that before they give away a pile of money they need to be sure they will get it (and more) back. Yet, this happens every day when it comes to organizations deciding how they will invest in CRM systems.

Lenders (and others) need to consider their ability to achieve ROI before investing in CRM systems

Organizations need to treat their CRM investments just like a lender approaches (or will, come January 2014) making a loan. They should:

1. Look at how much money you send out now (license and implementation costs) and how much value demand to get back (increase in sales, decrease in costs, or other measures of ROI on your CRM investment).

2. Critically examine and rate your ability to actually achieve the returns you require (ability to drive and sustain user adoption and benefits realization).

3. Oh, and depending on the size of the investment, you may require some sort of collateral to help incentivize successful payback of your investment (for CRM investments, this may be tying executive compensation to CRM success).

Many organizations don’t do this – or at least, not really. They may say that they have defined a “business case”, but typically this is a largely fictional piece of work that is not based on a thorough understanding or assessment of the likelihood that the system will actually get adopted and used effectively by end-users. And as we all know, if a system isn’t used, it isn’t delivering any value.

Don’t invest in Sub-Prime CRM.
Require a User Adoption & ROI Plan before you spend a dime on CRM!

Before you write a check for any CRM system, make sure it is worth it. It is better to not make any investment than to throw away a pile of money and waste tons of time on a system that is doomed to failure before it even begins.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. Is there a written plan for how we will ensure a positive ROI on our CRM investment?

2. Have we done a thorough analysis to identify all the drivers and barriers that will affect user adoption (and ROI)?

3. Have we defined exactly what ROI goals must be achieved in what amount of time before we proceed?

4. Is there a single, senior executive who will be held accountable (including having a personal financial stake) for meeting ROI goals on the CRM investment?

If you can’t say yes to all of the above questions, then the loan is not approved!

Talk to an expert - free 30-minute consult

Kick off the new year right with a quick start strategy package

Make sure your CRM investment will pay off - read our ebook on CRM success

Contemporary Thinking on Change Management and User Adoption (video)

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 20:36:00 GMT

I was recently asked to participate in a discussion on change management by our friends over at The Washington Webcaster.

Change Management Insights

In episode 6 of The Washington Webcaster, we talk about a variety of items related to change management and user adoption. Watch the episode below where we talk about things like:

- User resistance to change

- Change Leadership

- Cloud computing

- Driving change and sustaining user adoption of IT systems

- Change management and ROI on IT investments.

Are we changing yet?

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 05:00:00 GMT

I recently had coffee with a very gifted organizational change consultant and we got talking about different change challenges organizations face. She was telling me about one of her clients, a CIO for a large, global organization that is struggling to improve internal operations and performance.

After a few months of work, her client asked, “So, are we changing yet?"

The answer was no.

How will you recognize when change is happening?

How will you know if things are changing or if you are just spinning your wheels?

Will you know where you are in the change process?

How will you know when the change is complete?

While every organization has unique needs and challenges, it is important that you think about these questions. And write down your answers. The more you can do to recognize where you are in the change processes, the better equipped you are to make change happen.

Set specific change goals. And deadlines.

While some changes are harder to map out and recognize (e.g., organizational culture change) other changes (e.g., adopting a new system or adhering to new policies) can be mapped out with clarity. Whenever possible, setting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) change goals can help align efforts and drive action. Of course, these can then become the metrics against which both change and users are measured.

For example, many organizations do not even set specific user adoption targets when rolling out a new system. When I have helped organizations set targeted weekly CRM system use goals (like create 4 accounts week 1, create 3 opportunities in week 2, etc.) we have consistently seen rapid increase in effective system use.

Assign ownership and accountability

Making sure that everyone is clear on who is responsible for making the change happen, and how and when you will hold them accountable, is critical to your success. Many change efforts are focused on completing change activities, but they are not focused on achieving change outcomes.

If you want a specific change outcome, make sure your change leaders understand the outcome they must deliver and what happens if they hit/miss/exceed those goals.

Pivot when necessary

Change doesn’t happen in a vacuum and when you make one change, it kicks off a domino process. Other changes – some planned, many not – will happen. You need to make sure you are constantly monitoring your organizational landscape to address any emerging issues and opportunities.

But be careful. Pivoting to respond to emerging issues is important, and do it in a way that does not remove accountability for achieving stated goals. When you shift your goals (short- or long-term) make sure everyone is still clear on ownership, expectations, incentives, and accountability.

How a Fortune 100 company did It - and you can too

Jacklighting Executives – The question that always stumps them!

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 21:39:00 GMT

Here is a fun game to play – I call it “jacklighting executives”. The way it works is you ask an executive (the more senior the better) a question (often an obvious one) to which they have no answer and see how long they stare into space. You get 1 point for every second they are stymied.

My record score is 4 years, 8 weeks, 14 days, and approximately 11 hours.

Just kidding. (Sort of.)

The question that gets me this result is simple. I ask, “Who owns CRM user adoption in your organization?”

Immediate supervisors are the biggest drivers of CRM user adoption

Many organizations spend millions of dollars on CRM implementations without having thought about what it takes to ensure success and whose job it is to make it happen. This, as history has shown, is a great recipe for disaster.

If you want to improve effective CRM adoption within your organization, don’t just look at the end users. Look at their immediate supervisors. Managers and direct supervisors have the biggest impact on making sure CRM systems are used consistently and effectively. If the manager insists that their team use the system, it gets used. If they don’t, well, I think you know what happens.

Manage your managers for improved CRM adoption

When I work with clients, I often ask them, "what role do you expect your managers to play in driving CRM adoption?" Often times the answer is, “we hadn’t thought of that”.

It turns out that direct managers, those who are the most influential in driving CRM success, are typically not even asked to make sure their team uses the system. Managers typically don’t have this as one of their official job responsibilities. And they are often not given the tools and support they need to ensure their team adopts the CRM system.

Managers need to be held accountable for CRM use within their team

If you want to maximize CRM adoption in your organization, don’t just focus on the end-users. Target some of your efforts on their managers. Let managers know that this is an important part of their jobs. Set them specific targets, measure results, and hold the managers accountable for ensuring their team consistently and effectively uses the CRM system.

If you do this, you will be amazed at the results you get.

Make your CRM a success with our ebook

Get started managing your managers with a 30-minute free consult

How IT user adoption affects your business case

Drop and give me 20! Boot Camp Lessons for CRM Success

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 05:00:00 GMT

When talking with a friend who’s a life-long fitness fanatic, she told me she recently started a 10-week fitness boot camp. This is in addition to her other, ongoing, regular scheduled fitness activities. Even though she is a marathon runner and a competitive swimmer, she was raving about the boot camp.

When she was telling me all the things she loves about it, I learned that some of the tactics and principles of the fitness boot camp could easily be applied to CRM user adoption. Here’s how.

Exercise boot camps give your fitness level a quick lift and measurable results. Can you do the same for your CRM?

My friend is already in great shape, but since she started the boot camp she has seen a marked improvement in results. She said she needed to shake things up and this was a great way to get a quick lift in results.

The same thing can be done with your CRM adoption effort. (Of course, this assumes you already have an ongoing CRM adoption program. You do, don’t you?)

Sometimes a short-term effort to boost adoption can help you shake things up for your users and get them to a new level. Sure, you still need an ongoing CRM user adoption program, but the occasional, creative, unique short-term effort can help you get even more value of your CRM investment.

Challenge yourself to be better

The exercise boot camp is great for people who are already in good shape and want to get even better.

The same goal can apply to a short-term CRM adoption initiative. If you have people who are already using the system, challenge them to find new and creative ways to use even more of its functionality. Encourage them to use the system as part of their daily routine. Challenge them to become your ideal user.

Push me to achieve more

Fitness boot camps challenge people to increase both their endurance and their overall strength. Run longer. Lift more weight. Do more than you thought you could do. Get better results than you could even imagine.

The same can apply to your CRM adoption effort. Challenge users to learn new shortcuts in the system. Help them reduce the time it takes to complete transactions in the system. Help them find new ways that they can automate tasks they are currently performing manually. In short, challenge them to find how they can get more value out of using your CRM system.

Tell me what to do

My friend said what she liked about the boot camp is that it was easy. The instructors told her what to do, how fast, and how many times. She enjoyed the challenge. And the support.

I am shocked at how many CRM initiatives fail simply because people did not ask users to use the system. If you want to increase adoption, ask users for exactly what you want. Tell them how many records they need to create. Tell them when they need to start and stop. Tell them what system modules to use. Tell them on which screen they should enter the information.

Telling users exactly what you want them to do makes it easy for them to do it. They then can focus their energies on making sure they did the job right, and not waste time trying to figure out exactly what it is you want them to do.

Make me part of a team

A large benefit of the boot camp is the sense of camaraderie among the participants. People feel like part of a team. They encourage and support each other.

And there is a sense that you don’t want to let your teammates down.

Shockingly, you can do the same with your CRM adoption effort. You can develop teams and get people to work together. Help people understand that they succeed or fail together.

Let them know that there are other people counting on them.

Get them to help each other.

Make it fun

Just because something is challenging, doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. The boot camp gets you smelly, dirty, and generally nasty. And people love it!

Why not make your CRM adoption program fun? How can you get people to enjoy learning the new system? What intrinsic rewards do you want people to receive from adopting the system? Challenge yourself to make people smile and laugh as they learn the system. It makes a difference.

Let it be over!

All good things must come to an end. Races have finish lines. Boot camps have that last class. People need that light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel. It both motivates and gives people a sense of accomplishment. In many cases, people quite literally “have the t-shirt” at the end of it all.

You can do the same with your CRM program. Yes, I have said many times you need an ongoing user adoption program to sustain effective use of the life of the CRM system. However, you can still include short-term, boot camp-inspired activities to boost CRM adoption. Just like with the boot camp, having defined start and end points can guide and inspire your audience.

Start your own CRM boot camp

Learn more at our lunch session

Read our CRM eBook

7 Lessons From the Gym for Improved IT User Adoption

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:25:00 GMT

I do some of my best thinking when I’m exercising. My mind shuts off all the day-to-day life noise and drifts off into uncharted areas.

With the holiday season upon us, and the inevitable (though often short-lived) rise in people wanting to make changes in their lives (can you say “new years’ resolutions to get in shape”?) it occurred to me that there are a lot of lessons one can learn from the gym that can help us improve adoption of IT systems.

Look around the gym (it’s OK) to see how you can deliver successful IT adoption

Pretty much no matter what gym you go to, you’ll see all different kinds of people, in all different stages of fitness. There are people who are clearly new to the healthy lifestyle arena. And there are specimens that could be on the cover of a fitness magazine. The range of ages, comfort, skill, and experience of the people in the gym is quite similar to the diverse stakeholders that you must get to adopt your new technology.

Getting people to adopt regular, sustained, effective fitness into their lives requires that they change their behavior. They have to change how they conduct their daily personal life activities. This is very similar to getting people to adopt your IT systems. It’s about getting people – all sorts of diverse groups of people – to change their behavior and how they conduct their daily work life activities.

So, what can we learn?

1. Take a holistic, systemic approach

Achieving a healthy lifestyle includes many things, not just exercise. You need to look at multiple areas of your life – diet, drinking, smoking, sleeping – all affect your level of fitness. People who are truly looking to get in shape realize they need to look at ALL of the elements that affect their life, and it’s not just plugging in 30 minutes on the bike every other day. The may end up changing how they shop for groceries, where, when and what they eat, how they spend their free time, and even the people with whom they associate.

Likewise, achieving effective use of your IT systems also requires that you take a look at all of the elements that affect user behavior. You should:

Look beyond system functionality and business processes
Address organizational policies
Examine your rewards and incentives
Consider your communication and employee engagement approaches
Look at how you manage user performance

2. Get expert help

When people join a gym for the first time they often consult a personal trainer. The trainer helps guide you through the process of learning how to exercise and increase our comfort level using the equipment and will often offer suggestions of how to change things outside the gym in order to achieve success inside the gym. The trainer makes it easy for you to through the initial adoption of a healthy lifestyle and then assists you in keeping it going.

Similarly, consulting an expert in IT user adoption can help you drive initial use when a system is first live and then help you sustain it over the long term. Many organizations assume user adoption will just happen – or that it will be mandatory – only to find that they experience difficult, expensive, avoidable problems.

3. Have a plan

People who are serious about their fitness develop a plan (often with help of an expert). The plan is customized (such as losing 100 pounds or training for an Iron Man) based on the goals of the individual or a group.

Having a plan makes achieving your goal easy. It lets you break things into small, manageable chunks. It gives you a schedule and structure for taking action. It lets you know what you need to do from one day to the next. It lets you make the best use of your time and resources.

Many IT projects have a plan and project schedule for how they will build, test, and deploy the system. But they do not have a plan for how they will ensure it is used and delivering business value.

Before you even think about moving forward with funding an IT project, make sure you have identified all of the issues that you need to address in order to drive user adoption. And make sure you have a written plan for how you will make sure these issues are addressed, at every level of your organization.

4. Motivation is key

People find all sorts of tricks to motivate themselves at the gym. Some work with a trainer. Others have a gym buddy. Others yet take classes for that group motivation. And others do it by spending an exorbitant amount of time admiring themselves in the mirror.

The point is, knowing how to exercise and use the equipment is worthless unless people are actually inspired enough to go and do it.

The same is true with the adoption of IT systems. Develop incentive and reward systems to encourage adoption. This may include adjusting compensation plans – especially for commission-based staff. And it may involve things like helping managers to recognize and reward people who do an exceptional job incorporating the new technology into their daily work practices.

5. Set goals, measure progress

Look around the gym and you will see lots of people who have set goals and measure progress. People often print out their workouts and then mark their progress. Others carry around notebooks that they update after every set. And some go for the good old fallback position of just stepping on the scale every day.

The point is, they know the direction they want to go, they are taking steps to get there, and they are measuring results so they know if they are succeeding or if they need to make adjustments.

Do the exact same thing with your user adoption program. For example, I helped one organization set specific weekly goals for how people should use the new CRM. We specified the minimum number of records each person needed to create and update each week. We identified which modules they needed to use. And then we measured the results.

So what happened? We had very quick adoption of the system and we were able to sustain it over the long-term.

6. Make it fun

Working out doesn’t need to be a drag. People find all sorts of ways to enjoy it. They try new things. They try classes, they work out in groups, and they get dirty. The point is that doing something that is challenging and good for you doesn’t have to be hard or annoying. There are lots of ways that you can find fun in what you do.

The same is true when it comes to embracing technology. There are all sorts of ways to engage your user base to help them find the fun in learning a new system. You can run contests. You can make it a team effort. You can give prizes. You can change the physical environment to make the learning experience enjoyable.

Challenge yourself to find new ways of learning new systems and behaviors. If you embrace your creativity, you will be surprised what you can achieve. Oh, and you can even make the fabled ‘user resistance’ a thing of the past.

7. Keep going

OK, this one is a no-brainer. Fitness is not a one-and-done adventure. You need to incorporate it into your life and keep it going throughout your life.

The same is true with user adoption. Getting initial adoption of your system at the time of go-live is of no real value if a year or two later people are not using the system. To get full value from your IT investment you need to sustain effective user adoption over the life of the system.

Get a jump on the competition - find out how

Have your own IT adoption 'personal trainer'

Are Cows the Key to IT success?

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Cows and computers? Really? It's not as udderly ridiculous as it sounds.

Back in the mid ‘90s, I undertook a research project as part of my Master’s in Information Systems. I decided to look at the impact of introducing IT to dairy farm operations. Some very interesting things emerged from my research, insights that can help today’s leaders take action to deliver more successful IT implementations in their organizations.

Introducing IT into dairy farms changed how people perceived work

Dairy farms are not renowned for cutting edge work practices. Despite advances in automation, farm work still involves a great deal of unskilled, manual labor. And many farm workers judge the contribution of their fellow employees based on how much physical work they have done in a given day. If you aren’t lifting, shoveling, carrying, or working directly with a cow, you are not working.

IT changed how people spent their time …and everyone noticed

When technology was first introduced to many dairy farms, the managers (often the owners) spent less time doing physical labor and more time at the computer. By necessity, the shift of how they spent their time corresponded with a shift away from physical labor toward more analytical and data entry tasks. Their absences from the barns and fields was noticed – and commented upon by the other workers. They were perceived as going soft and getting lazy.

The lesson here is that even in a modern office environment, implementing a new system and process will shift how people spend their time.

People may spend less time in meetings or focused on tasks they worked before. This will change how others perceive if their coworkers are working hard or if they are working at all.

Technology changed what it meant to be good at your job. And not just for users

Historically, dairy farmers had a great deal of tacit knowledge that was passed down through the generations and gained over years of working hands-on with the herd. For example, one farmer I know (a bit of a cow whisperer) could look at a cow and tell if it had a twisted stomach and he would wake up from a sound sleep if he heard a cow moo in a way that indicated she was in distress.

Before computers, one was considered good at your job if you could understand animal behavior and take appropriate action.

Once the IT systems were live, there were new information sources. Cow-specific data could be generated to indicate if an individual animal’s production was off, possibly indicating illness. Reports could be generated about animals that should be ready for breeding, allowing the farmer to move from passively observing signs that an animal was in heat to proactively examining individual animals.

The increased access to data means that in addition to knowing their animals well modern dairy farmers now need to be gifted at analyzing reports and using that information to take action. It also means that they have increased information relating to feed costs, animal production, and employee production. It has dramatically altered the decision-making process and put increased emphasis on financial decision-making and management of operations.

Implementing and IT system changed the farmers' jobs - and what it took to be good at their jobs.

What will changing systems mean in your organization? What new skills are needed for your people to be successful? Do your current staff members have these skills? If not, what will you do about it?

People look for new signs of success

Another interesting thing happened on the farms: all employees – not just system users – looked at system-generated reports to help monitor progress. Reports would be posted in the barns that would show things like daily milk production, number of sick animals, and the time it took complete various tasks.

Quite simply, everyone was curious about how the organization was performing and they liked the feedback that the reports provided.

When I work with clients today we often spend time looking at what reports are required and with whom they should be shared. There are often a lot of cultural and political questions that come up in this area. Keep in mind that people do want insight and feedback about their individual performance as well as information on how their group and the organization as a whole performed.

Change continued as the new (and unexpected) ways of working emerged

Farmers that had being using IT for a while shared how the longer they have the systems the more new, creative, and unexpected uses they have had for the data.

For example, one advanced farmer had a lot of data regarding specific areas in which fertilizer had been spread on his fields. While originally intended to help him maximize crop yields while minimizing costs, he later found that this same information helped him avoid a legal entanglement because he could prove that the source of pollution in a nearby lake did not come from his fields.

When implementing new systems, spend time looking at what’s working and what new creative uses of the technology or data emerge over time. Find a way to encapsulate best practices into normal work procedures, while simultaneously ensuring they are effectively shared across your organization.

Organizations are still trying to figure out how they can get the most value from their IT investments. What’s needed is a pro-active evolution of both how they introduce technology, and how they manage it over the long-term. And surprisingly enough, yes, there are some great lessons they can learn from a cow!

Learn how HR is key to successful IT projects

Need to moo-ve your project in the right direction? Ask us how

HR is the Key to CRM success!

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Most CRM failures are not due to the system, but because of poor user adoption. CRM systems sit idle. Data is entered late (if at all) and is riddled with mistakes. In short, the system is not used or not delivering value.

CRM systems are some of the hardest to get people to use

For a variety of reasons, CRM systems are some of the hardest technologies to get people to use. The target users – especially sales and marketing professionals – are used to having great autonomy to do their jobs.

And if they are winning deals, hitting their numbers and bringing in money, management is often unwilling to push them to make best use of the system.

Implementing CRM systems changes more than just processes – it changes jobs

The reality is, implementing a CRM system – or most any system, doesn’t just change internal processes. It actually changes the expectations for how people will perform their jobs.

Enterprise CRM systems are in many ways collaboration tools. Multiple users, from multiple departments all need to access the same system and data to perform multiple different business functions. If one user (or department) has not entered the required information (correctly or at all) then another user cannot do their job.

The interdependent nature of people’s jobs means that each user now needs to not just be outstanding at achieving their end goals; they must also do it in a way that enables others to complete their assigned tasks.

Yet, HR is rarely involved in introducing and formalizing the job changes

In effect, implementing a CRM has now made effective collaboration an integral part of each person’s job. You have changed expectations for what it means to successfully perform their job, meaning their job has changed.

And whenever there are changes to job descriptions, responsibilities, skills, and performance criteria, you need to include HR in the process. HR can help you explain new performance expectations to users. They can also include it in future hiring and on-boarding processes, which may help you sustain effective CRM adoption over time.

Oh, and if you are in a highly regulated industry, have union issues, or have other regional or legal considerations, HR can help you navigate any potential hurdles that you might not know you need to jump.

Join us: The Changing Role of HR in Ensuring IT Success

eBook on CRM Success -- get it now

Find out where you stand and the best next steps

Beware! 5 Signs That Your Good (IT) Idea is Turning Bad

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 02:44:00 GMT

The start of a new IT project is fun. People are excited. Anything is possible. The sky’s the limit. People get inspired – or sometimes seduced – by the potential for how great things will be once they have the capabilities that a new system can provide.

Many IT projects look good on paper. And that is exactly where they should stay.

Unfortunately, what looks like a good idea can often be a bad reality.

Many IT projects – especially enterprise implementations such as ERP, CRM or collaboration tools – go off the rails at some point. Typically, it is not the technology that is the problem, but rather with getting the organization to accept, and actually use, the system.

Recognize the signs that you are in getting into trouble. Then stop!

When I ask clients how they will know when their project is in trouble, they often get very quiet and look at me like I am a total buzz-kill. Why would I even ask such a thing? The project is on-schedule and on-budget. What could possibly go wrong?

One challenge is understanding when projects fail and how to recognize when you’re heading in that direction.

In the simplest terms, IT systems fail when the system is not used and it is not delivering meaningful, measurable business value.

Here are five signs that even if your system is delivered on-time and on-budget that it will – ultimately -- be deemed a failure.

1. Your business case assumes 100% user adoption

Quick, sustained, effective user adoption is on the critical path to IT success. The thing is, it is often assumed, but rarely achieved.

Do you currently have 100% effective use of your existing systems? No? What level do you have? How do you know? Why will this change just because you change systems?

If you only get 50% effective adoption, does your business case still make sense? What about 25%? 75%? Try weighting your business case / ROI forecast against different levels of adoption and see if the numbers still make sense.

2. You have not assigned formal accountability for achieving ROI goals

As I’m sure you do too, I read all the time about the important role that leadership plays in IT projects. Many times the discussion is centered on how having leadership commitment as critical to success. But I don’t often read about exactly what this looks like or how to know if you really have it.

If you want to maximize user adoption and IT success, you need to assign formal authority and accountability for ensuring user adoption at the most senior executive levels. This has to be measured and sustained over the life of the system, and the executive needs to have meaningful incentives for hitting user adoption and IT ROI targets.

3. You don’t know when or how you will measure success

I asked one senior executive who was overseeing a major organizational transformation program at what point do they go back and measure their actual results against those forecasted in the business case. He replied, “Well, we don’t do that. We're not really good at it.”

Many organizations only look at the business case for funding approval, but they never go back to see if they accomplished their goals. If you want to make sure you are achieving IT success, you need to define in advance how, when and who will measure actual results.

If you don’t have this in your plan, you are heading for trouble.

4. Your critical path stops at go-live

Many IT project plans talk about the critical path to go-live. This is great from a system delivery perspective, but awful from a value creation perspective.

System go-live, the period at which you have completed the vast majority of the IT project, is also the point where you have realized the majority of your costs, yet not realized any value from your investment. If this is where you have stopped your critical path, all you have done is mapped out the critical path to maximizing your sunk costs.

Map your critical path out way past go-live until you have achieved your ROI / business value goals as stated in the business case. This may be several years into the future. Ask yourself: what activities do you need to do to drive and sustain effective, value-creating user adoption? How will you monitor your results to see if you are on track? Who will do this? What actions will you take if actual results fall short of expectations?

If you don’t have this defined, your good idea is quickly turning bad.

5. You haven’t enabled user success

Many organizations assume that if they provide system training and have a help desk that users can, and will, adopt the system. In reality, there are often many barriers that prevent users from using the system (even if they want to).

Also, many training efforts are focused on helping existing users learn the new system, but do little to help new users quickly get up to speed on business systems and processes. Users are often left to fend for themselves or seek help from their coworkers, who often do not have the latest and most accurate information. This is a recipe for disaster – especially if your organization is simultaneously adding lots of new employees (turnover or rapid growth).

If you have not assessed all of your user needs (beyond training and technical support) and provided all of the tools and resources they need to be able to use the system, then you have not enabled user success.

Find out more -- check out our free 30 minute consult

Already in trouble? Get help

Need a fast turnaround? Get a Quick Start

What Should You Do When People Don’t Use Your “Mandatory” CRM System?

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:57:00 GMT

I can’t tell you how many conversations I have had with C-level executives who tell me they spend tons of money and countless hours on their CRM system only to have it sit idle. They talk about how much they have wasted on CRM.

And pretty much all of them had declared that system use would be mandatory. It wasn’t.

Leaders often say that CRM use is mandatory and employees “will have no choice”

Many leaders tell me that they don’t worry about user adoption of their CRM system. They either say that this will be mandatory because they say so or because it is embedded into key processes and so, people will have to use the system to complete the process.

Oh, those poor deluded fools.

And yet, many organizations often have extremely low levels of effective IT user adoption

The reality is that user adoption is always discretionary. Employees have tremendous degrees of freedom when it comes to it, how, what for, and when they use systems.

The spectrum of adoption goes from absolutely no adoption (not even logging in) to ineffective adoption (add incomplete, inaccurate data or adding data far too late in the process) to moderately effective adoption (some data entered well and a select number of features used) to grade-A amazing adoption (the users who are a poster child for the vendor of what the system can do).

Also, users are very creative when it comes to avoiding the system. They can simply not enter the information or they can get others to enter it for them.

I can’t tell you how many organizations I have seen where a couple of users (often administrators or downstream system users) spend hours on the phone and working via email to get the 4 or 5 pieces of information they are required to enter in the system from other employees who didn’t enter it in the system (as was mandated by above). In cases like this, the business process was completed (after all, the system was embedded in the process), yet there was no effective user adoption. In fact, a lot of time and money was wasted by the additional effort the employee spent getting required information via phone and email.

All because select employees did not adopt the mandatory system.

IT and business leaders often don’t know what to do next

The reality is user adoption is a leadership and organizational challenge, not a technical issue. Many leaders are great visionaries or subject matter experts, but lack the expertise they need to drive and sustain effective CRM user adoption.

And many times, they are not even told it is their job. They have never been told that ensuring effective user adoption is one of their new job responsibilities. And they often don’t have the tools and expertise they need to make it happen.

Training didn’t work last time…so why would it work this time?

When leaders realize they have user adoption issues, they often struggle for solutions. One of the first things they do – as a rote behavior – is to turn to training as the solution. Unfortunately, training is rarely the problem.

Training is a great tool for developing skills, but training alone is not great for changing performance and behavior. There are many other factors that affect user adoption. Rushing to implement a training program before you even identify the problems’ root-causes is a great way to waste a lot of time and money without getting the results you want.

Have a comprehensive adoption & turnaround strategy

Instead of assuming that training is the solution, begin by identifying all of the barriers and drivers affecting CRM adoption in your organization. These often include a variety of process, policy, people, communication, incentives, and support issues. Understand where you have problems and where you have strengths on which to build.

Then, put in place a strategy for turning around your CRM program and sustaining effective user adoption going forward.

And turning around a failed system is harder than getting it right the first time…

Whenever possible, it is better to avoid CRM adoption problems in the first place then try to correct them after they emerge.

If you are planning (or in the middle of deploying) a new CRM system start by developing an adoption strategy. If you are turning around a failed system, you will need to do a lot of proactive, direct employee engagement activities to help people unlearn problem behaviors and then develop new ways of working.

CRM Success in 10 Simple Steps

Should I fire employees who don’t use the CRM system?

Download our CRM ebook

Rescue your CRM project today

Recover your CRM's ROI

Should I Fire People Who Don’t Use My CRM?

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Whenever I speak to a new client, at some point the conversation drifts around to what they should do if/when/now that their employees are not using their CRM system.

Some of them wonder aloud if they should include firing as an option, but if they don’t bring it up I will ask them what they are prepared to do if employees don’t use their system.

Rarely the answer is, “Yes, I would fire them.” Sadly, this is exactly what the answer should be. But probably not for the reasons you think.

Deploying a CRM system changes people's jobs, it doesn’t just make their jobs better

Many people make the false assumption that implementing a new CRM system will make their employees' current jobs easier. In reality, it fundamentally changes their jobs. And some people will not like their new jobs.

Changing CRM systems alters the processes people need to follow. It also changes the social contract within an organization for how and when information is shared, who should be able to see the information, and who should be able to act on it. And it changes the rules for how much control and autonomy sales professionals have in how they do their job.

For example, sales reps often tell me that they (not their employer) “own the relationship” with contacts. They may complain about the time and hassle of entering the information in the system, but more often than not, the issue is they don’t want to share the information with others.

Assuming you have defined appropriate system use policies, implementing a new CRM system changes the rules about how, when, and with what degree of control people do their jobs. Effectively, this changes their job descriptions and, therefore, the jobs themselves.

User adoption is a performance management issue, not a communication issue

Many people make the mistake of assuming all they need to do is to “tell” people how the system will make their lives easier and “sell” them on the benefits. This approach doesn’t work.

Telling and selling people on the benefits of a CRM system is like trying to feng shui the deck of the Titanic

Instead, a better approach is to let people clearly and specifically that their jobs have changed. They need to understand that how they did their jobs yesterday (often, quite successfully) is no longer OK and it will not make them successful today.

If people are not using the new CRM system in a timely, effective manner, they are not doing their jobs. I suggest handling it like you would any other performance-related problem, using your organization’s management guidelines and processes for resolving sustained performance problems. These often include things such as putting employees on a 90-day performance improvement plan or other tools, which may include dismissal. I think you see where I am going here.

Set clear and measurable goals for CRM use

One of the things that is key to managing employee performance – including driving adoption of your CRM system – is to set clear and measurable goals for how and when people should use the system. Without these, your employees have a very legitimate case that they were never told exactly what performance standards they need to meet.

For example, very few CRM projects set weekly system-use goals. Simple things like asking employees to enter 5 accounts each week, to add 10 activities, and to update 5 activities by noon on Friday helps both management and employees understand what is needed. And often times, once an employee is in the system they will do more than just the bare minimum.

Enable effective user adoption

One important thing to remember that many times there are barriers – legitimate issues that fall outside the employees’ control – that prevent them from using the system. This can include such things as inappropriate system access rights, information not being entered by other employees, or no time due to competing organizational priorities.

Before you can hold people accountable for not using your CRM system, make sure that you have identified and removed all barriers to adoption, AND make sure that you have provided all of the tools, support, information, and guidance that people need to use the systems.

The best way to do this is to make sure you have a comprehensive user adoption strategy and ongoing user adoption program. That way the organization, managers and downstream employees are all using the same roadmap to take the company in the same (profitable) direction.

And then, hold people accountable

If you have done all of this and your people are still not using your CRM system, you need to ask yourself if they are really the right person for the new job role. Employees who are not using the system cost you a lot of time, effort, and money.

And the way you deal with an employee who does not use the system sends a clear message to all other employees as to whether or not they will be held accountable for performing their jobs. Be careful here.

So, should you fire an employee who does not use your system? You bet you should!

10 Simple Steps: How One Fortune 100 Company Rapidly Increased CRM User Adoption

CRM ebook: a resource for your success

Receive weekly IT user adoption Quick Tips

Curious what you can do with your CRM? Talk with our experts -- free

CRM project on the ropes? We can help you rescue it -- and you

When Do IT Projects Fail?

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 05:00:00 GMT

(Hint: it is AFTER go-live)

A friend of mine was telling me about an upcoming event that is focused on discussing failed organizational initiatives as way to learn and improve going forward.

This got me thinking, “At what point are IT projects considered failures?”

Is it when the system doesn’t work? Is it when the system is delivered late? Do projects fail before go-live or after? Or, is it when the system meets all functional requirements, but sits idle and unused?

IT projects fail when they don’t deliver business value

Sure, you could make a lot of great arguments about the system failing due to technical reasons, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but for me, the answer is more complicated than that.

For example, the overall purpose of any software is for it to be used in a way that adds value to the organization. Even if a system doesn’t meet all functional specs, but is still used and delivers some business value, then it is still a win.

IT success or failure happens after users get the system

Arguably, IT projects don’t fail before go-live. Systems are tested before they are deployed. (At least, they should be.) And, if they don’t work, they don’t get deployed. But even if a system is deployed – what kind of business value does it generate if it just sits there and costs you money?

The reality is that IT systems only deliver business value when they are being used…which can only happen after go-live. (See where I’m heading here?) A system that meets all functional specifications but is ignored by end-users does nothing to create value.

The challenge then is how do you make sure your system is actually used and – therefore – creating value?

User adoption is on the critical path to IT success

Generally, the problem with most IT project plans is that they only cover the time up until the initial system deployment, ending at go-live. However, as we’ve already established, success is not achieved simply because you go live. The hard part is that after go-live – in the years the system is used -- is the period of time when the project will be deemed a success or…a failure.

So, like anything else in life, if you want something to happen, you have to be pro-active and make it happen. Include user adoption on the critical path to success. It is not something that just happens at the conclusion of a successful IT project – it’s planned, managed and made to happen.

Include user adoption activities in your project plan

If you set the endpoint of your IT project beyond go-live and to the date by which you expect to achieve your ROI goals – that is when you have created business value – how would this change your critical path? What activities would you include on your critical path from the point of go-live forward? Do you have milestones for measuring user adoption? Do you have the resources you need? Do you even know what resources you need?

Recognizing that you need to drive IT user adoption in order to achieve IT success is a really the first step. Next, develop a comprehensive user adoption strategy, determine the appropriate user adoption methodology, and ensure you have the right resources to make it happen.

Without this, your IT project will not be a success.

Need to jump-start your project? Check out our Quick Start service

Bring your project back from the brink with Project Rescue

Get our IT Adoption Quick Tips newsletter

5 Things Every CIO Needs to Know about Cloud Computing

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Many CIOs are well-versed (or becoming well-versed) in the technical and price components of cloud systems. One area where they are still evolving their thinking is on the business and organizational implications of the cloud.

Here are 5 things CIOs need to think about regarding the rise of cloud computing.

Cloud systems shift the definition of success for IT

With lower costs, faster deployments, and less customization, cloud computing is moving the perception of success away from functionality and technical aspects of the system and refocusing it on the level of adoption and business value that the system creates for the organization. Quite simply, success is now determined by the degree to which the system is delivering measurable business value to the organization.

Systems succeed or fail after go-live

On-time and on-budget delivery of system is no longer enough. Rather, success is determined by the way in which the system is embraced by the user community in the months and years after it is deployed.

Also, with subscription-based software, organizations now re-examine the value of the system every time they need to make a renewal decision. That means that every year or two (depending on your contract) you will need to look back and see if you have gotten your money’s worth from the use of the system. Memories are short and people will quickly forget what it took to get it live. Instead, they will focus on what has happened since it has been in use.

User adoption is key to success

The key to success of cloud systems is determined by the manner and degree in which systems are adopted by users. If users are consistently and effectively using the system, the system will be viewed as a success. If the system is rejected by users and sits idle, you fail.

You need more than just change management

Conventional wisdom dictates that you need change management to get user adoption.

Conventional wisdom is right. And it is wrong.

Change management, which typically includes go-live focused training and communications, fails solidly under the banner of “necessary, but not sufficient” category. Change management alone does very little to sustain user adoption over the life of the system. Instead, you need to a comprehensive user adoption program to build and carry through full and effective system use over the life of your technology.

You need to guide the business in driving – and sustaining – user adoption

Sustained, effective system use is the key to cloud success and requires a new focus on long-term adoption. This requires that leaders from the business units take action to ensure their employees adopt the system. For many business leaders this is something they have never been asked to do before. They need your help.

The role of the CIO and IT is evolving from predominantly being responsible for providing technical expertise to being a catalyst for helping organizations navigate change, and embrace systems and achieve organizational – and financial – success. . This means CIOs and IT departments will need to increase their ability to go beyond system delivery and maintenance and facilitate change, dealing with the organizational and people challenges of embracing IT systems.

Learn more about IT adoption success with our newsletter and weekly quick tips

Learn how to move the adoption of your project forward - take our quiz

Learn how to drive IT user adoption in your organization, -- fast. We can help

Jumpstart your whole team - bring us in for a workshop

5 Things Every Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Needs to Know Before Moving to the Cloud

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 05:00:00 GMT

CFOs love cloud systems. They offer lower upfront costs, faster deployments, and the ability to directly expense costs without messing around with ugly depreciation schedules -- it’s all quite appealing.

And that is nothing compared to the potential upside that cloud system can deliver. Reduced costs, increased revenues, elevated time savings, improved quality, increased customer satisfaction, or whatever your ROI measures, cloud technology promises to improve your organization.

Sound too good to be true? It is. Kinda.

What CFOs need to recognize is that cloud technology introduces new risks and often times additional expense, erasing all potential ROI.

Cloud systems are easier to deploy, but harder to adopt

From the point of view of technical and infrastructure expenses, cloud systems are easier to deploy. Less time is needed acquiring servers, building out data centers, purchasing ancillary software, and hiring staff to support the system. Oh, and they can go live faster too – cutting implementation times from months and years to just days or weeks.

The challenge is, the technology can often go live faster than the people and organization can adapt. Traditional change management programs take time and focus on preparing people for the change. There simply isn’t time for this with cloud systems. With cloud technology, the systems can change faster than people. What happens is that your new, fast, affordable cloud system sits unused.

Weight your business case to reflect effective user adoption

Most every business case I have ever seen assumes 100% user adoption. It’s not explicitly laid out as such, rather it’s an implied assumption. The expectation is that everyone will use the system. And they will do so starting from the first day the system is live. After all, a system that isn’t used does not deliver any value, killing your ROI.

In reality, I have never seen an organization that has 100% effective, consistent system use. Often times it is closer to 25% - 45% effective use. Occasionally more, if they’ve done it right.

Oh, and effective user adoption doesn’t start on day one. Rather, people are normally slow to include the system into their daily work routines. Each day that people delay adopting your system costs you money. And this, as you know, hurts your ROI.

At Tri Tuns, we recommend that CFOs adjust the business case / ROI projections to reflect different user adoption scenarios. Does your business case stand up if you only get 40% adoption? 50%? 75%? What is the impact if there is a 6 -12 month delay before your people use the system? (BTW, research has shown that without direct intervention it typically takes 24-36 months for people to use systems as part of their daily working practices).

Every dollar spent on training is wasted…unless people use the system

This one is a no-brainer. Every dollar that you spend training users on systems that sit idle is a waste of your time and money. It costs you money to develop and deliver the training. It costs you money to pay your people to be in a training class. And there’s the opportunity cost associated with the time people are in training and not doing their jobs.

How does your business case hold up if people never apply what they learn in training?

This is too costly a risk for anyone not to plan for.

Your cloud vendor now shares your risk

You have user adoption risk. And it can cost you big.

The good news is that with cloud systems, a portion of this user adoption risk is transferred to the cloud vendor. Why? Because you will not renew subscriptions for systems that are not delivering value to your organization.

Increasingly cloud vendors are providing tools and services to help clients drive and sustain effective user adoption.

The bad news, most of them are very bad at it. User adoption is a people and an organizational issue, not a technical issue – and software vendors are tech experts, not people experts. So, while your cloud vendor may share your user adoption risk, they often lack the capacity to solve this problem on their own.

Tell your vendor your renewal criteria right up front!

Cloud vendors rely on renewals and long-term customer relationships in order to profit. If you want to see a vendor go into panic mode, let them know that you will not renew your software subscription. They will try all sorts of things – like give you free services or training – to retain your business.

One way to get your cloud vendor to help you attain your needed ROI through user adoption is to tell them exactly what business outcome you need to see in order to renew their software. And let them know when you will be making your renewal decision.

By letting your vendor know how and when you will determine if the money you spend on their software is worth it, they are in a position to help make sure that you achieve your measurable business result. And if you get the value you expect from the system, renew fast and without wasting any time looking at alternatives or engaging in painful negotiations.

Learn more about moving to the cloud

Need to get up and running quickly? Talk with us

Not sure where to start? Try our free 30-minute consult

Is your implementation going south? There's still time to save it

Five Things Every Chief Sales Officer (CSO) Needs to Know About CRM

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Most CSOs recognize the potential value CRM systems can deliver to their organization. Where they get into trouble is knowing what it takes to turn that potential into a reality.

CRM vendors show you what is possible, not probable

I have sat through many a CRM vendor demonstration. Most have it down cold. They walk you through scenario after scenario, weaving in a great narrative of how much time you will save, how your costs of sales will go down, and how new sales will skyrocket.

What they don’t tell you is that without a lot of work with your people – not your technology – you have very little chance of it actually happening in your organization. I have seen many failed CRM implementations and precisely zero of them were due to technical issues alone.

You need to devote time getting people to use the system

Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions of CRM systems is that if you build a great, intuitive system, and then train people on the technology, then your staff will use it.

The reality is quite the opposite. If you want to get your people to use the system – and use it consistently – you will need to spend a lot of your own time driving effective adoption of the system. You will need to set clear expectations for acceptable system use.

You will need to make sure they have the tools and information they need to use the system.

You will need to monitor the results (read: YOU will need to login the system yourself to make sure everything is entered correctly).

And the hardest of all, you will need to hold people accountable if they don’t do as you require.

When people don’t use the system, it costs you

One of the hardest things for CSOs is to penalize sales reps that close deals (especially the big ones), but refuse to use internal systems. But remember, every time your sales reps are not using the system, it costs you. Your total cost of sales goes up. It takes more of YOUR scarce executive time because you are now forced to spend extra effort managing deals that users have not entered into the system. This is time you could spend driving other sales or supporting your other sales reps.

Adjust incentive plans to drive adoption

CRM systems only deliver their potential if they are consistently and effectively used by ALL users. What matters is not just how well they do their jobs (read: hitting their numbers) but how well they actually do their jobs (read: using the CRM system as required).

To maximize CRM adoption, you need to adjust your incentive plans to include a requirement that the system is used consistently, effectively, accurately, and within prescribed time frames.

Hold people accountable and reward results

When people mess up – and they will – YOU need to hold them accountable. This may mean a lot of tough conversations. In some cases, it may mean there is turnover in your organization. But ultimately, if you don’t hold people accountable and enforce your CRM adoption policies, YOU will not be successful.

Read our eBook on CRM

How to rescue your project

DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START? TRY OUR QUICK START STRATEGY

Do You Need a User Adoption Diet?

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Dieting and weight loss is hard. Many of us have tried to make healthy changes in our diet and exercise regimens only to fall off the wagon and regain the pounds a little while later.

A recent article reports that researchers found that people who practiced new healthy eating habits before starting a diet actually increased their success in maintaining weight loss in the future.

Can these same methods work for improving user adoption of your IT systems? You bet they can.

What do weight loss and user adoption have in common?

Effective IT user adoption, like sustained weight loss, both require that you make long-term, ongoing behavioral changes. Sustained weight loss requires that you adopt new, healthy ways of living. Sustained user adoption requires that you adopt new, improved ways of working.

Sure, the focus of the behavior change is different (daily life behavior vs. work behavior), but the methods for achieving success can be equally applied in both arenas.

You need to stop ‘yo-yo’ behavior

Research shows that most diets require intensive focus on eating behaviors, and that this level of intensity cannot be kept up for too long, which is when people lapse. The key to stopping yo-yo behavior was to have people make small, quick adjustments to their behavior. Small adjustments, that didn’t take a lot of effort, made it easy for people stick with new ways of eating.

Successful IT systems require that people shed their old ways of working and fully commit to new ways of performing their job. All too often, there are initial changes of behavior, but like dieting; these changes are hard to be kept up for long. By introducing small, easy changes to how people perform their jobs (such as using new systems and processes) improves the chances that the changes will stick.

Research shows that practicing behavior change increases success

People who practiced making small changes – and then observing the results – before the diet began had better results with sustaining new behaviors once they started a diet.

You can do the same with your users! Yes, you can get them to make small changes in how they do their jobs – often before the system goes live. You just need to plan out what the changes will be, schedule when they should be done, monitor the results, and then support users in sustaining them.

Get started with user adoption behaviors before the system goes live

Depending on the nature of your system and how much time you have before go-live, you are often able to de-couple the user behaviors from the system go-live. This allows you to start practicing new behaviors now, so they will be faster to adopt the new system when it goes live.

Of course, even if your deployment schedule does not allow for de-coupling of behavior change from the system go-live date, there are still ways you can help users apply these lessons to improve user adoption. Want to find out how? Read more of our blog articles, download some free resources, or schedule a complementary 30-minute consult with one of our experts to see how you can help your users improve adoption of your IT systems.

Download and read our CRM eBook

Check out our newly updated Cloud presentation

Get free 30 minutes expert help with your IT adoption issues

Six Reasons Why Every SaaS Vendor Needs a Customer Success Management Strategy

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Just the other day, while talking to a cloud software vendor, we started talking about customer satisfaction and retention. They shared with me their examples of what is becoming a story that I hear all too often from SaaS vendors - that is, they have a great product and get lots of initial sales, but they lose a ton of customers at renewal. And, it’s really hurting their bottom line.

The more I talk to cloud vendors the more I notice a growing awareness among them that the subscription business model has unexpectedly (and, arguably, unintentionally) shifted what it takes for the vendor to be successful. Cloud vendors now realize that if the customer is not successful – that is, getting measurable business value from their SaaS purchase – they will not renew. Unfortunately, many vendors are not prepared to deal with this new reality.

SaaS vendors now realize that they cannot afford to just sell software, rely on the user interface (UI) design and overall user experience (UX), and hope the customer uses it. Retaining customers – and preserving revenues – means needing a comprehensive, actionable strategy to drive and sustain customer success. Here are six reasons why this is true.

1. SaaS software transfers IT adoption risk from the customer to the vendor.

In the old days of traditional, on-premise software, customers made big up-front software purchases. The software vendor made their profits based on license sales, regardless of usage. With subscription software, customers will only pay for (rent) licenses that are actually being used. Lower usage (IT adoption) = lower license revenues.

2. SaaS profits require long-term customer renewals and retention.

The low cost, pay-as-you-go pricing means that customers need less up-front cash to purchase software. However, the lower up-front fees means that vendors need to retain customers longer to get the same amount of revenue. Suddenly, customer retention is critical to vendor profitability.

3. If customers are not successfully adopting your software, they are not renewing.

OK, this is a no-brainer. Savvy customers – and even the not-so-savvy customers – will not keep paying for things they are not using. If customers are not adopting your software, they will not keep paying for it. Now, this doesn’t mean they will drop all licenses (though many will). It may just mean that they dramatically cut the number of paid licenses to eliminate those that are not being effectively used.

4. No matter how intuitive, fluid or beautiful the System, it’s still a change for the users.

Software vendors love to talk about how “usable” their product is, and many (most?) claim almost prescient intuition on the part of the UI. So suggesting that people might not actually use the software is virtual heresy. But really, it’s not about the software. It’s about the fact that the software is a change in users’ daily work lives. Some will love it, some will hate it, but left on their own, not all will use it to its fullest, business-value-creating extent.

5. Customers will not buy more until they use what you have already sold them.

Software vendors love to add new features to their products. It’s how they keep the product fresh and competitive. It is also how they can charge you more per user.

The problem is customers won’t pay additional fees for new features if they are not using what they have already been sold. So, if you are a software vendor, before you go paying developers to create lots of new features for your software, you better make sure that people are using what they already have. And this should start with your existing customers.

6. Customers don’t know how to maximize and sustain successful IT adoption.

This is by far my favorite. For years, customers and vendors alike assumed that if they deployed a system and trained people to use it, that everyone would. The reality is that very few systems are fully adopted. In fact, one report shows that up to 24% of the value of an IT system is lost due to poor IT adoption.

Many IT implementation efforts focus on getting the system live, but do nothing to ensure it is effectively used and delivering measurable business value to the customer organization. The methods used to develop and deploy a system are very different from those used to help organizations manage change and maximize IT adoption. Unfortunately, many organizations do not know how to effectively manage and sustain IT adoption programs.

SaaS vendors need to invest in Customer Success Management Strategy

SaaS vendors are quickly learning that having a great product alone is not enough. They now need to have a strategy in place to help customers quickly adopt it and make sure it is delivering business value. We are already starting to see SaaS vendors create new positions – such as Customer Success Managers – to help clients get the most from their software. This is just the first step. In the future, customers will demand – and vendors will need to provide comprehensive customer success management programs.

Want to learn more? Tri Tuns partners with SaaS vendors to develop and implement customer success programs. Contact us today to see how we can help.

{module_contentholder,70295}

Cloud vendors beware! Subscription software means an end to shelfware.

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

In this blog we often talk about the subtle and no so subtle changes that cloud computing is introducing into the industry. One emerging phenomenon is the slow elimination of waste that has plagued organizations for decades – namely, Shelfware.

Shelfware – software that was bought, but never used – has plagued the industry for decades

I spent many years consulting on CRM projects. I worked with companies of all sizes, in many different industries. One constant that I encountered was that all of them had wasted tons of money on software that was never used.

Shelfware happens for many reasons. Changing requirements, changes in the staffing, or companies get acquired, making previously purchased systems redundant. Other times it happened when an, shall we say ‘overzealous’ software sales rep was able to convince the customer to purchase things they simply didn’t need.

Shelfware hurts customers (but not vendors)

Regardless of the reason, shelfware hurts customers.

I have seen where some clients had just a few licenses or modules that were not used. Others had entire systems – multi-million dollar systems – that were not used. All of this is money, sometimes serious money, companies wasted that could have been spent somewhere else – generating actual business value.

Cloud computing eliminates shelfware

Cloud computing, where customers rent, not buy software, is eliminating shelfware. Sure, customers may have find that they may initially signup for more licenses than they need. Or they may get modules that they later find they don’t use. Either way, these licenses will only remain on the shelf until the next contract renewal.

Customers won’t pay to renew licenses that sit on the shelf. They will drop unused licenses and then if they need them in the future they will add them back later.

And cloud vendors will feel the pain

All of this sounds great. And it is great. If you are the customer.

It is bad news, really bad news, if you are the vendor.

While vendors would prefer that they systems are used (that way they can up-sell clients on upgrades and more licenses), the vendors still make a lot of money on shelfware. They get the licenses fees for the initial sale. And in many cases, customers continue to pay maintenance contracts on all licenses, even those that are on the shelf. Maintenance fees – especially those that never result in calls to tech support – are great revenue to vendors.

So, cloud vendors beware. If you haven’t yet felt the sting from reductions in shelfware, enjoy it. For these days are numbered.

Read our CRM eBook

Free 30 minute Consult

Rescue your project today

Cloud vendors - partner with us for success

{module_contentholder,70295}

Four Reasons Naming Conventions are Key to Successful IT Collaboration

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

IT Collaboration Needs IT Adoption

So, you’d think working with IT adoption specialists would make IT adoption easier, right?

Wrong. We’re all just more aware of each other’s mistakes.

Take naming conventions, for example. They are one of the most basic, fundamental steps to take down the road to full IT adoption.

But everyone comes to their job with their own Naming Logic – which may, or may not, actually be logical as determined by other human beings.

To take the mystery out of other people’s logic, create order and streamline workflows naming conventions must be created and enforced. Continually. Because not only do old habits die hard, but also because people come and go, which only makes naming conventions even more important than they were when you implemented them.

Why Naming Conventions Are Important

There are a number of reasons why naming conventions are important. But let’s hit the high points:

Naming conventions:

1. Create order.

When all file and folder names are structured in a replicable way – such as ACME_Proposal_v.1_03SEP12.docx – then there is no question as to what it is and everyone can follow along and the “but it made sense to me” quotient is eliminated.

This is especially important for documents that originate on an individual’s device, as their singular creation. If they do not follow the organization’s naming convention then the second that working document –with its idiosyncratic file name – goes to anyone else, chaos can ensue. (Trust me – I’ve seen it happen all too often, even with my best employees.) It’s just easier to follow the naming conventions in every instance, thereby reducing the likelihood of future confusion.

2. Establish a sustainable structure.

Having a naming convention makes it easy to scale your operation and keep everyone sane. Scaling not only includes exponential growth, but also exponential complexity. When everyone plays (or…names) by the same rules, the order naming conventions create accretes and solidifies.

3. Make work quicker and easier.

The mental shorthand naming conventions provide make it easier for people to do their jobs, which makes work move more quickly. For example, when a document is in development, it could be a “draft” or it could be “in process”. But neither of those terms actually define where that version is in the document’s life cycle, which easily leads to confusion. Naming conventions, like in #1 above – ACME_Proposal_v.1_03SEP12 – eliminates confusion and makes everyone’s lives easier as a result.

4. Ensure simple sorting and searching

Simply put: grouping and categorizing works. Coders, with their complex and data-rich world, have been grouping for years. Bringing this coder’s Best Practice to everyone else in an organization simplifies whole file and database structures, simplifying and speeding up the tasks of sorting and searching.

A Little Enforcement Goes a Long Way

Helping people adhere to naming conventions is all about creating good habits, which is the basis of all user adoption activities. And ongoing vigilance is needed.

Team Leaders are usually those tasked with ensuring employees are made aware of and correct the inevitable times when naming conventions are forgotten, making them a pivotal point of making sure everyone's ducks are in a row.

Case Study #3 – CRM Resistance or Mutiny? A Stark Example of Collaboration Gone Wrong

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

This is part 3 of a 3 part series that shares real-life examples of unexpected challenges that some major corporations have experienced when implementing CRM systems.

Penny-wise and pound-foolish

Beware of IT lead CRM projects. That’s what we hear all the time and read about in all the articles. Well, I can say from experience, this is good advice.

One UK client we had was replacing their CRM system. The IT department was mandating the system replacement. This was done for a variety of reasons – the biggest two being the technical limitations of the existing system that threatened future IT development, and that the vendor was sunsetting support for the system.

The business liked the existing system and didn’t want the new one. And they still had a bad taste in their mouths from previous experiences dealing with failed system rollouts and perceived poor support from IT.

So, you can image how warm of a reception IT received when they:

1. Mandated the replacement of the existing CRM.

and then

2. Declared they only had budget enough for one release, so there would not be any future enhancements.

From passive resistance to active fighting

Over the next few months, the usual CRM planning meetings went on. And on. And on.

Meeting after meeting ended in disagreement and delays. Some legitimate technical, data and process issues were identified. But a lot of the issues that came up had nothing to do with the technology.

What became clearer each day is that the user groups were very afraid of what would happen after the system was live. They were fine with technology in general. They actually used the current systems quite well.

Instead, they were worried that they would be thrown to the wolves once the system was live and it wouldn’t work as they needed. There would be no money or resources to get things fixed. The users – not IT – not the system – would get blamed for everything that would go wrong.

It had happened before.

They weren’t going to let it happen again.

Things really came to a head in the days right before go-live. The users had identified three critical bugs that needed to be fixed before they would sign-off on going live. The bugs were fixed. The users retested and confirmed that they were fixed and the system was working as they needed. And yet, despite verbally stating that everything was fine, the business users still refused to sign-off that the bugs were fixed.

Breaking the logjam

After several tense meetings, issues were escalated to the executive committee. Two things happened. First, the users who were clearly active in preventing the system from going live got their hands slapped.

Second, the IT department acknowledged that they had bigger issues here and that they would need to do more to support the users. They agreed to shift some other priorities (and budgets) and decided that they would indeed schedule a second release for a couple of months after go-live to address any outstanding or emerging issues.

Once this happened, the two sides began to work together more effectively. Sure, they were still skeptical of each other, but they managed to move forward.

Lessons learned

Among the many lessons here, one of the biggest is that emotional issues – fear, distrust, anger – affect how people approach CRM projects. Understanding these people-based issues and proactively dealing with them is the only way to prevent them from continuing to negatively impact your project.

Unfortunately, many projects ignore these critical components of human behavior. And it costs them a lot of time, money, and unnecessary hassle.

Read our CRM eBook

Bring us in to help your team

Need the right people at the right time? Try our experts on demand

Case Study #2 – Of Mice and Men – A Story of CRM Torment

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

This is part 2 of a 3 part series that shares real-life examples of unexpected challenges that some major corporations have experienced when implementing CRM systems.

Do you think this guy could use the CRM?

Several years ago we were working on a CRM project for a large insurance company. The client was making a major investment in an enterprise-wide CRM system in hopes of accelerating sales and streamlining operations.

This organization was in the midst of the transition from the olden days when corporate executives had administrative staff to the modern days whenever everyone was expect to type their own letters (OK, emails) and to enter their own information directly into the system.

We knew the transition was going to be tough for a lot of users. The nature of the sales process itself, and the products that needed to be configured within the system, inflicted a level of complexity that would be tough for some users to quickly grasp.

Still, with a bit of training and support, the client assumed that all the users would figure it out. Eventually.

Seriously? ‘What’s a Mouse’?

I still remember the alarm bells that went off in my head when I was sitting at a desk outside the office of newly hired executive – who was a shining example of the majority of the CRM users – and I heard him say, “What’s a mouse”?

No joke.

It would have been funny if it were not so frightening. Unbeknownst to the project team, the vast majority of the future CRM users were not IT literate. Many of them had never used a PC. Most couldn’t even type.

If the intended user group couldn’t even work a computer, how would they ever be able to fully adopt – let alone get maximum value from the CRM system?

We were in trouble.

From ignorance and apathy – to alarm – to action

I immediately went to the project manager and shared my concerns. The project manager – who was very gifted technically, but not so much on the people side, didn’t quite understand the concern. Still, he gave us some room to look into it.

We quickly assembled a small group with representatives from all of the user departments. At first they didn’t fully understand just what a big deal this really was. So, some guy doesn’t know what a mouse is. So what?

And then we asked a serious of questions. We asked about the results they wanted to achieve. We asked about how and when they would achieve them. We asked who needed to use the system to make it happen. And then I asked about what level of knowledge and ability they needed in order to be able to do so.

Slowly the ignorance and apathy turned into alarm. They started to see just how much trouble they were in. Their eyes drooped and their shoulders tightened. They realized that all of the time and effort – and money – they had spent was about to come crashing down in a blaze of career-ending failure because they had missed the critical element that users need to be able to actually adopt the system!

Jump-starting User Adoption – before go-live.

Once people could see the cliff on the horizon, they were quick to act. They immediately put together a working team to facilitate user adoption.

The team started by identifying the different user groups and what was expected from each user.

They began to identify what level of IT literacy and skills were required for each group.

Then they put in place a plan for how they would develop the required user capabilities and who would make it happen.

They took action and got into better shape.

People were now focused on the issue at hand and averted a major crisis. They put in place a working team that could deal with the current issues and respond to future emerging issues affecting users’ ability to use the system. While this was not a complete user adoption program, it was a good first step.

Project Rescue

Quick Start Strategy

DOWNLOAD OUR CRM EBOOK

Case Study #1 – The Elusive CRM Culture

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 04:00:00 GMT

This is part 1 of a 3-part series that shares real-life examples of unexpected challenges experienced by some major corporations when implementing CRM systems.

On the right path – Culture as a core component

While working with a global, Fortune 500 company I was extremely surprised – and impressed – to see that they recognized the importance of people, culture and behavior to the success of their CRM program. The organization was engaged in a multi-year CRM rollout that would introduce a new CRM system across their European offices and also consolidate their call center operations from 50+ offices to one new central service center that would be built from the ground up.

The client was taking a very thorough, logical, well-thought-out approach. They brought in top thought leaders, specialized consultants, and experienced staff. They engaged the business units and mapped out requirements. They developed a core operating model – and right there as one the pillars (along with people, process, and technology) was – you guessed it – culture!

Wait! You have how many culture deliverables?

This core operating model was the foundation for all subsequent program activities. All of the work streams, activities, events, communications and deliverables mapped back to it. And believe me, there were lots of deliverables. In fact, even after working on many large CRM projects over the years, I had never seen so many deliverables. And given this was a multi-year rollout, there were literally hundreds of them (planned or completed).

So, imagine my shock when I noticed a huge red flag. There was not one single deliverable relating to culture.

Zero.

Zip.

Nada.

How could an organization that identified culture as one of the four core components of their operations not have a single deliverable, event or activity related to this allegedly key element of their CRM success?

It occurred to me that either culture was not really core to their success, or more likely, the people on the project didn’t really understand culture or know what to do to influence it. As I talked with people on the projects, I landed firmly on the latter.

Culture derailed. #CRMfail

Fast forward a couple years and the CRM system had been rolled out to several countries (more planned) and the new call center is up and running.

And they are having culture problems.

People are not doing their jobs as designed. The system is underused. There are cultural tensions between the new employees in the call center and the existing employees in the countries they support. Oh, and their business case is breaking down because expected costs savings are evaporating due to turnover, inefficiencies, and additional staff required to fill in the gaps.

Don’t leave culture to chance

Perhaps the biggest lesson here is that even the best planning does not alleviate you of the need to proactively and continually address culture and user adoption after the system goes live.

Also, organizations making major IT investments need to realize that the knowledge, skills, and methodologies used to prepare for a system rollout are not the same as the ones you need to manage, respond and adapt to user needs after the system is live.

There is a growing awareness – spurred on by the rise of cloud computing and a growing intolerance for failed IT systems – that traditional approaches to change management are not effective. New methods that address the long-term, sustained user adoption are required.

The good news is that these are starting to emerge.

Please read more of our blog entries and enjoy our free resources to see how you can drive CRM success.

Read our CRM ebook

Sign-up for a free 30-minute consult

How to sustain high CRM user adoption

10 Simple Steps to Rapidly Increase CRM Adoption

7 Things Cloud Vendors Need to Do to Retain Customers

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

The rise of cloud computing has made it easier for cloud software vendors to acquire new customers. It has also made it harder to keep them.

We consistently hear from cloud vendors that they have no problem winning the sale, but if their customers have not been consistently using the software – and getting clear, measurable value from it – they don’t renew their contracts.

Cloud software providers are looking for new ways to retain customers

When I talk with cloud software executives, at some point they always ask me for advice on how they can improve customer retention and maximize profitability. I often find that there are a lot of structural and procedural issues within the software vendors organization (not the client organization) that prevent this from happening.

7 things cloud IT software vendors can do to increase IT adoption & customer retention

The key here to customer retention is to make sure the clients’ users are fully adopting the system and getting the most value from it. Here are seven steps you can take to help make this happen.

1. Include renewals in sales incentive compensation plans

Several cloud software vendors tell us that their sales reps are incentivized based on the amount of the initial sale only. Consider the leveraging power of aligning incentive plans so that your sales representatives develop and maintain long-term relationships with clients.

2. Pay commissions on payments received (cashflow), not initial sale amounts

Some cloud software vendors tell us that commissions are determined by the amount listed in the initial contract documents and the salespeople are paid when the customer signs up. However, many vendors also find that over time – especially when they get closer to the renewal date – the sales reps will give away refunds, free services or other concessions in an attempt to retain unsatisfied customers. All of this comes at a cost for the software vendor, but without any penalty to the sales rep.

Instead, software vendors can stagger commission payments to match cash received from customers. This added flexibility allows you to make adjustments based on any late term concessions or giveaways to the client.

3. Set targets for increase in customer licenses and additional services sold, not just initial sale

Many customers adopt a “try before you buy” approach to cloud software purchases. They will often start with an initial purchase for a small number of users and/or limited system functionality. They will then increase their spend only if they are getting value from the system.

Cloud vendors looking to improve profitability can include account expansion and retention goals in their compensation plans.

4. Weight commissions based on customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is another element that influences (and may predict) customer retention. Instituting a program of regular measurement of customer satisfaction and tying compensation for sales reps, or even all employees, based on customer ratings will further incentivize staff to focus on developing positive, long-term customer relationships.

5. Incentivize commissions based on customer profitability, not gross sale

In attempts to boost customer satisfaction and retention, some sales reps may go overboard in client entertainment, giveaways, or other such things that come at a cost. To help make sure sales reps are focused on overall profitability – while giving them the freedom they need to cultivate positive customer relationships – commissions and bonuses should be based on the overall profitability of the client relationship.

6. Obtain customer renewal criteria before the initial sale

Going into any sale, you know you need to retain customers past the initial contract period. They know they want to minimize the cost and hassle it takes to switch vendors, yet they also need to make sure they are getting a positive ROI on their IT investments.

Before you even sign the initial contract, get your customers to define in writing their renewal criteria. By getting the customer to agree up front how and when they will decide if they are going to renew, you can align all of your efforts to helping the customer achieve the desired business results. This will save you time and money later, while also giving you improved insight when forecasting anticipated customer renewal amounts.

7. Partner with IT adoption experts to make it happen

IT adoption is a people and organizational issue, not a technology issue. Most cloud vendors do not have the expertise or service capabilities they need to help customer maximize and sustain user adoption. Instead they can partner with an organizational change and IT adoption company that have specific services and expertise in this area. Doing so is one of the fastest and easiest ways to preserve revenue and retain customers.

Download our cloud presentation

Why Partner With Us

Cloud IT renewals depend on value delivered, not cost

Cloud vendors beware! You now own a share of your customers’ risk

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

I love talking with cloud software sales professionals. They are always excited about the big deal they are chasing and how they are going to win a new account. Even (or particularly when) they face a lot of competition, their faces light up when they are talking about landing the new customer. Their energy is contagious.

And if you want to wipe the smile off their face and bring them back down to earth, all you have to do is ask them about their customer renewals.

In recent years, an almost universal reaction when I ask software sales professionals about their customer satisfaction and retention is that they get quiet and the blood drains from their faces. I consistently hear things like, “We are great at winning the initial sale, but lose a lot of customers at renewal time” or “I spend so much time trying to resolve customer problems that I can’t focus as much as I should on winning new business”.

Does this sound familiar?

An unintended consequence of cloud software is the transfer of IT adoption risk from the customer to the vendor

The cloud software model, with low up-front costs and fast deployments is very appealing to new customers. However, software vendors are just starting to realize the hard truth that if customers are not using the software – and getting clear and measurable business value from doing so – they will not renew their subscriptions.

Prior to cloud-based, subscription software organizations had large up-front expenses to buy (not rent) software. The vendor received their profits up-front and the customer bore the full risk and burden of user adoption. The customer had large sunk costs and they were often unwilling to incur another sunk cost to replace a system that was underused.

Not anymore.

Cloud-based, subscription software – with pay-as-you-go pricing – has reduced barriers to entry when it comes to acquiring new software. After all, renting inherently carries less risk than owning. But much to the chagrin of cloud software providers, it has also lowered the barriers to exit when it comes to leaving vendors.

Cloud vendors are just starting to feel the pain. And, it’s going to get worse.

Cloud vendor profits require long-term customer renewals

The cloud-based, subscription standard has changed revenue models forever. With the model’s low up-front payments from the customer, cloud vendor profits now hinge on both customer volume and retention. Maximizing the number of paid licenses has always been vital to success, but now the key to sustainably increasing profits is retaining the customers over the long-term. It’s all about a customer’s lifetime value, not just what they paid this quarter

Unfortunately, many cloud vendors focus primarily on new client acquisition, all the while losing revenue out the back door when customers leave. This is unsustainable. After all, it costs more to acquire a new customer than to retain a current one.

Customers don’t renew cloud subscriptions that are not used

Have you (or one of your friends) ever bought a gym membership at the start of the year with great hopes for going on a regular basis? How long did it take until the regular workouts gave way to other things? How long did it take until you (or your friend) realized that you were not getting any value from your membership fees and you just dropped your membership?

The same thing happens with cloud software. If customers aren’t using the system, they are not renewing it.

Software companies are not equipped to drive IT adoption

Compounding the challenge for cloud software providers is that IT adoption is a people and organizational problem, not a technology problem. And software vendors are not equipped to solve it.

The core capabilities and expertise of most software vendors lies in their technical expertise. Quite simply, they know how to make great software.

What they don’t know how to do is help people and organizations manage change. The skills, methods, knowledge and abilities you need to help people adopt and sustain new ways of working are vastly different from those needed to design, develop, and enhance great software.

Cloud vendors need to find new ways to mitigate IT adoption risk

Simultaneously, cloud vendors are starting to realize that while they now bear the brunt of the IT adoption risk once borne by their customers and that they are not equipped to manage that risk.

It’s now showing up in the bottom line that simply offering standard point-and-click training isn’t sufficient for addressing customers’ IT adoption needs – or the cloud vendor’s risk. After all, training focuses on the software, not the “fleshware”, or the change the new technology brings to the customer’s organization.

To fill this critical service gap – and the hole it’s drilling into profits -- increasingly, software vendors are partnering with third parties to fill the critical service gap and deliver the capabilities customers need to manage organizational change and sustain IT user adoption.

Get your cloud vendor to help you increase UA and ROI

Cloud renewals depend on value delivered, not costs

Partner with us to increase IT adoption

FREE 30-MINUTE CONSULT

{module_contentholder,70295}

Is Your Change Management Approach Killing Your Change Program? Consider These 3 Scenarios

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

When I speak to executives who are about to start a new system implementation project, their attitude toward change management is typically quite casual. They approach it as an afterthought, not something that is key to the success of the system.

Frequently they make comments like, “yeah, we need some change management, give me some of that” – as casually and as off-handed as if I’d asked them “do you want fries with that?”

One size fits all change management programs don’t work

Perhaps part of the problem is that people don’t fully understand change management nor do they recognize how they need to employ different change methods based on their specific needs.

Instead, I often encounter a perception that change management is basically just some communications and training. Experience has taught many people that you initiate the change management program after the system development effort has begun and you stop it after the system is live.

Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t work. In fact, it may actually be killing your change management program. It is time to rethink how we structure and deliver our change management programs.

Match your change adoption approach to your situation

Today, there are lots of different options for how organizations implement technology. Some systems take years of planning and development, where others are live in just a couple of weeks. Some systems are highly customized and others are deployed right out of the box. Some systems are stable and rarely updated and others have new releases every few weeks.

Each scenario has different change management requirements and challenges. You need to match your change approach to your specific situation.

3 scenarios that require different approaches

Here are three scenarios to consider. There are many more out there and we recommend checking to make sure you have the right change approach for your situation before you even start your project.

1. Long-term, slow-moving projects (major transformation efforts)

With long-term slow-moving, projects – like those that require many months (or years) of up-front planning and development – you can accelerate ROI by de-coupling the change and user adoption effort from the system go-live. This allows you to start the user adoption and organizational change program first, enabling increased organizational performance (ROI) even before the system is live.

Because so many of the reasons for poor user adoption are organization-based and lie outside the technology just switching systems doesn’t resolve these issues. By addressing these organizational issues up front you can get more ROI out of your existing system. You also help separate any issues / resistance people have with the organizational change itself from their perception of the new system, thus people are less likely to blame the new system for organizational problems.

2. Short-term, fast implementations (cloud systems)

With short-term fast-moving, projects (think cloud systems) the technology can go live before the organization is ready for it. There is not enough time to setup the change management program itself, let alone conduct change activities to fully prepare users for the upcoming system.

In this situation, you need to cut the time it takes to establish your change program, deliver whatever change activities you can before go-live, and the retro-fit your change effort after go-live.

3. Ongoing, constant system evolution (agile development)

When your system is undergoing constant development, such as with agile development, your users face a situation of continuous change and instability. While this is a great development approach it is not great from a user adoption perspective. In other words, for the technology it works, for the human beings, not so much.

Continuous development and release cycles have in effect transformed users’ learning curve into a learning treadmill. Users tell us that they never know what has changed and that they are constantly having to spend time searching for information or learn the latest changes to fields, layouts and functionality.

In these situations you need to make sure users have easy, reliable access to the latest information. They also need to access to support that can resolve both their technical and business process questions. Further, with each release of new functionality you need a communication effort. You also need to constantly review and update your policies, procedures, responsibilities, user adoption goals and metrics.

In short, if you have ongoing, constant development you need an ongoing, constant change management effort.

Download cloud presentation

Complimentary 30 minute consult

Lessons learned to increase cloud adoption

Technology Roadkill – Don’t get run over by the Change Management bus

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Currently, a local b-school has a bus ad that reads “technology is ubiquitous; management is necessary”. What struck me reading the side of the bus was -- thankfully not the bus, but --- that there was an element missing. Now, granted, it’s a bus ad so there’s limited space but the gaping hole between the two statements is something that hides in plain sight: the constant that affects everything - change.

Change is constant – you have to keep up

Change and the ubiquity of technology are deeply intertwined and the marriage of the two is the reason management is necessary. And getting ever more so.

But if change is the thing that drives both technology and the management thereof, how do people and organizations manage the change so

a) it doesn’t run them over (making them technology roadkill), and

b) they get the desired impact and outcomes?

Technology moves faster than people do

Directing -- and managing – organizational change when implementing technology is especially important in the face of

• the ever-accelerating expected time to ROI from your IT investment

• the speed with which technological changes can be made these days (cloud, anyone?) and

• all of the moving parts within a change process that only increase exponentially every time another team or business process is added to the mix.

So what are you to do when you’re getting pressure from the top to deliver better results faster, and you’re getting grief from below about all the changes that are being made so quickly?

In an ideal world, you’d have a formal user adoption program and team – beyond the implementation team – to facilitate the transition and sustain it on into the future, ensuring the necessary ROI and achievement of business goals throughout the life of the system. But at some point, the system is live and the consultants and project leads go home. And you still need help.

This is where having an IT adoption plan, focusing on the human side of technology change, is key to success.

Focus your IT adoption efforts on your team, and not on the technology

At a conference earlier this year, we heard a phrase we could really identify with: “it’s not the software that fails, it’s the fleshware.”

Think about it: the time, the energy, the planning, and – quite frankly – the money that go into bringing a new system online is almost exclusively directed at the technology. That is, figuring out which to get, once procuring it getting it customized, up and running and people trained on it. Then, people are set loose and attention is directed elsewhere.

But what about the people? A portion of their daily work life has changed significantly, which changes them, their teams, business processes and the organization but chances are none of those changes have been focused on with the same degree of effort the software was.

With an IT adoption plan in place – ideally from the point when you decided to change technologies – that contains vital elements such as:

• Outlined business goals cascading into department and team goals

• Corresponding metrics against which everyone will be measured

• A relevant and meaningful two-way communication strategy

• Revised and specifically defined roles and responsibilities and

• Individualized action plans for each team member to succeed

Because that bus ad is all too true. Technology is ubiquitous and management is necessary. It’s just that technology changes organizations, their cultures and how/when/why people communicate and interact.

Strategically and purposefully planning for and managing the People Factor is a major undertaking, but the only one that will deliver the benefits and value you need and want from your new IT system.

Download cloud presentation

Failing project? We can help turn it around

Ready-made formal User Adoption Program

10 Simple Steps: How One Fortune 100 Company Rapidly Increased CRM User Adoption

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

If you have worked on CRM projects, I bet at some point in your career you have encountered this problem: after spendinga lot of time and money to buy, customize and deploy a CRM system, only to face low user adoption or outright user resistance.

At least, that was the situation we faced in one Fortune 100 organization.

So, we asked ourselves, “How do we turn it around”? Here’s how.

From CRM Failure to CRM Success

When I first started on the project, the client had deployed an on-premise CRM system about two years before. They had skimped on their strategy, requirements, processes, and user adoption effort; and surprise, surprise, no one was using it, meaning they weren’t getting any value from it.

Our first step was to quickly assess the situation and develop a strategy to ensure that CRM system would be adopted and deliver measure actual ROI to the organization. In this particular case, drastic action was needed. Temporarily, we suspended the system so that we can overcome the first hurdle: fixing the alignment between the technology and business processes.

We could then re-launch the system and turned our attention to an even bigger hurdle: overcoming skepticism and rapidly driving effective user adoption of the new (re-launched) CRM system.

This time, we had a plan in place.

Facilitated System-Use Reviews with Employees and Managers

Our user adoption strategy included several components. One of the most effective techniques we used to quickly get people to use the system was to conduct weekly system use review meetings with each department. We used a designated facilitator and engaged in two-way, interactive communication with the users.

User Adoption took-off faster than we had expected!

The results were better than we could have possibly imagined!

• Within one month, we'd overcome the most serious user adoption issues – people were actually using the system!

• Within four months, we'd reached the point where the CRM system was consistently used and we had clear metrics and measurable results that clearly proved the business benefits to the organization and its customers.

• Within six months, we had sales users fighting to get access to the system (the system was primarily used by the customer support and finance departments).

• Within 12 months the system was internally recognized as a company “best practice” that contributed to client passing its ISO 9001 certification.

How we did it

Here are 10 steps we used to rapidly accelerate user adoption:

1. Engage front line managers

Our first step was to engage the front line managers to clarify their role and accountability for effective CRM adoption within their teams. Together, we agreed on the extent of their responsibility and authority, and then we agreed on the actions they would take before and after go-live.

2. Schedule system-use reviews before go-live

Prior to go-live (re-launch), we announced to the user community that we would hold a series of system use reviews. The reviews were face-to-face department meetings, lasting about an hour. We initially scheduled the meetings to be held weekly and planned to slowly phase them out as CRM adoption stabilized.

3. Focus on performance, not complaints or blame

The meetings were carefully structured and led by an outside facilitator to maintain order and make sure the review sessions were effective. One key ground rule was that the goal of each session was to focus on what steps to take to make sure the system was adopted and delivering measurable business value.

Sure, initially there were a few complaints and a bit of venting. Interestingly enough, this quickly tapered off, and after just a few review sessions the complaints stopped.

4. Show who did it right

Each session, we started to see week-over-week improvements. We’d project the system on a large screen and show several examples of actual system transactions where everything was done right. We highlighted different system modules, praised those specific individuals who did as they were asked, and gave everyone a clear example of what was expected.

5. Show who did it wrong

Here we carefully walked a fine line. We showed examples of transactions that were not entered correctly, so that everyone knew what NOT to do going forward. The primary focus was on facilitating learning because many times the mistakes that were made were not intentional and were a result of a gap in training, communication or some other way we’d delivered the system.

In limited cases, there were a few examples of ongoing passive resistance on the part of one or two users. These two were highlighted so that other users knew this was not to be repeated. These problem users also received direct counseling by their managers outside of the departmental review sessions.

6. Answer Questions

The review sessions also gave end-users an opportunity to ask questions, share their experiences, and actively engage with managers and IT staff. The questions they asked shed light on areas of ambiguity that we had not previously identified and provided input that we later used to enhance training, communications, FAQs, and end-user support capabilities.

7. Listen for emerging needs

The conversations with users, managers, and IT also surfaced many new and emerging needs. In some cases, we identified requirements for system modification or captured enhancement requests that would further improve the usability of the CRM system. Also, having a critical mass of users in the room enabled us to get input from other users, which helped us identify the potential impact and priority of requested system changes. The emerging needs were then put on the roadmap for future CRM development.

8. Set weekly goals

Each meeting concluded with agreeing on and setting specific goals against which users would be measured the following week. These SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound) were documented and emailed out at the end of each meeting. Goals included things like, “create X number of new service requests in the system” or “confirm and update the account and contact information for your top 15 customers”.

9. Measure weekly results

Prior to the next review meeting, the CRM system manager generated reports to measure users’ progress against the agreed-upon goals. The reports were reviewed with the managers prior to the team review session. Any specific issues or exceptions were noted and the subsequent review meeting agenda was modified as necessary to make sure all issues were addressed.

10. Repeat

The CRM adoption review meetings continued over the first four months following go-live. Initially, there was a lot of discussion in each meeting and several went over the 1-hour scheduled time.

Things gradually improved and around the eighth week, we noticed a drop in the number of issues we had to cover such that the meetings typically took about 40 minutes.

By the end of the fourth month, problems – and user complaints – had all but ceased and we no longer needed the regular review meetings. At this point, any specific user issues were addressed on a case-by-case basis.

Read our CRM eBook

Quick start strategy

Project turnaround

Free 30-minute consult

Can a "Code of Conduct” Increase IT Adoption in Your Organization?

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Many universities have Honor Codes or Codes of Conduct that guide students and teachers on how they should act when faced with uncomfortable situations or ethical challenges. For example, if students see others cheat on an exam or plagiarize work the Code of Conduct makes it clear that they have an obligation to report it or else they are as guilty as the person who did the cheating.

While some students complain about the Codes of Conduct, many have found them very helpful. The Codes make it easy for people to do the right thing, while also giving them social protection for taking appropriate, though potentially unpopular, action.

Users face lots of ambiguous situations

Like college students, users of enterprise IT systems face challenging and ambiguous situations when they encounter others not using the systems as required.

For example, when helping an organization improve user adoption of the CRM system, we found situations where users in the sales organization did not enter the information that was required by the service department to respond to customers.

Similarly, we found instances where the customer service representatives did not enter information that the finance users needed to invoice the customer. In another situation, users in the marketing department were flooding the system with dirty data, making it impossible for sales users to know what was a quality lead and what was a waste of time.

People need guidance how to act in different situations

In each situation, I asked the user who encountered the problem what they did when they found they could not use the system because of the way other people had used (or not) the system.

What I found was astounding. Some people just stopped using the system. Others would talk to the offending person and ask them to fix it. Others went and complained to their manager.

What was clear was that there was no single “right” way to handle these problem situations. No one had ever instructed the users what they should do when others had not done their job.

Codes of Conduct help people take desired action

Whenever I ask clients what actions they want people to take when they are unable to use the system because someone else has processed a transaction incorrectly in the system or not entered the required information. Consistently the response I get is some variation of, “no one has ever asked me that before”.

Defining a Code of Conduct that gives guidelines and directions for appropriate actions to take when others are not using the system can increase user adoption by doing the right thing and giving them social protection for taking appropriate, though potentially unpopular, actions.

Possible options the user could take include:

• resolving the issue directly with the individual who did not enter the required information

• reporting it to their immediate supervisor to resolve the issue

• informing the supervisor of the offending individual so their supervisor takes action

• reporting the issue to the help desk so the help desk people can resolve it or

• taking some other action

The point here is this: There are several courses of action any given individual could take in this all too common situation. Without a Code of Conduct, users don’t know which one they should take.

Since you can’t define business processes for every possible situation, a general Code of Conduct that helps users know how to act in the face of uncertainty is another tool that can deliver great results.

Quick tips & Insights

eBook on CRM Adoption

Complimentary 30-minute assessment

5 Steps to Increase Accountability for Technology Adoption and ROI

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

When working with clients to increase adoption of their IT systems I always hear, “there is no culture of accountability here”. The tell me that leaders will make a big speech about how things are going to change or announcing a new policy, but when it comes time to actually hold people accountable or enforce the policy, nothing happens.

End-users, managers and executives tell me that we can come up with all the user adoption goals we want or we can try to adjust the rewards and incentive systems, but without fixing the accountability culture (or lack thereof) problem it won’t matter.

A lack of accountability is major cause of poor user adoption

A strong culture of accountability encourages technology adoption. People understand what they do matters. And they adjust their behavior and performance accordingly.

Similarly, if there is no real accountability, it sends the message that it doesn’t really matter if people adopt the technology or not, no matter what the leaders say during big speeches. So why would they?

Do you know how to increase accountability?

When I ask people what they plan to do to increase accountability in their organization I often face a lot of blank stares. Many times they simply don’t even know where to begin.

Creating a culture and practice of holding people accountable for their actions and performance is complex and takes time. Here are five ways you can start to increase accountability in your organization:

1. Create an infrastructure for accountability

There are many reasons why a given individual may not hold themselves or others accountable. The person may be a conflict avoider; there may be ambiguity about what goals or expected behaviors they’re expected to hold people accountable for; they may not be clear on their role, responsibility or authority level in holding others accountable, or they are not sure when or how to take action.

The first step is to make explicitly clear exactly what accountable truly means in your organization, and how it will be put it into action at all levels. There are a lot of small tools and practices organizations can easily adopt to create an infrastructure for enabling accountability. This may include defining policies, processes, templates, formal roles and responsibilities, or employing management tools like SMART goals, RACI charts, and similar items so that people have the organizational support they need to take action with confidence.

2. Measure results

Surprisingly simple, yet frequently overlooked! It is amazing how often companies don’t bother to measure results of their initiatives. If results aren’t measured, how can you hold people accountable for achieving them? And how will you know whether you’ve reached your goals?

While working on a $100+ million dollar technology project for a Fortune 100 company, I asked the executive when after go-live they plan to measure their actual results against the forecasted ROI we had defined in the business case. His response was, “well, we aren’t really good at that”. It turns out that people only looked at the numbers when it came to making a project funding decision, and not what reality was once the project was launched.

How can organizations make sure they’re getting the outcomes they want (e.g., ROI from a technology investment) when all they are focused on is the inputs (e.g., cost to acquire and deploy technology)?

When setting goals –whether for IT investments, special projects, or just ongoing operations – it’s best to define up-front exactly what will be measured, when it will be measured, who will measure it, and how and when you will analyze results and take action to enforce accountability.

3. Make it public

When conducting focus groups and interviews with another client I was informed that years ago they used to generate multiple reports that showed how well individuals, departments and the organization as a whole was performing. However, people started to complain because they didn’t think others should have a view into how their individual or department performance compared to others. Eventually the decision was made to restrict access to reports and only show each department head their own departmental performance.

What emerged was quite interesting. There were several executives who were not comfortable with conflict and didn’t want to embarrass non-performing department managers in front of their peers. Not only did the restricting of reports NOT improve performance in the troubled departments, it increased staff resentment for the executives across the board. The staff explained that it was one thing if management didn’t know about performance problems; it was another thing entirely to have reports that highlight the problem and then do nothing about it.

The reality is that people talk and people always know which of their coworkers are not performing. Instead of trying to hide information – that people already know – you’re better off at least acknowledging, if not outright sharing the information and then taking appropriate action.

4. Explain yourself

Once results are publicly shared the actions taken now become a question of leadership, judgment and integrity. If people did not deliver on their commitments, you need to decide if you are going to hold people accountable or make exceptions. There may be extenuating circumstances that are justifiable reasons for relieving people of accountability. Or this may be a “moment of truth” when you need to take unpleasant, though necessary action.

What is important is that whatever action you take – and doing nothing is an action – you need to make sure people understand why you did what you did. Everyone will take their cues about how they need to behave in the future by the actions taken, so make sure everyone is clear on the reasons for those actions and what the expectations are going forward.

In a blog entry on leadership I talk about how, “we judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions”. This becomes extremely important when creating a culture of accountability. If there are special circumstances that justify not taking an action, but no one knows it, they may jump to the (erroneous) conclusion that they will not be held accountable in the future.

5. Ask for help

Accountability doesn’t just happen from the top down. Coworkers at the peer level can hold each other accountable. However, many times people don’t want to “cause trouble” with their coworkers so won’t speak up without your clearly expressed request.

If you want people to help hold each other accountable, a good place to start is by asking for their help. When you explicitly ask for help, you give everyone permission to raise potentially sensitive topics. There can also be an agreement in advance as to how exactly people can support one another and hold each other accountable.

For example, I have friends who are “gym buddies”. They made a commitment to show up at the gym at some ridiculously early hour and they do it because they know the other person is counting on them. They tell me they feel accountable to the other person because they made a commitment to them and don’t want to let them down. How could you apply the gym buddies concept in your organization to increase accountability?

Take our user adoption challenge

Complimentary 30-minute consult

Quick start strategy

Leadership – are you really committed?

A 401-K for your IT system? 5 finance lessons for IT success

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Last week I attended a luncheon seminar about retirement planning and as I was listening to the speaker outline the elements and important considerations of how to get the greatest return on your retirement investments, it occurred to me that many of these same ideas apply to organizations’ IT investments.

As I watched the audience feverishly taking notes – as though their financial future depended on it (which, in many ways, it does) – I realized how much better off organizations would be if they put similarly intense and methodical focus on maximizing the returns on their IT investments that individuals put on maximizing the returns on their individual retirement investments.

Apply retirement planning techniques to your IT investments

Here are just a few of the retirement planning ideas that were covered and how you can apply them to IT.

1. Create a plan for maximizing user adoption and, therefore, ROI

Do you have a plan for your personal retirement? I bet you said yes.

Do you have a plan for how you will drive user adoption and maximize the return of your IT investments? I bet you said no.

Just like with personal finance, it’s easy to be caught up in the day-to-day, short terms needs and demands. But also like with personal finance, you need to wisely plan and systematically execute NOW so there will be a future. Throwing money at something and traveling the path of least resistance is a surefire way to fail.

It’s the most obvious issue – and one that is often completely overlooked by organizations: you need to have a plan for how you will grow and manage the return on your IT investments. Yet many organizations only examine the financial implications of buying (not using) the system when they are putting together the business case.

2. Manage the plan

Most of us manage our own retirement plans or we have a professional do it for us. Either way, there is someone who is clearly responsible for making sure the plan is working and that it evolves over time.

Who in your organization is responsible for creating and managing the strategic plan to maximize IT user adoption and, therefore ROI?

I bet for most of you, the answer is “no one”. When I ask executives who owns user adoption and making sure that they achieve the anticipated returns (as defined in the business case) for a given system, in about 95% of the cases the answer is the much anticipated “no one”.

You wouldn’t leave your personal retirement plan unmanaged, so why would you leave your IT investment unmanaged?

3. Monitor your targets and actual results

The financial advisor at that luncheon seminar explained the need to set a target asset allocation mix for your retirement plan, and then compare your actual results to the original plan to see if you still have the right mix of assets in your portfolio.

So too, as an organization consider looking at each of your user groups as though they were different assets in your investment portfolio. Those users that fully adopt the system (over performers) will make a greater contribution to your IT ROI. Those users with low or no adoption (under performers) prevent you from realizing benefits from your system and lower your IT ROI.

Just like you set targets and monitor the results of your retirement assets, you should set specific user adoption targets for each user group and then measure actual results to see where you need to take action.

4. Rebalance at least once a year

Any financial advisor worth their salt will analyze with you – at least once a year -- the investment results (ROI) and changes in the environment (taxes, economy, etc.), changes in your personal needs (years until retirement, cash flow, risk tolerance, etc.) and the current state of your portfolio and adjust strategically and accordingly.

The same holds true for your IT investment: update your user adoption goals based on factors such as changes to your workforce (employee turnover, growth of the company), changes to the system (functionality deployed, new capabilities, enhancements) and changes to your business goals.

5. Get professional advice

Maximizing the return on our retirement portfolios is very complicated with lots of moving parts. There are different strategies, asset types, tax considerations, life expectancy concerns, and retirement lifestyle goals. You only get one shot at saving for retirement and with every passing year you have less flexibility and increased pressure to get it right.

Since very few of us have the detailed knowledge, experience, comfort, interest, and time to take full responsibility for the financial futures, we often turn to professionals to get expert help.

So why wouldn’t you do the same when it comes to your IT investments? They, too, are complex and dynamic. To get the most out of your IT investment, we’re talking about achieving full adoption across all user groups AND sustaining it over the life of your system.

You need to understand how people and systems interact

Who in your organization has the detailed knowledge, experience, comfort, interest and time to devote to planning, executing and managing user adoption programs for maximum ROI?

To maximize user adoption you need to understand:

• Individual and group dynamics that affect how you introduce new systems and get people to incorporate them into their daily work practices

• The way that business processes, system functionality, system integrations, and data quality all affect the use and usability of technology

• Communication and employee engagement needs, styles and strategies

• Adult learning needs, techniques and options to ensure you don’t waste time and money on ineffective training

• HR, legal, workforce management and regulatory considerations that affect how you introduce technology and hold people accountable for effective use of the system

If you start to treat your technology systems as IT investments that need to be managed like all other financial investments you will get better results.

Free 30 minute consult

eBook on CRM Success

Online Project Assessment

Business Case & User Adoption

#CRMFail: What to do when customers (and users) are a**holes

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Would you call your customer an a**hole to their face?

We have all had to deal with difficult customers. And, at some point in our lives, most of us have been tempted to let them know just how big of an a**hole we think they are. But few of us actually do it.

It tends to be bad for business.

Would you put it in writing? This company did.

The UK paper The Daily Mail (admittedly, reading it is a guilty pleasure) recently ran a story that shows where one lucky customer learned that his dry cleaner did in fact view him as an a**hole.

The customer, Alex, didn’t notice at first, but when he later read over his receipt, he saw that the clerk had kindly assigned him the last name of “a**hole”.

Now I must ask one of my favorite questions:
“At what point did this become a good idea”?

You hope your technology will deliver a great customer experience

This example illustrates a critical point that most organizations overlook – and they do so at their own peril. That is, your technology can work perfectly, but your CRM program can still be an epic failure.

In this case, the system processed the transaction exactly as designed. The weak link was the employee who used the system.

In reality, how your employees use your system determines the customer experience

Many organizations spend piles of money designing and building a system that will “deliver a great customer experience” only to have it all fall apart at the most critical point – employee delivery. If your employees don’t deliver on the vision – or in this case, actively go against it – then having the best technology is completely worthless. And all the time, money and effort you invested in your CRM system is money down the drain.

You need an ongoing effort to influence desired user behavior

Let’s be honest, there will always be a**holes in this world. They will be your customers. And some of them will be your employees. Since you can’t get rid of all the a**holes in this world, you need to develop a plan to deal with them in the best way possible. And you need to make sure everyone in your organization follows it.

The world keeps moving, and so does your business. And so must your efforts to make sure employees use your CRM system appropriately and in a way that delivers the desired customer experience.

Create an environment that delivers the results you want

We have found that most organizations that encounter failed CRM initiatives fell into the common trap of delivering “go-live centered change management”, when what they needed was an ongoing user adoption program. You need to take a holistic view of what drives employee use of a system and then take action to address all of the factors that affect employee performance. You need to make sure that all employees – new hires and existing staff – are all clear on what is expected. And then you need to hold them accountable for doing so.

In our “social” world, you can’t afford mistakes!

This business learned the hard way that in our “social” world, isolated incidents (well, let’s hope it was an isolated incident) can have a huge impact on your business. The fact that one bad customer experience - from a local dry cleaner - has received multiple headlines and thousands of people reading about it, demonstrates just how much influence each customer experience has on your business reputation. Let me ask you:

• What would be the impact to your business if people across the globe learned how your company mistreated its customers?

• How much time and money would it cost you to try to do “damage control” if all the bad headlines were about your company?

• What would it cost you in terms of lost sales, reduced market share, or customer churn if your customers didn’t want to be associated with your company?

It is by far cheaper, easier, and more effective to proactively drive desired user behaviors then it is to try to correct problems that occur when you skip this critical step.

Read our CRM eBook How to avoid a CRMFail and Maximize ROI in the process

How to Sustain High CRM User Adoption Blog entry outlining important considerations

Free 30 Minute Consult Not sure where to start? We're happy to help

Create an "Audit Ready" Change Management Program

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Setup an “audit ready” change adoption program

Many change programs focus on preparing the organization for the upcoming change, but they do little to ensure it delivers the desired business results after the initial change is complete. Instead of focusing on a single point-in-time event (like the “go-live” of a new IT system), you should instead focus on the results you would like to achieve 1, 3, 5 or more years into the future.

To do this, create a program that clearly articulates the results you want, how and when you’ll get there, and how and when you’ll check to see if you achieved your goals.

You define “testable requirements”. Now define “Testable results”.

For years, IT has called for the creation of “testable” requirements. One definition of testable requirements is:

“A testable requirement is a requirement that has been broken down to a level where it is precise, unambiguous, and not divisible into lower level requirements. These criteria are only met if it is possible to write a test case that would validate whether the requirement has or has not been implemented correctly." Source: http://www.testablerequirements.com/

Testable requirements are important because they help ensure the system meets users’ needs and that nothing was lost in translation between the users and the developers.

The next step is to come up with “testable business results”.

That is, can you replace the word “requirement” in the definition above with the term “business results”?

Can you define and communicate – precisely and unambiguously – the actions and outcomes you want users to achieve from their adoption of your IT system?

After all, what you are after is the business results that are achieved from the effective use of the system.

Communicate to users the results you will audit

It is alarming how often users tell us, “No one ever told us we needed to do X” within the system. And it’s alarming how often it’s not explicitly and effectively communicated as to what’s changed and what new things users need to do in the system. In cases like this, behavior can’t be audited and people can’t be held accountable for achieving results that were never defined or communicated. Define the goal, specify the actions to get there, inform people what’s expected of them and how they’ll be measured and then measure their behavior.

For effective change adoption programs, there should be no ambiguity amongst users exactly what it is they are expected to do and by when.

And there should be no ambiguity of the consequences if these expectations are not met.

Verify results. And hold people accountable.

Once expected actions and outcomes are fully defined and communicated to everyone, go back and check actual results. Effective change adoption programs will explicitly define the timeframes, procedures, and parties responsible for conducting audits and holding people accountable for achieving expected results. Just like with financial audits or ISO audits, user adoption audits need to hold people accountable for their actions.

Specific corrective actions and set new goals

The final step is to include a mechanism in your change audit for defining any required actions to correct deficiencies and to update specific goals for moving forward. Your people, organization, and operating environment are all in a constant state of change and you need to continually update your testable results and audit program to meet future needs.

Business Cases & User Adoption Learn more about how user adoption impacts your business case.

Not sure where to start? Ask us Tap expertise on demand and find out how you can have a successful change event in your organization.

Audit IT User Adoption to increase ROI

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Why aren’t you auditing user adoption of your IT systems?

I think Ronald Reagan put it best when he said, “trust, but verify”. Sure, Reagan was talking about the Soviets complying with arms treaties, but this policy holds true for any area where you want to verify that people are adhering to rules and agreements.

If you want to know how well your people are using your technology or following your business processes, you need to “trust, but verify”. Audits are great ways to do this.

Audits are an effective tool used in many areas of your organization

Most organizations already audit some part of their organization. Accounting and finance gets audited. Quality gets audited (ISO900X anyone?). Even calls to your call center “may be recorded for quality and training purposes”.

So why is it you aren’t auditing your IT user adoption?

Audits identify areas of problems and corrective action

The reason audits have been used in so many areas of an organization, for so many years, is that they work. Audits are an effective way to check to see what is really happening in your organization, determine where you have problems, and define specific actions and deadlines for correcting problems.

User adoption – and in turn ROI – of your IT systems has been a major problem for years. One study from the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) indicated that up to 25% of the value of an IT system may be lost simply due to poor user adoption. If you could increase the value of your IT investment by 25%, do you think that it might be worth an audit? We do.

Audits communicate priorities, drive user behavior and increase ROI

I was recently speaking with a sales rep for a Fortune 100 insurance company. He indicated that he was spending his Friday afternoon – like most every Friday afternoon – catching up on updating ALL of his weekly activities in the system. He shared that his management looks at system generated reports every week and they conduct major audits at least twice a year. The audit was based on the accuracy, timeliness and completeness of the information he entered in the system. And his commissions depended on passing every audit.

So, if you want to drive desired user adoption of your system, while increasing ROI of your IT investment, conducting audits – with meaningful consequences (read: impact on commission) – are a very effective way to go.

User Adoption Quick Tips Get weekly tips to help your user adoption efforts.

Compliance, Commitment or WIIFM? Read more about getting people working toward a common goal.

Users and the Cloud - what you need to know How does the cloud change things for the users?

Focus on Learning, NOT training, to improve change adoption

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 04:00:00 GMT

When implementing new programs or technology, many organizations assume they need to deliver training to make sure people have the skills they need. Of course, people do need to have the knowledge and skills necessary to use your system. But don’t assume that training – or perhaps more accurately – just training – is needed.

Training is just one of roads that lead to Learning, although it’s often perceived and treated as if it’s the only one. It’s an activity that is performed, but it is not in and of itself, a desired outcome.

Learning is.

After all, Learning is at the core of adopting anything new – whether it’s in the workplace or in a personal relationship: if you don’t learn something, you can’t incorporate it into your life. And what is change adoption but the incorporation of change?

Training is only one tool to develop required skills

Training is important, especially with new technology. But the goal in providing training is to develop the knowledge and skills people need. However,

• What happens if the training is not effective?

• What happens if the training isn’t relevant?

• What happens if people never fully understood the material?

• What happens if people forget what was covered?

Learning happens in many ways

Learning is an internal process for each of us. When we learn we increase our capacity to make choices and take intentional actions. Learning facilitates change.

People learn in a variety of ways including things like direct experience, lectures, self-study, reading, group discussions, mentoring, reflection, and yes, going through a training course and completing it.

And because people have different ways of learning, when instituting a new program or technology consider taking a multi-faceted approach to solidify the change adoption required for success.

Select the best tools to induce learning

With so many assuming training is learning, many projects suffer…and some ultimately even fail.

Training helps facilitate learning, as one of the tools you use, but it is not always the most effective – or affordable. Instead, your initiative will undoubtedly need a combination of techniques to meet the ongoing learning needs of your team.

Every hour and dollar you spend on training – or any single teaching activity – that does not increase learning is a waste.

Never confuse your goal of increasing learning with delivering training. These are not synonymous.

Instead, be sure to focus on what tools and methods will most effectively increase learning for your team. You will see better results.

Additional Resources

Subscribe to the Newsletter Get our newsletter, about every 2 weeks.

Take Our Free Assessment Take our online assessment and see if your project is at risk.

Complimentary 30-minute Consult Contact us to find out how to best manage your change.

Conduct 'Lessons Learned' Reviews to Increase Cloud Adoption

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 04:00:00 GMT

When speaking with executives who are embracing cloud within their organization they often tell me that while they like the speed and financial flexibility that cloud provides, they still aren’t sure if they’ll get the most value from their cloud investment much less how they’ll make money from it. One topic that almost always comes up is that the system went live so fast they didn’t have time to think through all the changes – and many times the chaos – that it would bring to their organization.

Cloud is young – and still has a lot of unknowns…that you need to know about upfront

While the cloud is “all the rage” these days, it’s easy to forget it’s still relatively young as an IT strategy. This is especially true when it comes to embracing enterprise-wide cloud applications, versus putting IT infrastructure into the cloud. What is emerging is a murky (cloudy?) mess of uncertainty and confusion regarding how to best introduce cloud applications and then get people to adopt them fully.

What we've found is when implementing cloud technology executives, managers and front-line staff all struggle to understand what has changed, who now does what, and how best to handle all the unforeseen questions that emerge after the system is live. Literally and figuratively, they ask, “Who knows?” Unless these questions can be explicitly answered, clearly communicated, and fully integrated into everyone’s daily work habits, your organization will not get full value from your cloud IT investment.

Learn how to get most from your cloud

Recently we helped a client address these kinds of lingering issues and emerging questions by conducting a 'lessons learned' exercise. The approach we took involved conducting several small focus groups -- including one with just the management team -- reviewing system use reports, and then facilitating a large group session. Several interesting things emerged:

Roughly 90-95% of the questions, challenges and uncertainty had nothing to do with the technology! People had very few questions about system functionality and how to navigate the application. Rather, the vast majority of the issues were around the organizational changes.
Everyone was confused about internal policies and roles & responsibilities. We heard things like, “We didn't know if we were allowed to do X” or “I didn't know who to ask about Y”. Also, there was a lot of “I do it differently each time” or “I just take a guess” when it comes to how they use the system for any given transaction.
There was a tremendous need for ongoing communication and an easy-to-access repository for where people could find the latest – and correct – information...an electronic Program Management Office, if you will. While management would respond to questions as they emerged, people would miss the latest decisions if they “ weren't in the meeting”, or if the answer was long since buried somewhere deep in their already overflowing email inbox.

Cloud vendors need to learn from clients

Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the process we lead the client through was the “ah ha” moment from the software vendor implementation team that observed the large group session.

They were shocked to learn how many organizational issues were kicked off by introducing and implementing their system. They’d had no idea!

This was the first time the vendor’s team had the opportunity to witness such a discussion and said, “Now we get it” and they turned to us as said they could “see how important what you do is” to the success of the implementation team.

Learning happens in the reflection, not in the action

If you are making a turn to the cloud, keep in mind that it is still an emerging area.

As with many new things -- like the cloud -- the old ways of approaching, learning and dealing with them no longer work.

Time and again, we’ve seen many of the tools and methods from traditional change management just not working anymore since they haven’t evolved with the rest of the world.

The client in this particular example was especially happy to see how we’d evolved our tools and methodologies to encompass the radical change brought about by their cloud investment.

We urged them to schedule and conduct ongoing, multi-level structured 'lessons learned' sessions throughout the organization in order to find out what is working and what else has emerged (good or bad).

After all, learning only happens once you’ve paused to reflect on what happened – not while you’re focused on making it happen.

Additional Resources

Download cloud presentation Learn about the new challenges with cloud computing.

Quick Tips Sign-up Get our user adoption quick tips emailed to you each week.

Download our Free ebook Find out how you can avoid the CRM Failure zone.

Increase Cloud Adoption: Ask users to use it

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 04:00:00 GMT

I often hear people talk about how they have a great system, if they could just “get those darn users to use it”. This usually digresses into a rant about “user resistance” and how “it’s really not that difficult” to use the system.

It is at this point, when I often ask people the simple question:

“Did you ever ask people to use the system?”

Typically, the answer is a perplexed “no”. This is most often then followed by an exhausted vent about how there’d been training, a “communications strategy” and that they told all the users “what’s in it for me (WIIFM)”.

About this time I usually start shaking my head in disbelief that there are still people out there who think that telling (more often, yelling) out the WIIFM message actually works. WIIFM doesn’t work. It simply doesn’t provide the right, measureable motivators and incentives for people to change their behavior.

Truth be told, WIIFM is the easy way out and gets you nowhere. It’s the handing over of responsibility, leaving the deer-in-headlights users to motivate themselves to do something new, that they don’t know a bunch about and probably had no say in in the first place. How motivated would you feel? Not much, I’ll bet.

Most organizations never even ask users to adopt the cloud system

The sad reality is that the majority of organizations suffering with low user adoption of their cloud systems never even asked people to use the system. And nobody realizes it.

Many times when I ask the project team, they truly believe in each of their communications they did actually ask people to use the system. However, when I ask the users, I often hear some version of, “they told me the new system was coming, but they never told me what they want me to do with it.

Set SMART user adoption goals

A better alternative to the WIIFM message is to actively set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) user adoption goals for each user to achieve. Progressive goals, defined (weekly) for the first 3-6 months, explicitly stating and outlining what each user needs to accomplish help drive user adoption.

Initial goals should get the users to perform the most basic operations quickly. Subsequent goals should build on preceding goals and slowly introduce users to more complex functionality that they might not use on a regular basis. For this we recommend a tool such as the www.MyUserAdoptionPlan.com portal, which includes progressive adoption goals as part of its core functionality.

Measure who achieves their cloud adoption goals

Measure user adoption each week to see if users are actually achieving their goals.This takes consistent effort on the part of managers, including investigating any instances of missed targets to determine if there are barriers to adoption (that prevent people from using the system) or if this is a case of user resistance. Motivating managers to be pro-active usually requires appropriate incentivization and their own SMART goals.

Hold people accountable for using the system

Finally, no user adoption program works if you don’t actually hold people accountable for their actions. Incentives – and consequences – for hitting user adoption targets must be properly aligned, communicated and enforced.

Additional Resources

Take our free assessment

Free 30 minute consult

Download our Free ebook

Get your cloud vendor to help you increase user adoption & ROI

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 04:00:00 GMT

We at Tri Tuns often talk about the many unintended consequences of cloud IT. Perhaps one of the greatest is that cloud computing has transferred a large amount of user adoption risk from the client to the cloud vendor.

Cloud providers share your user adoption risk

One great appeal of cloud computing is the decrease of upfront costs and reduced implementation times removing many barriers preventing organizations from purchasing a system. However, while it has made it easier for customers to sign up with a cloud vendor, it has also made it easier for them to leave and go to a competitor. And this is exactly what customers do if their people do not adopt the software and use it to add value to the organization.

While cloud vendors enjoy the ease with which they can acquire new customers, they are quickly realizing that if the customer is not getting value, they can’t keep them. One cloud vendor told us that they have over 50% turnover in one customer segment due to the client having poor user adoption and low ROI.

Cloud IT vendors now realize that user adoption at their customers’ organizations is a major risk area that threatens their revenues. So, while user adoption is not their responsibility, it is most definitely their problem.

Cloud vendors see the need to help you drive user adoption

Cloud vendors know they need to help customers do more to drive user adoption and reach their ROI goals. Historically this is why vendors sell software training services. However, this alone has proven ineffective for driving user adoption, so more vendors are partnering with organizations like Tri Tuns to deliver cloud user adoption services.

There are several other things you should do to increase your ROI on your cloud investment.

Include Renewal Criteria in your business case

Some reports indicate that it can take in excess of 30 months for organizations to get meaningful adoption of new systems. And we all know that without user adoption, you will not realize a single benefit or achieve your ROI goals.

Many cloud IT vendors offer clients a 12 or 24-month contract, after which point the client needs to renew or migrate to a newvendor. As a buyer, when you first put together your business case, you need to define the timeframe in which you expect to achieve full user adoption and achieve your ROI goals. If industry adoption norms dictate the adoption and payback periods are longer than the length of your contract, how will you know if you should renew or if you should just cut your losses and drop the system?

Consider defining specific user adoption goals and metrics when you are developing your business case. Set specific achievement goals and set points for when you will measure if you hit or miss your goals. If your contract renewal comes up before you have achieved your full ROI, set specific targets that you will evaluate as part of the renewal decision.

Tell your cloud vendor your renewal criteria up front

Not only should you define your renewal criteria before you buy a system, you should share this information with all prospective cloud vendors during your system evaluation effort. Since prospective cloud vendors have a vested in retaining your business, letting them know what it will take in advance gives them more opportunities to offer you additional services and support that can help you achieve your ROI goals. It also provides additional opportunities for you to understand the potential costs of any additional services you may need so that you can include these in your business case.

Ultimately, letting your vendor know the exact value you need to receive helps everyone make sure your cloud investment is a success.

Additional Resources

User Adoption Quick Tips Get our user adoption quick tips email.

take our assessment Take our online assessment and see if your project is at risk.

Cloud presentation Learn about important issues with cloud IT systems.

business cases & user adoption Learn more about how user adoption impacts your business case.

{module_contentholder,70295}

Cloud IT Renewals Depend on Value Delivered, Not Costs

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 04:00:00 GMT

We are still in the early days of the cloud IT revolution. Cloud computing is changing many things about how organizations buy, deploy, use, and gain value from information systems. One of the most interesting and dynamic emerging trends is that for many organizations the focus is shifting from the technology itself to the value the organization realizes from using the technology.

The move to “as a service” is also changing the way organizations make decisions regarding the initial purchase and the renewal of the software. If you ask someone who works in traditional service industries – lawyers, accountants, wait staff, bartenders – they will tell you that people decide to come back based on the quality of the experience and the value the individual receives from their experience with the service.

This flips the traditional perspective of technology on its head. Once viewed and evaluated like a product you would purchase and take home to keep, technology is now viewed and evaluated as a service.

Cloud buyers and vendors are slowly catching on to just how important value creation from the use of software is for their success.

One software vendor I spoke to indicated that they were great at landing an initial sale, but they had over 50% turnover in their mid-tier market alone just because the system was not being used and therefore not delivering value to the client organization.

Will you renew your cloud subscription?

When you first decide to purchase a cloud IT system, you do so because of the promise and potential for you to realize value in the future (after you start using it). Even with lower upfront costs, you probably put together a business case that defines your expected costs and expected return.

Before cloud systems became popular, many organizations only looked at their business case during budget discussions when making the initial system purchase. Once the decision was made and the money was spent, few organizations would come back to measure their actual ROI on their IT investment. There was little need to do so – after all, the money was spent and gone.

But what if you could get out of a bad investment before you spent all the money? With cloud systems, you can.

Cloud IT subscription-based pricing changes the buying decision process

Cloud IT, with its subscription based pricing and defined contract periods, enables organizations to evaluate the value they are actually receiving from their cloud investments and pull out of bad investments. In essence, the contract renewal date inserts a logical breakpoint in the buying process.

It also changes how you make buying decisions.

Cloud renewal decisions are different from the initial purchase decision

As I mentioned, the initial cloud buying decision is made based on expectations for future results. With no direct history with the system, you make your decision based on the word of others (the vendors, vendor provided references, online reviews, etc.) and your confidence that you can get similar results.

Renewal decisions are made primarily on your direct experience. You evaluate your experience implementing the system, the level of adoption you have achieved, and any specific success metrics / ROI calculations. This experiential information then creates a context in which you evaluate the potential of the system to deliver additional benefits in the future.

Need to focus on cloud user adoption and ROI

So, what does it all mean? It means that clients (buyers) and cloud vendors both have a vested interest in making sure the cloud system is fully adopted and there’s clear evidence of the value you received from the cloud system. It means that having great functionality and a low price point is not enough to get you to renew your subscription if you aren’t getting any value. It means that there is a new standard for success when it comes to investing in technology solutions. And it means that you will need an ongoing program drive user adoption, making sure you are getting the ROI you need. After all, as soon as the system stops delivering value you will stop paying for it.

Additional resources

Free pRESENTATION: CLOUD CHANGEs Download to learn about important cloud issues.

User Adoption Quick Tips Get our user adoption quick tips email.

CLOUD ADOPTION SERVICE Learn how to increase the ROI of your cloud iniative.

{module_contentholder,70295}

Who owns the cloud in your organization?

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 04:00:00 GMT

So, your organization has begun to – or soon will – dabble in cloud computing. Many organizations that move to the cloud start by looking at a wide range of cost, technical, legal and security issues that need to be considered. Then they assign someone who is responsible for implementing and managing the cloud system.

And they often skip answering a critical question: Who owns the cloud in the organization?

What is cloud ownership? What do you own?

Historically, many organizations will assign an Executive Sponsor for implementing a system. There is often a system owner – someone, often in the IT organization, who has responsibility for the ongoing maintenance and enhancement of the system. But his work doesn’t constitute ownership any more than groundskeepers own the real estate they landscape.

So, who’s responsible for cloud IT success? Specifically, you need to have someone who is accountable for driving, maximizing and sustaining effective user adoption of your cloud IT system.

Assign ownership for cloud adoption, not just the technology

Cloud computing lowers an organization’s costs and shifts the burden of system development and maintenance from the organization to the cloud vendor because now you’re paying for service you use, not a product you own. In turn, this shifts the metric organizations use for judging the success of an IT project. Cloud IT is driving organizations to progress away from rewarding “on-time and on-budget” (product delivery) to “value created / ROI delivered from people using the system” (service delivery).

With this new focus on ROI, organizations need to assign ownership for driving meaningful use of the cloud system throughout the organization.

A senior executive – with proper incentives – must own cloud adoption & ROI

Ensuring effective user adoption and ROI of your cloud system requires that a single individual be formally assigned accountability for results. This also means they will need to have the authority, expertise and resources (budget, time, staff, etc.) to take action.

Further, the senior executive must be sufficiently incentivized to make cloud adoption a priority. The level of incentives will depend on the expected impact that effective system use will have on the organization.

For major enterprise systems with the potential to greatly reduce costs or increase revenues, this may require a significant incentive such that failure to achieve ROI goals – or for exceptional results that far surpass expectations – will have a clear material impact on the executive’s compensation or future career prospects.

Additional Resources

User Adoption Quick Tips Get our user adoption quick tips email

Cloud metrics Read more about how to design the right metrics to improve user adoption.

CRM Adoption Read how you can sustain high CRM user adoption

Leadership Read about how to effectively lead IT projects

5 New Challenges with Cloud IT User Adoption

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 04:00:00 GMT

When speaking with IT executives, cloud developers, and internal IT staff there is a lot of talk about all that great things happening because of the rise of cloud technology. Now that CIOs have (mostly) gotten over many of their concerns about security and reliability of the cloud, the conversation is moving from “should we?” to “how fast can we?”

Cloud IT systems are cheaper, faster and easier to deploy

The potential benefits to organizations deploying cloud systems are vast. Cloud IT can often deploy faster, easier and with less up-front cost than traditional on-premise or custom built systems. IT organizations are able to be more responsive to the needs of their organization, at a lower cost.

Now organizations must focus on using cloud systems to create value and maximize ROI. And this requires (finally) that IT leaders – and other executives – confront the biggest obstacle to IT success: poor user adoption. Without meaningful and effective user adoption no system – cloud or otherwise – will ever deliver measurable benefits.

This brings us to five new challenges that IT and business leaders need to address in order to achieve success when thinking about moving to the cloud.

1. Cloud systems are easy to deploy, but hard for users to adopt

Cloud systems can go-live and change faster than anything ever has before. A sticking point is the people, that is - the users don’t change nearly as fast. It takes time and effort to support users with each change. Users need to unlearn existing behaviors, gain new information about what is required, and then develop new working habits. And they need to do it every time there is a change to the system!

2. Traditional change management approaches don’t fit with the new needs of cloud technology

Traditionally, change management efforts focus on preparing users for the initial deployment of a new IT system. They typically focus on delivering communications and training in the months before go-live. Once the system is live, the bulk of the change effort is complete.

Cloud system aren’t static like the systems of yore; they’re dynamic and move fast, often with multiple, small, releases that incrementally introduce new functionality. The fast pace of cloud deployments mean that there is less time available to prepare users before the change. Instead, cloud projects require that you assist user in embracing change after the system is live, and continuously, over time, as the system changes.

3. Cloud systems move users from a learning curve to a learning treadmill

Many cloud systems are on a regular development cycle with new releases coming out every few weeks. The constant updates mean that users need to be continually on the lookout for things that have changed.

Unlike tools that are more static (think Microsoft Office) where people can be productive without thinking about how to navigate or operate the software, cloud IT systems with regular updates impose additional mental overhead on the people who use them. Don’t believe me – just look at all the outrage that happens when Facebook makes a change and people have to adjust to a new interface or functionality. You don’t want that kind of backlash against changes in your internal system!

4. Cloud is perceived as “easier”. Budgets and staffing are usually scaled back and don’t support adoption efforts

Since cloud systems and viewed as “easier” from a technology perspective (since they can go live faster and with less IT overhead), there is a perception by many project leaders that they are also easier for users to adopt.As a result, many cloud projects have lowered the amount of budget and resources they devote to facilitating change and maximizing user adoption.This only accelerates the speed in which organizations encounter user adoption problems. And lengthens the time to ROI.

5. Cloud systems have a shorter payback period, so you need to prove results faster

Cloud systems are typically purchased on a subscription basis, often with an initial contract that carries a 2 or 3-year commitment. At the end of the contract cloud users have many options - renew the contract, replace the system, change the contract terms / price / duration, or pursue some other course of action.Now, given short contract periods, lower upfront (sunk) costs, and the perceived ease of switching systems, cloud systems have a short window in which they must demonstrate they are generating measurable results. Even with low upfront costs, executives expect to realize a positive ROI on their cloud investment before the end of the initial contract period. If your cloud system doesn’t show it’s adding measurable value, it won’t be around for long.

Conclusion: For cloud IT success, you need to focus on user adoption & ROI

Perhaps the biggest change and challenge when it comes to cloud IT systems is that the spotlight is squarely focused on how much value you derive from your IT investment. With the lower costs and compressed deployment times, success is no longer delivering the system “on-time and on-budget”. Instead, success is judged by speed to ROI, user adoption and benefits realization. Are you prepared for these new challenges?

FREE PRESENTATION: CLOUD CHANGES

TRI TUNS CLOUD ADOPTION SERVICE

Cloud IT may cost less, but does it add more?

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 04:00:00 GMT

What is cloud adoption, and why you need it

All the talk today is about cloud IT systems. They are quickly becoming the Starbucks of the technology world – you can find them everywhere. And it seems that everyone is talking about how fast they are to setup and how much less they cost (at least initially). Which makes me wonder, are they really a good value?

Sure, no one will argue that saving time and money is a bad thing. However, this assumes that all other things remain equal. But what if this cost savings also comes with a drop in value creation?

Unintended Consequences of Cloud IT

One of the unintended consequences – and ironies -- of cloud systems is that while the speed at which the technology can be deployed has increased, the rate at which the organization can adopt it may have actually slowed. You see, introducing new technology – even simple systems with an intuitive interface - kicks off a chain reaction of change within an organization. New systems come with new business processes, new policies, and new roles and responsibilities. Also, people need to unlearn old ways of working and develop new behaviors using the new system. And doing their jobs.

Cloud technology changes faster than people change

Now the rub: cloud systems go live faster than the people who use them can change to adopt them. Several cloud vendors have indicated they can (and have) had new clients up and running on their new system in less than a week. However, I recently read where it takes a minimum of 66 days for people to form new habits, and that is when they are highly motivated to do so. And when is the last time you saw a user who was highly motivated to adopt a new system? Or change their behaviors and how they work on a day-to-day basis?

Change Management is often lacking on cloud IT implementations

Many cloud IT projects move so fast and with such limited budgets that sufficient effort isn’t devoted to change management. Further, when change management is provided, the change methodology is often not appropriate to meet the needs and speed of cloud implementations. The result: low and slow user adoption.

5% cost savings or 25% increase in value? Which would you rather have?

While attending the CloudSlam ‘12 conference in San Francisco, I listened as one of the speakers demonstrated how cloud technology had lowered costs at his company by 5%. Everyone sat there with a look of “big deal” on their faces. That is, until the speaker did the math on what a 5% savings meant in real dollars to a multi-billion dollar company and showed that it is an astonishing amount of money. Real money.

But that’s nothing when you consider research shows up to 25% of the value of an IT system is typically lost due to poor user adoption. If you could increase the value of your IT system by 25% just by increasing user adoption, would you? Pretty soon, that turns into some really big money. Now do you think there is a business case for funding user adoption programs?

Why not have both?

Perhaps the best part is that it doesn’t need to be an either-or proposition. There is no reason why you can’t have both a 5% cost reduction and a 25% increase in value creation. All that it takes is a little effort on your part to make sure people use your cloud IT system.

Other Resources

Is your cloud IT system a CRM? Then you should read our eBook on how to Avoid CRM Failure.
Would you bet your IT cloud will be successful if you knew there was only a 1 in 4 chance of winning?
Moving to the cloud is (relatively) easy -- it's the users that provide the biggest challenges.
Know you need help but don't know where to begin? Reach an expert now.

OCM: Clarifying Change with an Action Plan

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 04:00:00 GMT

The now classic Seinfeldian “yada yada yada” is a phrase so many of us (still) use to headline a story and gloss over details is – like most comedy – a double-edged sword of both humor and truth.

Of course, the “yada yada yada” ceases to be funny when the all-too-common tendency to lay out a plan and leave out the details arrives on your desk in the form of a none-too-well thought out project. And you’re tasked with making sure it both works and is profitable.

That’s when this cartoon is also more painful than funny because now the truth is happening to you.

This is why companies bring in third parties.

Solving the Problem, Delivering Success

Third parties’ external perspective affords them the opportunity to assess the reality of the landscape and then build a logical, strategic, actionable plan. They eliminate the “yada yada yada” and put in real, detailed plans. They answer questions like:

• How, precisely, will we get from Point A to Point B?

• How will we identify the barriers to getting to Point B?

• How will we structure this plan so you get the biggest bang for the buck?

• Do we have the organizational capacity – infrastructure, personnel, bandwidth – to measure and monitor progress toward the business goals?

• If we moved ahead without a strategic plan, what will a misstep cost? – and is that something you can afford?

• How will we make sure you get short-term lift and long-term results?

• How do we cut through the red tape and move ahead quickly in days in weeks, instead of months?

Real World Example

Do the above questions sound familiar? They’re from real situations we encounter all the time and we find many clients are looking to jumpstart their organization’s internal changes (e.g., program implementations and technology adoption). Usually with a deadline of yesterday.

For example, a recent client was about to launch a very expensive and very public (national) pilot program simultaneously introducing the company’s new, proprietary software and changing their business model. They had a lot invested and it’s not hyperbole to say the future of the organization was riding these changes. There was an incredible level of risk and uncertainty around whether or not people would use their technology and if they’d be successful.

They needed:
- unknowns to became known
- clarity about what issues were most pressing
- a structured and benchmarked action plan
- to know how best to organize and execute both the technology adoption plan and the re-org change management plan.

Being too close to the project, being overworked just trying to get the system right, the client both couldn’t see the problem and didn’t have the time to figure out what to do. So in just a few days’ time, we delivered a Quick Start Strategy, replacing the “yada, yada, yada” and “insert miracle here” with:

- precise, actionable plans of how to proceed
- specific short- and long-term activities to achieve gains both short- and long-term
- a sustainable success road map to guide them through the next phase of their program

In a nutshell, we helped them to take actions to move forward so the whole company could move ahead confidently. As masters of their domain.

Find out how you can get similar results. Contact us to learn more

Michael Sampson, User Adoption and the Formula for Success

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 04:00:00 GMT

As ‘user adoption’ is becoming a better-known aspect of IT implementations one thought leader in particular stands out. And one of the things we at Tri Tuns love about Michael Sampson is his distinct ability to distill the complexities of user adoption into an easily understood and digested reasoned process.

While Michael specifically centers his work on collaboration technologies such as SharePoint, in a recent two-part SlideShare presentation he walks the viewer through the larger concepts surrounding user adoption by beginning with a discussion around the idea that “great technology is not enough” but is just “a small factor in success.”

90% People, 10% Technology

To underscore his point, Michael brings up research done in the 1990s – the findings of which mirror our experiences since the 90s. The study Michael cites found that a major theme, the formula for success was, in this case when building virtual teams, “90% people, 10% technology”.

That is, even 15-20 years ago we had the data showing us the need to focus on the people – that is, the business drivers, the team culture, social patterns and interdependencies, etc. and focusing too much on the technology was a perfect way to set yourself up for failure.

Of course, however, the goal in business isn’t so much to avoid failure, but to create success and maximize the value of what your organization does. And technology is merely the tool your people and your teams use to generate success and build value.

Michael Sampson continues the presentation emphasizing ensuring people adopt the company’s technological tool(s) to create value doesn’t just happen – it’s made to happen. There is focus, effort, infrastructure and, perhaps most importantly, an adoption strategy.

Don't Assume 100% User Adoption in Your Business Case

Incorporating an idea Tri Tuns also raises frequently, Michael points out business cases assume 100% adoption. This assumption is a mistake on multiple levels and is one that can heavily skew ROI and IRR projections so they look a lot better on paper than they ever will in reality.

“Poor adoption is a common issue,” Michael says and it’s “a process, not an event.” He goes on to outline a four-step model of user adoption that includes Winning Attention, Cultivating Basic Concepts, Enlivening Applicability, and Making it Real.

Throughout his presentation, he emphasizes that in most cases, vendors have done their part and that success at your organization is up to you. This makes ultimate sense when you think about the 90/10 rule of spending 90% of your time and effort on your people, and only 10% on the technology. After all, only you, not the vendor, is going to know your business drivers, your culture, your governance structure and institutional best practices that are in place to generate success and build value for your organization.

As always, Michael has a great presentation (check out part 2 for further illustration of user adoption successes and debacles through real-life examples) and we’re excited for him that his book, User Adoption Strategies is now in its second edition! Be sure to pick up a copy and read Tri Tuns’ CEO Jason Whitehead’s contribution, an expanded article based on a previous blog entry.

Other resources of interest:

Effective Communications and IT Success

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 04:00:00 GMT

This is the final in a five part series. Start at the beginning here.

TIMELESS INSIGHT

Mark Twain, a man who died decades before modern information systems were even conceived, may hold some of the greatest lessons for how to deliver successful technology adoption programs.

So in this last installment, I'm just going to give you a few things to think about now that we've reached the end of our week of Mark Twain.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Mark Twain offered great insight into the human psyche. His plain-spoken words have the power to enlighten us far beyond those of the most gifted linguist. So, what have you learned from Mark Twain that will help you on your user adoption programs?

What assumptions do you make about the drivers and barriers to user adoption? What don’t you know? What do you “know for sure that just ain't so”? How do you recognize the difference? How does this hurt you?
What makes the people on your team (internal employees or external consultants) qualified to deliver effective user adoption? Mark Twain said, “If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.” Have your team members held the cat by the tail?
Are your communications effective? Do you listen more than you speak? If not, do you ever, “succeed in making those idiots understand their own language”?

Here are a few things you can do to help you on the road to IT success through user adoption:

Take our free User Adoption Challenge to see what specific user adoption issues you face on your IT project.
Read our free eBook on avoiding implementation failure (specifically CRM), and steps to achieve success.
Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal.
.
Contact us to learn more.

<< Part Four - Motivation
<< Part Three - Communication
<< Part Two - Assumptions, Skills, Education & Experience
<< Part One - Introduction and User Adoption Strategy

Communications: The Definition of Motivating Employees toward IT Adoption

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 04:00:00 GMT

This is the fourth in a five part series. Start at the beginning here.

TIMELESS INSIGHT

It's amazing to consider how the insights and teachings of Mark Twain -- a man who died decades before modern information systems were even conceived -- may hold some of the greatest lessons for how to deliver successful technology adoption programs.

So in this fourth installment of our look at Mark’s words in relation to motivation as it exists within IT user adoption programs.

When examined in the context of various aspects of effective user adoption programs, Mark shows us some of the common mistakes and misplaced assumptions that often plague many IT projects.

As I'm asking throughout this series -- how can you use Mark’s insights to deliver a more effective user adoption program?

MOTIVATION

Motivation is key to user adoption. Motivation is internal to the individual, and cannot be prescribed. While you can make some assumptions about what motivates people, truly understanding motivations require that you listen to people and watch for unspoken cues about what matters to them.

Many IT projects get into trouble because they assume they can just tell people, “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM) and the people will adopt the system. However, they often try to do this without first learning, “what’s important to me”. Further, they often discount or ignore the role that human emotion plays in motivation. Finally, the role that leadership plays in motivating – or many times, demotivating – is often underestimated. Quite simply, most communication projects fundamentally miss the boat when it comes to understanding and addressing the motivation component of user adoption. Not surprisingly, Mark Twain has some insights on this as well.

IN MARK TWAIN'S WORDS

“Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.”
“I can live for two months on a good compliment.”
“The cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won't sit upon a cold stove lid, either.”
“Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.”

OTHER RESOURCES

Read more about WIIFM, fulfilling employee needs and how else to motivate your end-users.

Also, you can take our free User Adoption Challenge to see what specific user adoption issues you face on your IT project.

Or, contact us to learn more.

<< Part Three - Communication
<< Part Two - Assumptions, Skills, Education & Experience
<< Part One - Introduction and User Adoption Strategy

IT Communications and Adoption of Technology

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 04:00:00 GMT

This is the third in a five part series. Start at the beginning here.

TIMELESS INSIGHT

As I mentioned in the last post, I recently I came across a page of Mark Twain quotes and in reading them I realized that the insights and teachings of a man who died decades before modern information systems were even conceived may hold some of the greatest lessons for how to deliver successful technology adoption programs.

So in this third installment of our look at Mark’s words in relation to communication as it relates to IT user adoption programs.

When examined in the context of various aspects of effective user adoption programs, Mark shows us some of the common mistakes and misplaced assumptions that often plague many IT projects.

As I'm asking throughout this series, how can you use Mark’s insights to deliver a more effective user adoption program?

COMMUNICATION

Communication is indeed critical to effective user adoption. Unfortunately, many people assume that effective communication is the same as advertising the right message. We have found that many communication efforts actually deliver more harm than good. Why? Typically because people speak more than they listen! Also, when they speak, they talk about what is important to them, and not what is meaningful to the audience.

Effective user adoption communication requires that you listen more than you speak. Whenever possible (which is often), ask a question instead of making a statement. Use language that is meaningful to your audience. And remember that “listening is not waiting to speak”.

IN MARK TWAIN'S WORDS

“The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.”
“There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you're busy interrupting.”
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
“In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”
“Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.”
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
“When in doubt, tell the truth.”

Other Resources

How is communication helping or hindering your IT project? Take our free assessment to start finding out.

Or, contact us to learn more.

<< Part Two - Assumptions, Skills, Education & Experience

<< Part One - Introduction and User Adoption Strategy

Project Assumptions, Software Adoption and the Underside of a Cat

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 04:00:00 GMT

This is the second in a five part series. Start at the beginning here.

TIMELESS INSIGHT

In the last blog I told you how I recently I came across a page of Mark Twain quotes and in reading them I realized that the insights and teachings of a man who died decades before modern information systems were even conceived may hold some of the greatest lessons for how to deliver successful technology adoption programs.

So in this second installment of our look at Mark’s words in relation to assumptions and learning as they relate to IT user adoption programs.

When examined in the context of various aspects of effective user adoption programs, Mark shows us some of the common mistakes and misplaced assumptions that often plague many IT projects.

As I asked previously -- and will ask throughout this series -- how can you use Mark’s insights to deliver a more effective user adoption program?

USER ADOPTION ASSUMPTIONS, SKILLS, EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE

Many people have opinions about how to drive effective user adoption, but far fewer have the experience, knowledge and ‘battle scars’ in successfully driving and sustaining adoption to truly be experts. There are any many popular myths about user adoption that actually harm your user adoption efforts. Some of our favorites include:

assuming that communication & training is the only/best tool for driving user adoption
telling people “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM)
believing people will “have no choice” but to use the system

When you are considering all of the advice that is out there, ask yourself if the source truly has the right knowledge and experience to know that about which they speak.

IN MARK TWAIN'S WORDS

“If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.”
“Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.”
“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”

Other Resources

None of us know what we don't know, but here are a few tools to help illuminate your situation:

Take our free User Adoption Challenge to see what specific user adoption issues you face on your IT project.
Read our free eBook on avoiding implementation failure (specifically CRM), and steps to achieve success.
Read about a new way to define IT success.

Or, contact us to learn more.

Mark Twain - User Adoption Specialist?

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Can Mark Twain Teach You Everything You Need To Know About IT User Adoption?

This is the first in a five part series.

TIMELESS INSIGHT

Recently I stumbled on a page of Mark Twain quotes. I realized that the insights and teachings of a man who died decades before modern information systems were even conceived may hold some of the greatest lessons for how to deliver successful technology adoption programs.

While Mark, who never had a smart phone (a term I am sure would have amused him to no end), who never faced a full email inbox, who never Tweeted (is that really a verb?), and who would probably laugh at the notion of an online social community, had some of the keenest insight about the nature of man.

Sadly, it is often a lack of understanding about the nature of man that leads many IT projects to plunge into great depths of despair and poor adoption.

Over the next few weeks, let’s take a look at Mark’s words in relation to IT user adoption programs.

When examined in the context of various aspects of effective user adoption programs, Mark shows us some of the common mistakes and misplaced assumptions that often plague many IT projects.

How can you use Mark’s insights to deliver a more effective user adoption program?

USER ADOPTION STRATEGY

When talking with new and prospective clients, one of the biggest problems we see is that people often believe they already know all of the specific challenges they need to overcome in order to deliver effective technology adoption.

Given this, they believe that there is no need to spend time or money assessing the drivers or barriers of user adoption within their organization, much less devising an actionable strategy to move forward successfully.

Unfortunately, we have found – without exception – that there always critical items that are missed when you don’t investigate before your take action. These issues typically take the form of either key factors that were missed or the form of faulty (unverified) assumptions that led to great mistakes and wasted time or resources later.

IN MARK TWAIN'S WORDS

Before you assume you don’t need a user adoption strategy, consider Mark’s words:

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
“It is wiser to find out than to suppose.”
“I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.”

Sound familiar? Read here about Tri Tuns' User Adoption Strategies, or contact us to learn more.

Hey This is Crazy, So User Adoption…Maybe?

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 04:00:00 GMT

One of the smartest men of our time, Albert Einstein, defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Which, when it comes to IT investments begs the question of why so often people go through the usual motions to pull off an implementation only to “go live and go home” while still expecting this time it’ll be a better experience for everyone involved and this software will save zillions? But if you’re doing the same thing you’ve always done, how exactly will the results this time be different?

Crazy, right?

(Or maybe this is Einstein presciently explaining the often-reported and historically stagnant CRM failure rates of 50-75%? Just a thought.)

I work with IT effectiveness and user adoption specialists and what we hear from our clients are things like “oh, but this time it’ll be different because we’ll have more training”, or “this new software will change everything, it’s completely intuitive” or “it’s the cloud, so that’s different, right?” I hate to break it to you, but just like with all bad habits in life, they’re easy to stick to and hard to change. (More on this in a future blog entry.)

Or, as we heard recently, “It’s not the software that fails, it’s the fleshware.”

When it comes down to it, technology does – sometimes infuriatingly so – exactly what you ask it to do.

But when it comes to people, the ‘fleshware’, let me ask you this: when was the last time a group of people did exactly what you asked them to do? Especially when you were changing the way they’d been doing something for years?

Ay, there's the rub.

So now what? How do you rescue the resources you poured into the project and begin to create the value you were so sure you’d realize with this implementation, with this change? How do you stop beating your head against that Einstein quote and regain some sanity?

First, look at what the implementation project’s focus was, and what was the benchmark for ‘success’. Was it techno-centric and success was on-time and on-budget delivery? Or was it business-centric and success is the ongoing measurement and achievement of business/ROI goals?

Next, when the project began was there a holistic strategy focused on driving desired user behaviors and aligning all the organizational elements necessary to achieve business goals? Or was the strategy just to get to go-live and there wasn’t a plan for what happened after that?

Third, the only constant is change. What sort of plan is in place to manage the inevitable changes and unexpected issues that will arise? What kind of infrastructure is in place to identify and respond to gaps, threats, opportunities, issues and events?

Still have questions and need some ideas about how your specific project could be helped? Take our quick assessment quiz – free and private, I promise! – and get some insight into how you might break your organization’s Einstein-ian cycle.
With the rate of CRM failure being still ridiculously high, how can you succeed? Check out our eBook on avoiding CRM Failure Zone.
Are you spending more time and money that you need or want to on the non-value-add tasks administering your implementation change? Take a look at MyUserAdoptionPlan.com for a glimpse of our pre-loaded, customizable change management portal.

Move to the Cloud, but Keep Your Feet on the Ground: Stay Focused on Business, Not the Technology

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 04:00:00 GMT

At the end of last month, Tri Tuns went to Cloud Slam ’12 in San Francisco where our CEO, Jason Whitehead, was invited to give a presentation about the newest challenges in cloud adoption: the users.

As one might expect at a cloud conference, Cloud Slam ’12 leaned heavily toward the technical and many people were talking about the amazing changes and possibilities the cloud, now in its infancy, will bring. The conversational overtones were reminiscent of the early days of the Internet.

Jason’s talk was one of the only “business-centric” presentations at a very “techno-centric” conference, and we were happy to offer an alternative perspective on the cloud and cloud adoption. While we were already thrilled to be invited, once there we found out after receiving consistently good ratings from the selection committee, Jason’s speaking proposal was chosen from more than 1,000 submissions! Thank you Cloudcor and Cloud Slam ’12 organizers, we were very pleased to be part of it.

In keeping with Tri Tuns’ focus on the people-side of system implementations, Jason was different from most of the other speakers who discussed urgent and emerging issues regarding the more technical aspects of the cloud. Jason addressed the non-technical side of the cloud: the people using it. As we heard one person say, “It’s never the software that fails; it’s always the fleshware.”

Jason’s talk addressed how when it comes to the cloud, and migrating thereto, many of us do so because we think it’ll be that Holy Grail trifecta: better, faster, cheaper than what we’re doing right now. But low up-front costs (for the buyer), the often-blinding speed of change, and on-going updates and changes take their toll elsewhere….and in every direction: the vendors, the customers, the users.

What we see time and again is that the laser-focus on “better, faster, cheaper”, defining “success” within the narrow confines of technology (did it go-live on time and on budget?) and managing organizational change in the traditional ways leads to business failures that could have easily been avoided in the first place.

Further, Jason outlined the inherent issues with traditional change management and its inability to accomplish business goals today. The old ways of “go live and go home” and “train and blame” just don’t work, especially in today’s workplace.

In essence, while the cloud has changed the game for vendors, clients and users, the cloud is also an excellent proxy for all the other technological changes organizations go through.

In today’s climate, with today’s workforce organizations must focus on behavior and performance management issues that can easily be addressed by effective user adoption programs requiring specific activities, deliverables and resources. Traditional change management just doesn’t do that. And at the end of the day, ROI will not be determined solely by “up time”. ROI is far more contingent on the people, the “fleshware”, involved.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

How is success defined for your implementation project? Help ensure you're focusing on the right things for business success by reading our new eBook.

Do you know what your specific challenges are? How will user adoption impact your project? Take our free assessment to start finding out.

How are you delivering IT change in your organization? Literally, what's the administrative mechanism? Are you trying to build your own? Checkout www.MyUserAdoptionPlan.com to see what pre-built, pre-loaded, customizable options exist.

If you're wondering how your project is going, try out our free assessment.

Or, if you have questions about your unique situation, please drop us line.

User Adoption Insight Over Margaritas

Fri, 11 May 2012 04:00:00 GMT

This far into spring many Seattleites are more than ready for the first glimpses of that odd, warmish bright thing in the sky. When I lived back east we called it “the sun”. But sometimes, like this last Tuesday, we have to pretend and somehow manufacture our own sunshine.

Which is how a group of friends and I found ourselves at our neighborhood’s most brightly painted Mexican place. It was with near-salivating anticipation for our dry, near-perfect summers we ordered our pitcher of margaritas. Or…ok, maybe it had just been a long day for each of us.

Being the most technically-inclined person of the group – to the extent that I’m the only one with an iPod even – I try to be the one who kicks off our usual how-was-your-day round-robin with the briefest description of what I did, just to get my IT-related day behind us so we can talk about things that are common to the whole group. That day, I’d designed a Power Point presentation for an upcoming conference on user adoption in the cloud. When the conversation turned to the cloud my dear friend Jane, an office manager, recalled how just hours before her bosses sprung a new cloud-based Power Point-like software on her, telling her their whole organization was moving to it and she needed to learn it. Oh, and while she’s at it, convert all the other slide decks their office regularly uses too.

“It seems to me we’re always upgrading or switching to something totally new and the technology changes so fast, no one can keep up. It’s like technology’s moving so fast, we’re just running along behind doing our best to catch up, but we can’t. None of us can. It just moves that fast and changes that often. It’s not the technology’s fault. It’s just that as humans, we can’t change as fast as it does.”

Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t help but grin over my salted rim and say, “Precisely. And that’s where user adoption consulting comes in. We’re the ones you bring in to help you navigate through all those changes, with all those personalities and competing interests, and we set you up for the long-term. Because you know it’s going to change again. ”

Curt, a school counselor, looked at me and said, “So…it’s not the technology. It actually has nothing to do with the technology…it’s all about the people…and how they manage and get through the change, as individuals, as departments, as whole organizations.”

And it was like the sun came out right there at the table: the heretofore somewhat abstract notion of “user adoption” finally made sense to everyone at the table. Here was a real-life example they each could relate to; they’d heard it from someone going through it and heads nodded in recognition.

So while this last Tuesday afternoon didn’t set records for instant sunlight over Seattle, having my friends see a real-world example of what I do on a daily basis was definitely something to toast to.

Update Your Business Case: Include the Hidden Costs of Cloud Computing

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 04:00:00 GMT

underestimated costs = underestimated risk

It’s fairly well-known that we weigh many different factors when making a buying decision – some logical, some emotional. When purchasing cloud computing, it is easy to fixate on the most obvious factor - the monthly fee – while developing a blind spot for many other key considerations. For many IT buyers who are used to big dollar projects, the relatively low up-front costs of cloud computing can be as distracting as a sparkling toy to a child. (Ooo…shiny!)

So how do you ensure you don’t overlook key considerations that are lurking in your blind spot when you’re buying a new IT system?

The other day I was talking with the enthusiastic corporate sponsor of a bank’s new cloud-based software system and he told me with the number of impacted staff, ‘the whole thing will only cost $100 per employee.’ When I asked him to describe the process by which this software was chosen, he giddily told me how easy a decision it was, given that the most they’d be out if it failed was $100,000 over the next two years. He was excited by how little risk to which his buying decision had exposed the bank, given how ‘cheap and easy’ it would be to implement.. (I repeat: Oooo….shiny!)

Does this sound familiar?

As our conversation continued, it became obvious that this bank executive was fixated on the $100 per employee cost. It’s how he got buy-in and it’s what he’ll be measured on at the end of the year. However, despite numerous attempts from a variety of people, no amount of persuasion could convince him that there were any other cost considerations besides the check he’d sent to the vendor. His tight focus on the $100 per employee number meant he wasn’t able to consider anything that might change how he calculated the true cost of the cloud investment. It was clear his emotions were affecting his thinking and by significantly underestimating the true cost of the bank’s IT investment, this corporate sponsor also significantly underestimated the amount of risk the bank faced if the project failed.

Consider This

Industry estimates suggest the true cost of a cloud implementation is anywhere from 3 to 10 times the price of the system. To put that in hard numbers, even if the vendor is selling you the new system for only $100,000 per year, you’re staring down the barrel of a $300,000 to $1,000,000 in true costs.

And industry estimates suggest IT projects fail at a rate of 60 – 70%. (Oh. Not so shiny.)

Miscalculating an IT investment’s cost and opening up the organization to more risk means it’s even more important that you take action to make sure the system generates real value and capture a high ROI as soon as possible after go-live. After you adjust your estimated expenditures to reflect something closer to reality, you need a way to create value, produce positive ROI and mitigate the risk. How? It’s deceptively simple: get people to use the system. How do you do that? User adoption plans.

What It Means For You

When you consider all the costs of your cloud system, you probably have a lot more at risk than you originally expected. You therefore need to make sure you get more value from the system to justify the additional risk. You need to be able to demonstrate that your cloud system is being used and is creating real, measureable value. But how do you get people to use the system?

It’s really not about the technology, it’s about behavior. Changing the technology is the easy part (relatively). Changing peoples’ behavior takes a strategy and a way to execute that strategy, including having the organizational infrastructure, necessary skills, knowledge, experience, and, of course, executive support.

Things to Think About

What non-subscription costs do you need to include when determining your true cost of your cloud investment? Where else are you spending your time, resource, money and effort to purchase, implement and support your cloud system?

As the saying goes, “Time is money”, so calculate it as such. In addition to the price of the software if nothing else, figure in the costs associated with the full disruption of this project, from initial research to cost of training for future employees, by including the following in your calculations:

how many people are involved
rate(s) of pay (or a blended average)
for how many hours
over how many months
plus lost productivity

2. If your updated calculation has a higher cost basis, how does this affect your business case/ ROI forecast? What level of user adoption do you now need to make sure you get the benefits you need to justify the investment?

Many IT business cases fall down because they assume 100% user adoption. But what happens if you only get 40% effective adoption? 60%? 80%? Does your cloud investment still look attractive? Think about adjusting the business case for different levels of adoption, over various periods of time and see if the business case still makes sense.

3. Do you have a comprehensive strategy that ensures you reach your target level of user adoption? How will you ensure the highest rate of adoption possible? Do you have the resources, time, knowledge, skills or infrastructure to drive and sustain effective user adoption and achieve your ROI goals? If not, how will you get what you need?

Related Resources

Take the User Adoption Challenge to see what specific user adoption issues you face on your IT project.
Read "How to Sustain High CRM User Adoption" to learn more about how to have successful CRM (or other systems) implementations.
Read "High Stakes Gamble: Many Organizations Bet on IT Success with only a 1 in 4 Chance of Winning"

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

Was this information helpful? What did you learn? We want to hear from you - please add a comment below.

‘Set It and Forget It’ is a Recipe for IT Disaster

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 04:00:00 GMT

IF ONLY IT IMPLEMENTATIONS WERE JUST THIS EASY

In the days of yore, Ron Popeil, infomercial pioneer, made it look easy.

He invented a kitchen gadget to make our lives easier, and the only direction he gave was ‘set it and forget it’. One step to make a “delicious six lb. chicken!” or “not one but two delicious rotisserie chickens!” How much simpler is that than the way our moms and grandmothers cooked chicken?

If only the rest of life were that easy.

Especially new software systems.

In an ideal world, your IT team would come in, install the new software, and it would be such an great experience they’d just magically sit down and start using not only because it’s easy to use but because they want to use it. This scenario is as likely to fool the seasoned implementation manager about as well as Hair in a Can spray dispelled notions of impending baldness.

So what are you to do when – as typically happens – you introduce a new system, everyone’s excited at launch time and then several weeks (years) later you look at the usage statistics and you’re disappointed. What happened? Looks like you set it and forget it.

But people were trained, you say. We worked for months to convince them this change was a good thing, you insist. They were even kind of excited, you protest. On top of that, they’d had no choice but to use this new system and things still aren’t working out as you’d hoped. Now what?

CONSIDER THIS

Fundamentally, IT systems and user adoption are not set it and forget it kind of things.

Typically IT implementations follow a simple formula: go-live and go home. But the users don’t go home and they are what makes -- or breaks -- any IT investment.

In today’s world everyone needs to maximize the ROI of any IT investment, and the only way to realize that ROI is by holistically taking care of the people who use it.

It’s not traditional thinking but after go-live, users need constant care and feeding, no matter the system, no matter the type of implementation, no matter the organization.

So what do you do? You need to do something, you know this. But what?

Assess the situation for your user
Develop a plan accordingly
Assign someone responsibility for executing that plan
Create the infrastructure so that person, and the plan – and your users – will succeed

The fact of the matter is, an IT implementation doesn’t end at go-live, but rather it begins there. The world –inside your organization and with your competitors’-- is constantly changing. People will always need new and different information, there will always be turnover, and you will need specific people focused on getting the value you need from this investment. Only when people use the technology will you get the value you want.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU

‘Set it and forget it’ is how implementations used to be delivered. But the world has changed. These days you need to build a flexible, scalable and sustainable user adoption strategy before you implement your system. You need to map out the necessary efforts and actions your organization will take so it can extract the maximum business value from your investment. Comparatively, the technology side is easy; it’s all 1s and 0s and it does what you tell it to do. It’s the human element that complicates matters and requires you to focus more on the people and the organization than on the technology and the tools.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

How do you do implementations? Do you typically take a holistic approach, or do you set it and forget it? What have you experienced?

Whose job is it to make sure this happens? Do they have the skills?

Do you have the organizational capacity and willingness to carry out a sustainable user-focused program?

Does your internal team have the skills and experience to address these issues?

Do you have the infrastructure to achieve this in a fast, flexible and affordable way?

For examples of what to include in a holistic user adoption strategy, go to MyUserAdoptionPlan.com

And if you’re not sure how your project may be affected take the challenge. After all, saying they have no choice but to use it is ultimately counter-productive when you have the choice to be proactively motivating people to use it.

RELATED RESOURCES

Take the User Adoption Challenge to see what specific user adoption issues you face on your IT project.

Schedule a demo of Tri Tuns' "My User Adoption Plan" portal to see how it can provide a comprehensive infrastructure for ensuring effective stakeholder engagement & communications over the life of your system.

Read "How to Sustain High CRM User Adoption" to learn more about how to have successful CRM (or other systems) implementations.

Read "Does your User Adoption Methodology Remove Organizational Barriers" to learn about the limitations of traditional IT implementation and Organizational Change Management methodologies and how you can overcome these shortfalls.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

Was this information helpful? What did you learn? We want to hear from you - please add a comment below.

Is Your IT System a Dreamliner?

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 04:00:00 GMT

The 787 SHOWS US THAT NEW TECHNOLOGY BRINGS NEW RISKS

REPORTED

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has been hailed as a revolutionary advance in technology that will provide the greatest advance in air travel since the Concorde. The Dreamliner uses new materials and technology and promises to cut 15% off its weight, dramatically lowering fuel consumption and costs. It’s obvious why airlines are salivating to get their hands on it.

However, like all new technologies, great advances come with great risks and lots of “unknowns”. The Daily Mail cites a recent GAO report that states while the Dreamliner is safe, it has introduced new risks and even the inspectors don’t know how to manage the new technology or how the risks change over time.

“U.S. inspectors said they do not know what to look for when the new composite [plastic wings & fuselage] starts to fail. …The report said it is unclear how the 787 will become damaged over time and it is not known what the damage to the composite will look like.”

– Daily mail, 03NOV11

NEW RISKS & YOUR IT SYSTEM

Can you image what will happen to Boeing if in a few years some problem is discovered with their new materials and/or design results in repeated 787 crashes? Or if the new composite materials turn out to have a lifespan that is only half of that of traditional materials? Lawsuits could fly and demand could be wiped out overnight. Do you think Boeing is going to monitor these risks and take action to mitigate them? You bet they are.

Just like with the Dreamliner, introducing new technology systems into your organization can provide revolutionary advances in capacity and benefits. The problem is, it also introduces revolutionary advances in risks as well. Unfortunately, many organizations get seduced by the potential benefits while ignoring the risks. And they do so at their peril. Are you going to make this mistake?

CONSIDER THIS

When implementing new IT systems, many organizations focus on getting the system live, but ignore what happens once it is in production. The value of your system – and the risks – only get introduced after the system is live. And they continue over the life of the system. This means that you need to manage the value creation and risk mitigation over the life system.

The FAA inspectors said they don’t even know what to look for to identify emerging problems with their technology. Will your staff know how to identify and manage the new risks (and opportunities) that your new IT system will introduce? How do you know?

The report indicated that it is unclear how the 787 will become damaged over time and what it will look like. If left unattended, do you know all the ways in which new IT systems can damage your organization?

WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU

When dealing with the “unknowns” of IT systems, you cannot prevent emerging issues, you can only respond to them. The best course of action is to develop the infrastructure and capacity necessary to identify emerging issues (and opportunities) and to quickly respond to them.

This means that you need to have:

Clearly defined and assigned the roles and responsibilities for ensuring your IT system is adopted in such a way that it is delivering value and not introducing unnecessary risks and exposure to your organization. This needs to continue over the life of your system.

Developed the tools, metrics, and reporting to give you visibility to emerging risks and opportunities. You need to identify risks and opportunities as early as possible.

Establish communication processes and tools that allow you to have 2-way communication with all stakeholders. This allows you to identify issues and respond back to them.

HOW TO DO IT

If your organization is like most, you probably agree that you need to do this, but you are not sure how. Tri Tuns can help.

We work with organizations to develop the infrastructure you need to manage risks and maximize the value of your IT systems.

With our new User Adoption Portal, MyUserAdoptionPlan.com, we help you drive effective user and provide you the capabilities you need to respond to emerging risks, needs and opportunities. And we can do it faster, cheaper, and easier than you probably thought possible.

In addition, with our expert services, we can provide the advanced knowledge and skills your team needs to make sure they identify risks before they become problems.

FIND OUT IF YOUR PROJECT IS AT RISK

Want to learn if your project is at risk. Take our free online assessment.

Want to stay updated of how you can get the most value from your IT system? Sign up for our Quick Tips and Insights Newsletter.

High Stakes Gamble: Many Organizations Bet on IT Success with only a 1 in 4 Chance of Winning

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:00:00 GMT

REPORTED

A recent article by the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), a research and advisory firm to leading organizations, stated that many companies in the Financial Services (FS) industry are increasing their investments in IT solutions, despite the volatile market conditions. What is shocking is that CEB reports, “only 24% of the controllers we recently asked believe they are realizing positive returns.” CEB is advising organizations, “to get more value out of finance IT by upholding data standards, aligning IT investments with real business needs, and focusing on end-user adoption”.

TRI TUNS VIEW

At Tri Tuns, we have found that many firms do not have effective User Adoption Strategies. Effective user adoption programs focus on driving desired user behavior – such as how and when people use the technology, the actions they take to ensure data quality, the degree to which they follow defined business processes, and the actions they take to ensure compliance. The skills and methods required to drive effective user adoption are very different from those required to implement IT systems. Unfortunately, these are often missing from most IT implementation projects.

The CEB post indicates that only 24% of controllers “believe” that they are realizing positive returns on their investment. Based on this, consider:

The remaining 76% of organizations do not believe they are getting a positive return on investment. This is a ridiculously high percentage. Even in Vegas you have a better shot of getting a positive return!

Would you make an investment if you only had a 1 in 4 chance of getting a positive result? (Well, you might if your portfolio includes shares in Solyndra.) Before making major IT investments, you should have a clearly defined strategy for when and how you will measure the ROI on your IT investment. What you will find is that User Adoption is the biggest item on this critical path. What you will probably find is that you are not doing enough to maximize and sustain user adoption over the life of your system, and this is the leading cause for failed IT investments.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Before investing in IT projects, make sure you have a clear User Adoption Strategy that aligns user behavior & adoption of the IT system with your business goals and IT ROI needs. Further, you need to determine how will you implement your user adoption strategy and sustain your User Adoption Program over the life of the system. Be sure to recognize that changes in the levels and effectiveness of user adoption (over time) will change the ROI you receive from your IT investment. Quite simply, whenever you stop measuring and driving effective user adoption your IT investment is at risk.

TRI TUNS CAN HELP

Tri Tuns helps organizations maximize the ROI on their IT investments by developing and implementing User Adoption Strategies that maximize and sustain effective user adoption over the life of the system. We conduct User Adoption Assessments, Develop User Adoption Strategies, and provide hands-on User Adoption Program Implementation services.

Tri Tuns also provides the MyUserAdoptionPlan.com, an online User Adoption Portal that addresses all of your critical User Adoption needs. MyUserAdoptionPlan.com is an all-in-one solution that helps you lower the time and cost to create and maintain user adoption programs, while increasing the effectiveness of your User Adoption Program. MyUserAdoptionPlan.com is based on User Adoption Best Practices and comes preloaded with the core content you need to quickly define and launch your User Adoption Program. Contact us to learn more.

The page above is from MyUserAdoptionPlan.com and shows some of they key User Adoption Program areas that you need to address as part of your User Adoption Program.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com – an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Read: “Design the right metrics to improve user adoption”
Read: “Motivating User Adoption: Commitment, Compliance Or WIIFM?”
Read: "What is IT "Success"?
Read: “Leadership: Are You Really Committed?”
Read: “The Myth of User Resistance”

Johnny Dangerously on Effective User Adoption Communications

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 04:00:00 GMT

Is the Grapevine Killing Your User Adoption Communications?

Ensure Your Communications Are Accurate and Effective

In the clip below, Lil is trying to get a critical message to Johnny Dangerously, who is locked up in jail. It is a matter of life or death - Johnny must get accurate information about the threat to his brother's life. We see how easily the message gets mangled as it passes from person to person, until the final message that gets delivered is nothing like the original. Have you had a similar experience with communications in your organization?

Apply What You Learned: Carefully Manage All Communications & Beware of the Grapevine!

Accurate, timely and effective communications are critical to successful User Adoption programs. Make sure you have carefully develop appropriate communication channels and ensure that all stakeholders receive accurate information. This involves a variety of steps including setting up communication teams, developing multiple communication channels (live events, email, web sites, blogs, forums, webinars, various social media, etc.), developing a communication strategy, developing communication collateral, and then actually communicating with end users. It also involves carefully defining the roles and responsibilities for all parties involved in developing, approving, and delivering communications.

Best Practices & Key Questions

Develop a comprehensive communication strategy for your user adoption program. This includes:

Beware of the Grapevine!

What steps do you take to make sure that all of your communications are accurately conveyed to their intended audience? How are grapevine communications impacting your User Adoption program? What can you do to manage the grapevine in your organization?

Related Resources

Take the User Adoption Challenge to see what specific user adoption issues you face on your IT project.

Schedule a demo of Tri Tuns' "My User Adoption Plan" portal to see how it can provide a comprehensive infrastructure for ensuring effective stakeholder engagement & communications over the life of your system.

Read "Motivating User Adoption: Commitment, Compliance or WIIFM?" to learn more about defining success goals that will deliver the business benefits you need.

Read "What's Wrong with WIIFM" to learn more about effective User Adoption communication messages.

Tell us what you think

Was this a "teachable moment" for you? What did you learn? What else can this clip teach us about improving user adoption? We want to hear from you - please add a comment below.

User Adoption Teams & Johnny From Airplane!

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 04:00:00 GMT

Johnny from Airplane! Teaches us About Effective User Adoption Teams

Who do You Need on Your User Adoption Team?

We are often asked, "Who should I put on my User Adoption team"? In the clip below, we see all the "contributions" that Johnny makes to the team. Is he adding value along the way? Does having Johnny on the team help or hurt you? Does Johnny have the skills he needs to help, does he not care, or does he just not have a clue?

Apply What You Learned: Building a Great User Adoption Team

Effective User Adoption teams require a range of personalities, skills, and expertise. You will need subject matter experts and leaders ("Get me Rex Kramer"), people to do the hard work, and yes, people with personality to be the glue to hold them all together. However, if people do not have the skills or are unable or unwilling to make any substantive contribution, you may need to make some changes.

Pay careful attention to the people on your User Adoption team and make sure they are adding value. Sometimes you need people who look at thinks differently (like Johnny - who else could make hat, a brooch, or a pterodactyl)? These people can bring the ingenuity you need and provide laughs in the face of stress. ...but make sure they are actually adding value and not just taking up space.

Best Practices & Key Questions

Have a variety of personalities, perspectives and skills on your team

Have clear leaders and experts in User Adoption on your team

Related Resources

Take the User Adoption Challenge to see what specific user adoption issues you face on your IT project

Contact Tri Tuns to learn about our User Adoption Seminars and how they can help you build an effective User Adoption Team

Tell us what you think

Was this a "teachable moment" for you? What did you learn? What else can this clip teach us about improving user adoption? We want to hear from you - please add a comment below.

User Adoption & Sharks with Laser Beams

Sat, 20 Aug 2011 04:00:00 GMT

Dr. Evil teaches us about defining Success

How do you define Success?

In the clip below, Dr. Evil defines "Success" in terms of one, simple request: to have sharks with frickin laser beams on their heads. When he learns that this goal has not been met, he turns to his team to learn how close they came to hitting it - Sea Bass!

A Simple Request
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery — MOVIECLIPS.com

Apply What You Learned: Define Success in terms of User Adoption & Benefits Realization

Many IT projects make the mistake of defining success in terms of on-time & on-budge delivery of the IT system, rather than defining it in the terms of the desired impact and outcome. For IT projects, you should define success in terms of system usage and the measurable business benefits it delivers.

If you want sharks with laser beams, ask for them! If you want people to use the system and achieve a specific business result, ask for it!

Best Practices & Key Questions

Set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Bound) User Adoption goals for each stakeholder group. Measure them over time to make sure you are hitting or missing them.

Acknowledge when you encounter an "It's a start" moment with user adoption, but still hold people accountable for achieving results.

Related Resources

Take the User Adoption Challenge to see what specific user adoption issues you face on your IT project

Schedule a demo of Tri Tuns' "My User Adoption Plan" portal to see how it can help you set SMART User Adoption Goals, hold people accountable for achieving them, and deliver desired results

Read "What is IT Success?" to learn more about defining success goals that will deliver the business benefits you need.

Tell us what you think

Was this a "teachable moment" for you? What did you learn? What else can this clip teach us about improving user adoption? We want to hear from you - please add a comment below.

What Can Warren Buffett Teach Us About User Adoption?

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:00:00 GMT

IN THE NEWS

In a recent interview on CNBC Warren Buffett said that he could end the federal deficit in five minutes.

"I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that any time there's a deficit of more than three percent of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election. Yeah, yeah, now you've got the incentives in the right place, right? (Laughs)” – Source: www.CNBC.com 07 July 2011.

What Warren Buffett knows that most people seemed to forget (or just ignore) is that you need to develop meaningful incentives that reward the desired behavior and work performance you want to receive. This simple concept is as true for politicians in Congress as it is for users of IT systems in your organization. User adoption is ultimately about changing user behavior. So how do we effectively change behavior? Looking to another part of life, there is evidence from public efforts to change driver behavior that programs that combine incentives with enforcement and consequences are more effective than programs that only focus on motivation alone. The Washington Post reports:

“The campaign against distracted driving has provided another illustration that American drivers are more likely to respond to safety initiatives when they carry the threat of punishment.

...Publicity efforts alone, such as the “Buckle Up for Safety” campaign, were high-profile failures, but the “Click It or Ticket” effort that followed is credited with increasing seat-belt use. The weeping victims of drunken driving who appeared in public presentations and in the media captured widespread attention, but experts say sobriety checkpoints provided stronger motivation for the use of designated drivers.” - Source: www.WashingtonPost.com 11 July 2011.

OBSERVATION

A common problem of most IT implementations is a focus on sending out 1-way communications, without developing truly meaningful incentive programs that drive desired user behavior. Many IT projects focus their communications on the typical, yet ineffective “What’s In It For Me (WIIFM)” message, but do little or nothing to define how they will measure user adoption and the rewards or consequences for meeting or missing adoption goals. In effect, the approach to user adoption found in many organizations is a “Buckle Up For Safety” campaign when a “Click It or Ticket” approach is needed.

CONSIDER THIS

If you want to improve user adoption, you need to make sure you have specified user adoption targets and defined policies that align incentives and rewards (including consequences) with desires behavior. The rewards and consequences must be strong enough – and meaningful to end users – to actually influence user behavior.

You need a structured program to measure user adoption against defined targets and then enforce your incentive policies. This may include setting monthly user adoption metrics and targets, and then providing regular reports to monitor performance.

You need to formally assign responsibility for implementing your incentive and rewards program. With “Click It or Ticket”, police officers are responsible for enforcing seatbelt policies. In your organization, it may fall to team leaders, department managers or directors. What matters is that everyone is clear on whose job it is to implement your user adoption policies.

Don’t forget that incentive programs that are heavily focused on driving user commitment to adopt systems are preferable to programs that only focus on compliance or WIIFM. Of course, even commitment-centric approaches still require that you have a structured program for monitoring adoption and allocating rewards.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Do you currently take a “Buckle Up for Safety” or “Click It or Ticket” approach to user adoption? Is it effective?

Are your incentive systems truly aligned to drive desired user behavior? Do end-users feel meaningful rewards and consequences if they do not use your system? How are they enforced?

How do you know if your incentive program is meaningful to end users? What do you do to validate that the rewards/consequences actually matter to the individuals whose behavior you are trying to change? Or do you just assume you have the right incentives?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com – an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Read: “Design the right metrics to improve user adoption”
Read: “Motivating User Adoption: Commitment, Compliance Or WIIFM?”
Read: "What is IT "Success"?
Read: “Leadership: Are You Really Committed?”
Read: “The Myth of User Resistance”

Creating ownership teams to instill User Adoption

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

User Adoption (UA) is all about creating an infrastructure and support system that promotes end-users to enact the IT system as it was designed. At the end of the day, however, one can never force workers to perform exactly how you would want; neither can one monitor every behavior that occurs in the workplace. There must be some way then to ensure users enact the system as designed. Employees who perform best are professionals who can problem-solve on their own while receiving freedom and opportunity to do so. When system end-users are most engaged in problem-solving the system’s usage, they have a sense of ownership in determining the system’s success.

CONSIDER THIS

One way to encourage ownership is to seek volunteers for special projects (which I call “UA ownership teams”). These teams can take ownership in helping the organization to remove barriers to user adoption. Each team member can fulfill a duty, such as:

Review inputted data to ensure accuracy of data by all end-users.
Mentor less-tenured employees on proper system usage to develop skill set of employee base.
Identify best practices among end-users to enact new procedures.

One note of caution: make sure the projects have short timespans and are not overly taxing. Usually these team members must still complete their normal assignments (even if you temporarily scaled back the amount of work). If each project commands too much time and effort, you have taken away your best end-users from their normal work duties.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

As you plan to implement your next IT system, or are currently experiencing low adoption, consider incorporating end-users as part of your ownership teams.

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?”
Read: “Retain User Adoption consultants beyond the initial contract to sustain ROI”

Help! I have no time to instill User Adoption.

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION
User Adoption (UA) is critical to achieving your Return on Investment (ROI). What if you simply do not have the resources and time to establish all of the necessary components for a successful UA program? Enlisting the services of a UA consultant can help mitigate your limited resources while leaning on the consultant’s user adoption experience.

CONSIDER THIS

The first set of actions a UA consultant can help you with is to analyze your organization’s readiness to adopt the chosen IT system. The UA consultant will conduct interviews as well as analyze current processes and documentation to determine the most suitable strategies. The next set of actions is for a UA consultant to provide User Adoption strategies that will uniquely address the needs of your organization. These strategies include engagement activities, learning programs, process mapping, and user support mechanisms. Finally, the consultant can save you time by providing useful analytics reporting around end-user behavior. This kind of reporting provides valuable feedback as to how well your UA effort is proceeding.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

What may be capitalizing your time and attention is how to develop and enact an effective UA plan given your limited resources. Having a dedicated UA consultant will free up your valuable resources & time while leveraging the consulting expertise you need to jump start your UA efforts.

RELATED RESOURCES
Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?”
Read: “Don’t Sell Employees. Fulfill their needs!”

Retain User Adoption consultants beyond the initial contract to sustain ROI

Tue, 31 May 2011 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

You are responsible for ensuring end-user adoption of the IT system in your organization. To ensure this occurs, you retained consulting services unique to user adoption, such as Tri Tuns. Now that the contract is near completion, you are worried that you may see a drop in employees using the system as designed – and hence a decrease in ROI. The one truism of user adoption (UA) is it must be proactively fostered throughout the life of the IT system. Therefore, creating a new statement of work for the UA consultants may be worthwhile, in order to build a long-lasting UA program.

CONSIDER THIS

As part of a new statement of work, UA consultants will provide a User Adoption program that extends beyond the go-live period. One key area that UA consultants can help is to establish an internal UA team (made up of client employees). You may already have an implementation team, but may not have specific assignments to foster user adoption long-term. UA consultants can help to:

Determine the right staff members become UA team members. Not always should the same people from the implementation team be a part of the UA team. That is because implementation team members are typically project managers and technical experts, where as long-term user adoption requires a team made up of system end-users and support staff.
Create solutions that will promote user adoption throughout the life of the IT system. One such example is creating data quality protocols with methods for monitoring and evaluating the accuracy of data input by end-users.
Develop a schedule for enacting each UA phase that minimizes disruption of pre-existing responsibilities for UA team members. Team members will undoubtedly have pre-existing workloads; therefore it is crucial to set a UA schedule that does not jeopardize any other responsibilities.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

As you plan for the completion of the initial consulting contract, think about how you can leverage additional services that will sustain end-user adoption.

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?”
Read: “Design the right metrics to improve user adoption”

Don’t sell your employees on the system. Fulfill their needs!

Wed, 25 May 2011 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

A common practice – and TRAP – of change management is to attempt to convince (“sell”) end-users that the new IT system is beneficial to them. Change management teams spend several hours trying to “spin” their communications to attain this goal. The fallacy is spending time “selling” the benefits of the system without first understanding the end-users’ actual needs to properly use the system. This pitfall is grossly overlooked.

CONSIDER THIS

Change management teams often defend their approach, stating they apply due diligence by defining technical requirements. The problem is the technical requirements assume alignment to the daily practices of end-users. Often we find the architectural design does not compliment the practical application. As a different approach, User Adoption strategy consultants capture the most effective means of utilizing the system through interviews and observation of end-user behavior; this is done in concert with requirements definitions. The goal is not to ignore technical requirements, but to ensure the system technical requirements actually meet the end-user needs. This user adoption approach prevents the temptation to “sell” benefits to end-users, because their needs have already been identified and properly met.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

When you are about to develop a new IT system, seek out the actual needs (both business and technical) of your end-users. Then you will spend less time “selling” end-users, and more time satisfying their needs.

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?”

Book it! Scheduling User Adoption activities is a must to ensure long-term IT success.

Mon, 09 May 2011 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

We have all experienced this: a round of discussions generating wonderful ideas, with a promise to reconvene and determine next action items. The problem is those action items rarely become a reality, because there was never a sufficient amount of follow-through to act on those ideas. We know that user adoption (UA) of IT systems does not occur without deliberate action items. Since the goal is to conduct specific activities that encourage end-users to engage your IT system as designed, we need to move from mere discussions and ideas to committed actions that promote user adoption. In order to maintain both focus and follow-through of user adoption plans, it is recommended to reconstruct your project team meetings in a way that generates ideas and creates specific follow-up actions.

CONSIDER THIS

For each strategy phase of the user adoption (UA) plan (e.g. analysis, engagement, learning, support, etc.) create two separate meeting times and agendas:

“Brainstorming Session”
“Implementation Planning”

Brainstorming Session:

Ascertain and list the relevant topics for that phase of the UA plan (rely not only on the project plan and initial team discussions but also on your UA consultant/expert).
Organize each agenda topic in a logical sequence to create a seamless and singular focus throughout the session.
Place specific time limits for each discussion topic, and be realistic as to what can be accomplished, as brainstorming/discussions can take longer than expected. Therefore do not attempt to overload the meeting agenda with too many topics. If needed, consider more than one brainstorming session vs. one long session.
During the brainstorming session, ALWAYS include the predicted impacts to user adoption of each idea.
Assign specific assignments to session participants with the due date set for the following meeting: “Implementation Planning”. Typically, these assignments are data gathering/research in nature, which shall help the team determine the implementation plan.

Implementation Planning:

Revisit each discussion topic in the same sequence from the brainstorming session.
Address the findings from the various assignments in order to decide how to best proceed. Again, validate each decision based on predicted impact to user adoption.
Agree to a specific series of implementation activities to enact your team’s decisions. This must include primary ownership and enactors of activities, time-frames, resources required, leadership endorsement and support.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

As you plan for your next UA meetings, remember what the overarching goal is: to enact specific actions that will create user adoption of your IT system. Using the above steps can help you and your team follow-through on your user adoption ideas to create long lasting results.

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “D oes Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?”
Read: “Design the right metrics to improve user adoption”

Design the right metrics to improve user adoption

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

Have you noticed that you spend a large amount of time documenting process flows but fail to measure their IT implementation? How do you know if the end-users are enacting the system as designed and contributing to the business goals? We know that process documentation is necessary to ultimately guide system end-users once an implementation is complete. However, many fail to realize that metrics need to be prepared to adequately determine if the new process flows are followed by system end-users. User Adoption metrics is the link between the new process design and the organizational change effort.

CONSIDER THIS

When determining which particular metrics to focus on, it is critical to consider user behaviors that both follow the new process design as well as behaviors that deviate from your intended process. Important user adoption metrics determine how much deviation there is between end-user behavior and the intended new process. Knowing these levels of deviation will help you determine how to influence and guide end-users toward the new process. The right metrics don’t necessarily need to be complex or sophisticated to provide accurate insight into the impact of current business processes (e.g. how long it takes to perform a particular process).

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Brainstorm both intended and unintended behaviors and outcomes during implementation in order to create the proper user adoption metrics. Here are some examples of insightful metrics: • How many resources touch a process from beginning to end? • List which resources touch that process. • What is the scope of the process activities performed by each resource? • Are there fewer or more resources (or handoffs) required due to automation? Remember, when planning user adoption metrics, determine what is valuable to know about a particular process. Metrics must be designed to ensure that the behavior of the new processes deliver the intended results. With proper metrics and planning, you will have the insight needed to reinforce desired behavior.

RELATED RESOURCES
Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Explore the array of Assessments that Tri Tuns offers
Read: “Accelerating User Adoption”
Read: “Motivating User Adoption: Commitment, Compliance Or Wiifm?”

What’s wrong with my questions? How IT projects typically fail to ask questions pertinent to long-term user adoption.

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

Does your IT implementation plan include a Change Management (CM) effort? It probably does. Does this CM effort include attaining information about the user community’s needs, in preparation for an IT build? Again, your answer may typically be yes. So what could possibly be missing? The answer lies in what you are not asking about your client. Most often, consulting firms and IT implementation teams only seek information about the technical requirements to an IT build. What they forget to determine are the organizational impacts and barriers to actually using the new IT system. Once the IT system is built and installed, it is a fallacy to assume the user community (system end-users) will adopt the new system fully and as designed (known as User Adoption). Therefore is imperative to determine factors beyond technical requirements that can positively and negatively affect system usage.

CONSIDER THIS

Below are just a couple of example questions one may ask the user community, in order to determine both organizational impacts and barriers to using a new IT system:

In addition to technical system training (e.g. classroom, reference guides), what other support mechanisms or skill set needs would help you operate the new IT system as designed (e.g. scenario process steps, vehicle for sharing best practices, etc.)?
What support would you like to see your managers provide to assist you in delivering quality services regarding the use of the new IT system?
Who will be responsible for the ongoing assessment and management of user adoption? How will you adjust their current roles & responsibilities to handle the added role?

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

As you plan to implement a new IT system, include assessments in your project plan that will address issues that will foster user adoption. Identifying user adoption issues during the project will better prepare the user community for both initial go-live of the system as well as long-term system usage.

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?”

Getting Partnerships Back On Track

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

So you formed a partnership with another company, but it is not providing as much value as the effort you invested. In a prior blog article, “To Partner or Not To Partner” we discussed the pre-screening factors that you should consider before forming a partnership. Assuming now that you have already formed a partnership, what do you do if it is not bearing fruit? Instead of debating whether or not to continue this partnership, consider the following assessment.

CONSIDER THIS

The following questions will help you gather concrete information to have a fact-based conversation with your partner, with the goal of improving the partnership.

What is the amount of time (in hours) and money that you (compared to your partner) spend developing the partnership on:
1. Joint-Marketing Collateral & Events?
2. Joint-Client Deliverables and Methodology?
3. Educating each staff on partner’s value?
Is the amount of client work appropriately divided between each partner? Is the allocation of work justified by the differing skill sets of each partner?
How much time do you spend repairing the partner relationship vs. expand partner accounts?
Does the partner’s actions change to reflect your suggestions to improve or do they continue with the status quo?

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Partnership should require considerable investment – especially in the beginning – to ensure each party gets the most value. Should you find your partnership is not providing you due dividends, what is your plan to assess the situation and improve the partnership?

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “To Partner or Not To Partner”

To Partner or Not To Partner? How choosing the right partners can add value to sales efforts.

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

Consulting firms often debate whether to apply their business development effort toward building a partnership vs. seeking direct client opportunities. One key benefit of forming a partnership is the ability to expand sales opportunities while sharing marketing and sales costs. As tempting as it is to form a partnership with the goal to increase revenue while mitigating marketing/sales effort, you also should consider factors that could add frustration and internal cost if there is no alignment between the two companies.

CONSIDER THIS

While no one can predict the success or failure of a new partnership, there are some key considerations when evaluating potential partnerships:
1. Similar Company Values – this may seem nebulous and non-relevant to a business decision; however many business relations falter because one party valued a particular method of conducting business in place of the other party’s preferred value (for example: Party A pursues business sales no matter how the sale is achieved. Party B pursues business sales within ethical and legal parameters).

2. Matching Customer Profile – increasing sales in general is tempting, but if the new customers do not fit within your identified profile, you may not have the skill set to satisfy that new customer base. The result hurts not only your reputation, but also your new partner’s!

3. Balanced Workloads – just because you formed a partnership, you cannot afford to assume the workload to building and maintaining the partnership will be equal among partner companies. There are many instances where one partner ended up doing most of the internal, infrastructure work for the partnership (marketing collateral, sales outreach, IT systems, document management, etc.).

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

In addition to the above considerations, it is helpful to monitor the amount of business each partner generates for the other. If you or your partner is delivering an unequal and disproportionate amount of the sales opportunities, you both need to look at the numbers and evaluate why this is occurring.

1. How often will you monitor joint/shared sales leads? Examples:

Each week
Each month
Each quarter

2. In addition to evaluating the raw numbers, what other factors will you examine? Examples:

Customer type
Customer demographic
Pre-determined criteria for justifying contract is not for other partner

3. In some instances an effective partnership may be based not on equal contribution to the sales effort, but rather by one partner contributing a key capability that the other partner lacks. In such cases, does it make sense to evaluate the quality of the partnership based solely on each partners’ contribution to the sales effort? If not, how can you best evaluate the value and effectiveness of your partnership?

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Return on Relationships”

Influence culture to drive user adoption

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

People often talk about corporate culture but they really don’t know how to sufficiently explain / define it, how to influence it, or how it can influence an IT project implementation. You may have tried to define what the culture of your client’s organization is today, but have you given thought to the readiness of your client’s organization to accept a new technology? You should, as this readiness is a key influencing aspect of your culture, and will influence the adoption of the technology you are implementing (User Adoption).

Low adoption of the technology will keep the organization from getting the most value out of its investment. Without driving adoption, you might see:

Limited usage of the new technology
Users expressing frustration and difficulty with the new system
Poor performance results at the individual and division level Let’s think about the technology implementation for your client. You may encounter resistance to the new technology.

In an effort to increase the readiness of accepting new technology we can measure culture and increase user adoption. There are four main areas to consider when assessing culture:

Leadership: Do leaders promote and support the new technology?
Processes: Are there multiple or conflicting processes in the way?
Training: Are staff properly trained, including and beyond technical training?
Project overload: Are there simultaneous projects competing for end-users’ time and attention?

Assessing and acting upon these 4 main areas will get you started to increase the organization’s readiness to accept new technology, which in turn will drive user adoption.

CONSIDER THIS

If your client’s technology is great but the level of readiness to apply the technology is low, you will not see much user adoption. In the below diagram, one can see a direct correlation between organizational readiness and end-user adoption. Your goal is to focus on increasing readiness by utilizing and acting on the assessment criteria stated above. This will put you on the way to creating a culture of increased readiness and improved user adoption, the goal for any technology implementation.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Have you thought about user readiness for new technology when trying to assess the culture of an organization?

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Accelerating User Adoption”
Read: “Motivating User Adoption: Commitment, Compliance Or Wiifm?”

How to sustain high CRM User Adoption

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 05:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

We have found that the best way for organizations to “boost” and then “sustain” high CRM user adoption is to develop and implement a comprehensive user adoption strategy. Most CRM failures occur when organizations take a Go-Live centric approach to CRM (on-time & on-budget delivery of technology) without taking the necessary actions to drive and sustain user adoption over the life of the system. It is important to recognize that user adoption is all about changing user behaviors; it is not about technology. The skills and methods you use to change behavior are very different than those required to build and deliver effective CRM systems. This means that the people who lead and manage your CRM system implementation may not be (and probably are not) the right people to lead the user adoption program.

CONSIDER THIS

Here are some (though not all) key elements of a CRM user adoption program:

ASSIGN OWNERSHIP FOR CRM ADOPTION - Give a senior executive overall accountability, authority, and required resources to drive and sustain CRM adoption. Make this a meaningful portion of the executive’s performance & bonus criteria to ensure they are properly motivated to put in the time and resources required to make the CRM project a success.
DEFINE CRM SUCCESS – Define success in terms of user adoption, business value creation, and ROI. Determine specific CRM success measures (quantitative and qualitative) and align all employees’ performance management plans (and rewards) to these goals.
ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS – Conduct a comprehensive analysis of your organization to identify all of the key factors that encourage or inhibit CRM adoption. This includes looking at policies, processes, reward systems, communication activities, job descriptions, leadership, and existing user attitudes and behaviors. Use this information to shape your overall CRM adoption strategy.
SHIFT FROM "USER RESISTANCE" TO "REMOVE BARRIERS" – Make clear distinctions between instances of user resistance vs. organizational barriers that prevent adoption. Many people fall in the trap of “blaming the users” for not adopting CRM when often times there are organizational barriers – that fall outside of the users’ control – that prevent users from adopting the CRM system.
FACILITATE ADOPTION – Take specific actions before, during, and after go-live to facilitate full and effective user adoption. Communications and training are necessary, but not even close to sufficient, for driving effective user adoption. (This is an example where you may need a different skill set to drive adoption. If you are not sure what else you need to do to “facilitate adoption” this may mean that you do not have the right skills and/or right methodology for driving user adoption.

You may want to consultant an outside user adoption expert for help.) 6. MEASURE & EVOLVE – Measure user adoption at regularly scheduled intervals, update CRM adoption goals, identify specific CRM adoption activities to be completed, and adjust your CRM adoption program as necessary to ensure your CRM system is meeting current and future ROI goals.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Implementing an effective CRM adoption program is not easy and it does take time, resources, and User Adoption expertise. Nonetheless, with a commonly reported CRM failure rate near 70%, it is clear that organizations need to take action to protect their CRM investments. In the future, you will find more organizations implementing comprehensive CRM user adoption programs as part of all CRM initiatives.

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “What is IT "Success"?

Common practice or best practice? A key distinction in user adoption practice.

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 05:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

Congratulations! You’ve just implemented your new IT system. As end-users use the system, they will discover new and creative ways to use the technology. To optimize their efficient methods throughout the end-user community at your organization, you need a mechanism to identify emergent best practices and share them across the enterprise. Unfortunately, organizations assume that knowledge sharing and best practice identification happens organically. It doesn’t. There are two obstacles that typically prevent best practices from being adopted enterprise-wide. One, organizations mistake habits or “common practice” as being a well thought-out and detailed “best practice”. Two, organizations assume a “best practice” will naturally become the standard working method. Both assumptions lead to failed expectations. A common practice is something that workers gravitate to because it has become the norm via habit. However, a common practice may not be the correct or the most efficient way to perform a process. By contrast, a best practice is a technique or methodology that, through experience and research, has proven to reliably lead to a desired result. Even If one has deliberately created a best practice, it takes an equal amount of deliberate planning and action to make it the “common practice”. “Word of mouth” does not ensure the best practice will behaviorally be adopted by all end-users.

CONSIDER THIS

A best practice is the collection of knowledge that is cultivated, sought out, and disseminated with purpose and intent. An organization will need specific criteria for how to capture behavioral steps, analyze & test them to determine which are the most productive/most efficient, and then standardize them into a best practice. The structure does not need to be complicated or complex to be effective, but it must be able to defend its conclusions/recommendations. In addition, an organization will need the proper and robust set of support mechanisms to ensure end-users adopt the best practice. Such mechanisms include: processes, training, job-aids, subject matter experts, and communications.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

What are your organization/department’s criteria for forming a best practice?
Who determines what is a “common practice” vs. a “best practice” in your organization?
What are the preferred communication methods for announcing the best practices (Town halls, emails, shared drive, demonstrations, planned education sessions, etc.)?
What steps do you need to take in order to institutionalize the behavior of best practices?

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Accelerating User Adoption”
Read: “Motivating User Adoption: Commitment, Compliance Or Wiifm?”

Can’t I Just Email Them? Why User Adoption cannot occur remotely.

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 05:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

Do you remember when there was no email system? When you had only two choices of either meeting by phone or in person to conduct business? As amazing as technology is – along with its conveniences – it also has the potential to take away value that we otherwise would get from more direct means of communication. Consultants especially lose value when they interact with their clients primarily through email. Not only can a consultant lose time awaiting client responses, that consultant does not get the opportunity to explore a more accurate assessment of a client’s current state, in order to provide the best recommended solution.

CONSIDER THIS

Generally, a consultant’s success can be measured in three main categories:

How accurately the consultant has assessed the client’s current situation.
How much trust the consultant has built with the client to accept the consultant’s recommendations.
How well and quickly the consultant can execute all aspects of the contract (assessment, recommendations, development, delivery, etc.).

For this article, we shall focus on categories 1 & 2.

Category 1: Assessment Email correspondences provide a very narrow perspective of the client situation. A good consultant assesses a client’s current situation through a variety of mechanisms, in order to form a complete understanding of what the client will ultimately need for the consultant to help them. This variety of data gathering mechanisms (known as triangulation) includes surveys, interviews with client members, project team meetings, review of client documentation, among others. As emails may only share the perspective of a couple client members, the alternative/additional mechanisms gather insight from multiple client members; a truer picture of the client situation is revealed.

Category 2: Trust in Recommendations Once the consultant has a better understanding of the client’s true needs, the consultant can propose a more specific recommendation(s) unique to that client. However, what is to assure the client will agree to such recommendations? This is where trust is key. Have you ever formed a relationship - rooted in trust - via email? Of course not, the basis of all relationships occur through repeated conversations and in a variety of venues – mainly in person. The same is true when forming trust with clients. Working with clients more directly and in person allows the consultant a chance to learn about the client; but it also provides the client to learn about the consultant. The more the client understands the consultant’s intentions and feels the consultant understands their situation, the more likely the client will accept the consultant’s recommendations. The goal is achieved!

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

As you think about your daily consulting practice – particularly when you are assessing a client’s situation or are developing particular client recommendations: 1. How much time passes between the back-and-forth emails that could be quickly resolved by a phone call or meeting? 2. What level of insight are you getting about your client’s situation through email correspondences vs. alternate means of communication? 3. Note the level of acceptance to your recommendations vs. “push-back” you receive from your clients when interacting face-to-face vs. email. What is the ratio difference?

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?"

Why User Adoption activities should start before go-live

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 05:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

Clients often place priority on the technical build and implementation over end-user readiness. Their assumption is that once the new system becomes operational (go-live), they can focus on getting end-users to engage the system as designed. However, clients often have too little knowledge of end-user needs and barriers which leads directly to inaccurate usage and/or less than full adoption. For example: a client has not fully defined and educated end-users on process changes required to align with operating new system. End-users will make mistakes in the new system by incorrectly following old process steps.

CONSIDER THIS

Completion of technical system build does not equate to business nor system success. The system may be ready for use, but the organization may not be ready to use it. New systems often bring new functionality, and this leads to new processes. Organizational practices need revising to align with using the new system, and these changes affect user performance with the new system.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Which is the higher priority? Getting the system live on time, or getting the organization prepared to use the system as designed? If the answer is both, then your project team must include pre go-live activities that address both needs.

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?”
Read: “The Myth Of User Resistance”

Return on Relationships

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

It is a common trap on many IT projects that team members are so focused on ensuring project “success” (typically defined as on-time and on-budget delivery) that team members forget the critical importance of developing and maintaining effective relationships. Ironically, forgoing the relationship building elements of the project (e.g. developing trust, ensuring effective project team interaction, etc.) often causes project delays, disagreements, and quality problems which ultimately lead to the project running late, over budget, or otherwise being deemed a failure.

When project teams skip the critical step of building effective relationships:

Project timelines are increased due to extensive time being wasted resolving disagreements, such as different views on scope of work, bugs vs. enhancements and performance measurements
Stakeholders are unwilling to divulge important information with consultants and/or internal project team members, leading to ineffective solutions being developed and implemented
Problems slowly escalate and disagreements become more intense as the project go-live date nears.

Many times the problems that lead to project failure can be prevented - or at least more effectively resolved - if team members invest time and energy in developing honest, trusting, effective relationships from the very start.

CONSIDER THIS

Investing time and energy to develop effective, trusting relationships with team members, clients, partners and others will deliver benefits that far exceed the costs. This is realized through proactive collaboration and teamwork, streamlined problem resolution, improved customer satisfaction, increased referrals and references, and maintaining long-term, profitable relationships (a positive Return on Relationships). Project team members should view time spent relationship building as an investment that will deliver future benefits. The perceived benefits of skipping or short-changing relationship building efforts are much lower than the very real costs when the project encounters the inevitable stress and disagreements that emerge (a negative Return on Relationships).

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Do you typically have a positive or negative Return on Relationships? What could you do to ensure you have a positive Return on Relationships? What additional benefits would you get from spending more time developing positive relationships with each stakeholder? What problems could be avoided by doing so?

Do your project team members know how to develop effective relationships? Can they repair damaged relationships? Are they comfortable working with clients? Other departments? Senior executives? Many times project team members are great subject matter experts in their field, but they do not know how to develop and maintain effective professional relationships. Team members – even senior members – may need help learning to develop productive professional relationships.

What can you do to build trust with each stakeholder? Trust is the ultimate tool for relationships. This tool can neither be granted nor created during a single meeting; it is built slowly and steadily over time through repeated interactions. What can you do to ensure that once it is earned, you maintain the trust of others?

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Leadership: Are You Really Committed?”
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?”
Read: “Motivating User Adoption: Commitment, Compliance or WIIFM?”
Read: “The Myth Of User Resistance”

Resistance is a Judgment, Not an Action

Thu, 06 May 2010 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

When talking about user adoption of major IT systems – CRM, ERP, HRIS, etc – at some point the discussion always focuses on overcoming “user resistance”. When I probe deeper and ask clients to define exactly what they mean by “user resistance” (what form it takes, what causes it, and what they do to “overcome” it) they often struggle to provide specific answers. If we cannot accurately articulate the problem, how can we recognize and solve it?

The term “user resistance” has become a vague concept - a convenient short-hand of sorts – that is used to justify poor user adoption. Implicit in this term are the ideas that 1.) user adoption is solely at the discretion of the end-user and 2.) if the end-user does not adopt your system it is an act of defiance. If you accept this to be true, it follows that the responsibility for overcoming user resistance lies completing at the feet of the end-user. This just isn’t true.

In a previous blog entry on leadership, I shared the quote, “We judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions.” When discussing user resistance it is very important to recognize that we observe discrete actions (user behaviors), but it is not until we assign our judgment that they become “user resistance”.

When we judge an action to be “user resistance” it has serious implications:

It blames the user. By shifting responsibility for IT adoption from the implementation & management team to the end-user, we have created a convenient scapegoat if the system is deemed a failure.
It helps us save face. By focusing all the attention on the users, we don’t need to examine where we might have done something wrong or lacked the skills to perform our jobs.
It creates blind-spots. Our approach to change management might have been inappropriate, and as a result we might have ignored barriers to adoption that fall outside the users’ control. These organizational barriers could be what are preventing users from adopting the system.
It ignores root-causes & contributing factors. Focusing on user behaviors may cause us to miss other technical, organizational, functional, process, data, or other factors that prevent user adoption.

CONSIDER THIS

Whenever the label “user resistance” is assigned, this is a signal that YOU have more work to do.

Stop and clarify what are the specific actions you observed.
Identify what made you determine that these are instances of “resistance”.
Determine if there are other explanations or contributing factors for these actions. Share your observations with the actual end-users and ask for their help in understanding what caused the behaviors, while requesting specific alternative behaviors they should take in the future.

By shifting our focus from “user resistance” to other explanations for poor user adoption we can:

Look at other issues, contributing factors, and root-causes for undesirable behavior
Find new solutions where before we might not have seen alternatives
Take ownership and action for driving user adoption – without abdicating this responsibility to the end-users
Help move things forward and drive success

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

What made you decide that the problem was “user resistance”? What specific actions/behaviors did you observe that led you to this conclusion?
What causes the users to demonstrate this behavior? Was this an act of defiance? Were users not clear on what behavior was expected of them? Did you share your observations and suggest specific alternative actions they should take in the future?
Are there other causes/drivers for the action (or inaction)? Are there organizational barriers that prevent users from acting as desired? Are there misaligned rewards or incentives that are encouraging the problem behavior?
Is there something that YOU can do to change user behavior? Is there something YOU need to do differently to drive desired behavior? Is there something about your change or user adoption methodology that is encouraging the behavior that you labeled “resistance”?

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Leadership: Are You Really Committed?”
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?”
Read: “Motivating User Adoption: Commitment, Compliance or WIIFM?”
Read: “The Myth Of User Resistance”

Leadership: Are You Really Committed?

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

“We judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions.” We all know that leadership commitment to a new project, IT system, or business transformation is critical for motivating people to change and embrace the new initiative. People in an organization look to the leadership for cues about their level of commitment and then they adjust their behavior accordingly. So, the challenge is, how do we know if our leaders are truly committed? Far too often I have seen where people talk about the need for management “commitment” or “buy-in” but they don’t talk about exactly what they mean by these terms or how they will recognize when they have it (or don’t). Many projects get into trouble because they equate simply sending out some communications or holding a meeting with key leaders as having commitment. These are activities intended to build commitment, they are not evidence of actual leadership commitment.

CONSIDER THIS

It is not enough to just be verbally committed to an initiative; the commitment needs to be backed up by observable action. The people you are trying to support and motivate will judge your commitment based on your actions, not just your words. Further, once they observe an action, they need to ascribe a meaning to it. You may need to support your actions with words to help people correctly interpret your actions and link them to your intentions.

To help people observe and correctly interpret your actions:

Get people to move beyond just words to focus on demonstrating commitment. If you can’t see it, you don’t have it.

Help people to know exactly what they need to do to demonstrate their commitment. Set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) for how people can and should show their support.

Let people know what actions they should be looking for from their leaders as evidence of leadership commitment. If necessary, explicitly state the intention behind the action so that people extract the desired meaning from the actions they observe.

It’s not just the leadership who need to know how to demonstrate their commitment. Help everyone in the organization know what specific actions they can take to show their coworkers and supervisor that they too are embracing the new initiative.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Do your observable actions match your intentions? How do you know? Do you obtain feedback from others about what they observe and how they interpret your actions? If there are disconnects here, how will you adjust?

How do leaders know what actions they need to take in order to demonstrate their commitment in way that is meaningful others? Do you provide leaders (and others) with guidance as to the specific actions they need to take?

How do you determine what actions a leader should take to demonstrate commitment? Do you ask the people in the organization what are the specific things they would like to see management do to demonstrate they are committed to the project?

Do you explicitly state your intentions behind your actions so that people know that you are trying to demonstrate your commitment and support? If not, how can you make sure that people understand why you have taken an action and what it is you would like them to take away from their observation of your activities?

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool

Read: “Motivating User Adoption: Commitment, Compliance Or Wiifm?”

Read: “The Myth Of User Resistance”

Read: “What’s Wrong with WIIFM”

Myth: "They Will Have No Choice - They Will Have to Use the System"

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

“People will have no choice – they will have to use the system”. Really? Whenever I hear someone say this I get worried – mostly because every time a client has uttered these words I found that their systems were in big trouble and not being used.

There tends to be an assumption amongst many IT and business leaders that if a system is core to their operations then people cannot perform their jobs without using it. This leads to the fallacy that employees will have no choice but to use the system and no further effort is required to drive and sustain user adoption. Upon closer inspection we see that even with “core” systems, people have tremendous choice when it comes to using a system.

For example, people choose:

Timing. Do people use your system at the right time? Do they enter data right away or do the wait days or weeks before entering critical data?
Accuracy. Do people search through the drop-down list to select the correct response or do they just quickly select anything in the list so they can move on quickly?
Completeness. Do people put in all the relevant information in your free text fields or do they put in a single letter, word or sentence just because the system requires that they enter something?
Compliance. Do people follow the defined process in the system or do they treat most activities as “exceptions” that require manual transactions outside your system?
Pervasiveness. Do people use all of the system functions and capabilities or do they only use a limited subset of the available functionality? What value is lost because only a small portion of the system capabilities are fully utilized?

CONSIDER THIS

Claiming that people will “have not choice” is not only inaccurate; it is a very dangerous assumption to make. The reality is that people have tremendous choice about how, when and the degree to which they use your systems. The choices people make here are often the critical different between whether a system is considered a success or a failure.

Organizations looking to ensure IT success need to recognize that users always have some choice when it comes to how they use technology – even with “core” systems. Once you recognize that no person, process or technology can ever mandate adoption by others, you need to shift your focus to developing and executing a user adoption strategy that drives effective user adoption over the life of the system.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Do you assume “people will have no choice” but to use your system? Did you assume this with your previous systems? Did you get full and effective user adoption with those systems? If not, why not?

If you change your assumption to, “people have lots of choice about where, when and how they will use the system,” how does this shift the way you approach driving user adoption? Will this change the way you motivate, monitor, measure, and reward effective system use?

What are all the areas (processes, functions, etc.) in your system where people have a choice about how and when they adopt your system? What is the impact if they do not use the system (for each area)? Who is impacted if it is not used? What is the impact?

Related Resources

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Accelerating User Adoption”
Read: “Motivating User Adoption: Commitment, Compliance Or Wiifm?”
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Organizational Barriers?”
Read: “The Myth Of User Resistance”
Read: “What’s Wrong with WIIFM”

What is IT "Success"?

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

We consistently read about IT “Failure” and how much it costs organizations each year, but how often do we actually read about IT “Success”? What is IT success? How do we know when we have achieved it? Why is it so elusive? Perhaps part of the reason for such wide spread IT failure is that we did not adequately define success.

Historically, IT projects were considered successful if they were completed on-time and on-budget. While this is indeed a great achievement, this is not success. True success is only achieved when the organization realizes measurable benefits from the use of its IT investments.

For many years, organizations focused on the successful delivery of IT Projects, while ignoring the most important part of IT success – namely making sure the systems are used to deliver business value. The table below defines key differences between IT Project Success and Business Success.

Will You Have...

CONSIDER THIS

Preventing IT failure and delivering successful IT systems requires that we shift our focus from delivery of IT systems to adoption of IT systems to create business value. This has tremendous implications for how we approach both the initial implementation and the ongoing management of live systems.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

How do you define IT success? Are you successful when you get the system live or when it is actually used & delivering value?

Have you developed a User Adoption Strategy to create and sustain full & effective system use? Does your strategy define & remove all barriers to user adoption?

What is your long-term plan to measure and sustain benefits realization over the life of the system? What will you do to ensure your system is delivering value 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, etc. years after go-live?

WHERE TO GET HELP

Do you know if your IT project is at risk? Take our free online assessment and find out.

Tri Tuns offers a variety of organizational and IT project reviews & assessments that can help you identify project risks and prevent failure. Contact us today to learn more.

ACCELERATING USER ADOPTION

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

Most IT projects focus on the supply of IT delivery – that is, they focus on getting the technology live – and they often ignore the key issue of driving full user adoption and benefits realization. Further, there is an assumption that the key elements that determine user adoption are inherent to the specific technology tool itself and thus user adoption issues cannot be addressed until the system is up and running. However, the bulk of the factors that drive user adoption are in factor organizational, not technical and thus can – and should – be addressed before the system goes live.

Through many years of research and direct client work we have found that organizations can actually de-couple the organizational change and user adoption efforts from the technology implementation schedule.

For example:

Organizations can change performance metrics before the new system goes live to shift employee behavior and reward employees for achieving business goals
Executives and managers can shift how the lead and motivate staff to focus on new organizational priorities before the system is live. They can explain specific shifts in employee behavior that are required now and provide a context for understanding how the new system will support further performance improvements once live
Conflicting organizational priorities – such as focusing employees on getting work done “fast” versus spending a little more time to make sure they get it done “right” can be addressed before the system is live.
New organizational teams can be established to address cross-department performance issues that will affect user adoption of the system can be established today. These teams can address critical issues such as when one department does not enter the data that another department needs to perform their job.

CONSIDER THIS

You can increase user adoption and accelerate benefits realization by developing a comprehensive User Adoption Strategy (not just a “change management” plan) that begins addressing user adoption challenges before the system goes live. By de-coupling organizational changes and employee performance issues from the technology delivery, you can accelerate the rate at which your organization realizes business benefits from their IT projects.

Since many of the factors that affect user adoption are technology agnostic you will face these issues at some point anyway. Addressing these issues before go-live can reduce the feeling of “change overload” and make it easier for people to quickly begin using your new system.
In many instances they can even improve adoption levels of existing technology. Since many IT projects take several years to complete, increased adoption of existing technology can provide substantial benefits to your organization.
Any effort to accelerate user adoption before go-live should be set in the context that these efforts are part of preparing the organization for the new system. This allows people to see the link to the future system and it will further accelerate adoption of the new system once it goes live.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Have you identified & do you fully understand all of the organizational and “people” issues that affect user adoption? If not, how will you identify these issues?
What user adoption & benefits realization issues can you de-couple from the technology delivery? What can you do to address these issues before and after go-live?
How much additional value (benefits realization) can you add to your organization by addressing key organizational and user performance issues before go live? Since this work is done as part of your system implementation effort, how can you measure and report on this additional value creation to show the early success of your project and further gain executive support for your project?

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?”
Read: “Design the right metrics to improve user adoption”

THE DEATH OF SDLC

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

In the early days of IT computing, many organizations had custom systems built to meet their specific needs. Programmers adopted the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) which guided their actions during the various code development phases until they system was fully built and tested. Over time, organizations realized they could benefit more by getting out of the custom system development business in favor of implementing pre-built Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) applications. Unfortunately, the basic methodology used to help organizations implement, adopt, and realize benefits from COTS systems still follows the SDLC, which was created to facilitate the technical development of computer code.

So, what’s wrong with SDLC? Why do we need to consider alternatives?

SDLC is focused on addressing technical development challenges, not on driving user adoption and measurable business benefits.
- User adoption and business benefits are primarily human performance challenges.
- SDLC was not created to address human behavior and it does not do so effectively.

Most IT projects only include limited “change management” as a bolt-on to the end of the SDLC cycle without critically examining if this is effective. Typically, it’s not.

Many IT projects following the SDLC are structured such that once the technology is live and stabilized, the project is complete.
- Change Management is typically treated as a “one and done” focused on the initial deployment.
- Ongoing efforts are required to drive and sustain user adoption over the life of the system. These are typically absent from most change management efforts.

CONSIDER THIS

Organizations need to view IT projects as human and organizational performance projects that just happen to involve deploying new technology. They should not view them simply as technology projects. Changing the way we perceive, approach, structure and execute projects will improve benefits realization and help organizations achieve measurable business goals.

Organizations need to move beyond just following the technical SDLC and instead adopt more robust human performance improvement methodologies. These methodologies need to address the myriad organizational and human performance challenges that affect how people use technology.

User adoption methodologies should NOT be dictated by technology experts or by people who blindly following existing methodologies without understanding how to change their approach to address the deficiencies of current efforts.

The people who develop and execute user adoption methodologies should have a firm grounding in the fields of psychology, organization behavior, and human performance such that they understand the theory, research and practices upon which sound change and user adoption methodologies are built. It is not sufficient to simply know how to apply an existing methodology when the methodology itself may be part of the problem.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Do you primarily follow the SDLC approach to your IT projects or have you updated your methodology to better address the human and organizational performance challenges ignored by the SDLC??

Do the people who are defining your change management and user adoption methodology have expertise in the relevant theories and practices from the fields of psychology, organization development, human performance, etc. or are they primarily technology specialists? Could they develop an effective human performance improvement program if there were no new technology being deployed?

If you were brought in 3 years after the system is live to address user adoption challenges (without changing the system or processes), what specific things would you do to improve adoption and increase human performance? Have you included these activities in your initial change and adoption approach?

Does your current methodology include developing the structures, processes, policies, and activities required to measure and sustain benefits realization over the entire life of the system? If not, how will you ensure user adoption & benefits realization continue 1, 3, 5, 10, etc. years in the future?

RELATED RESOURCES

Check out these other resources for more information related to this topic:

Check out MyUserAdoptionPlan.com - an all-in-one User Adoption Portal
Take the Tri Tuns User Adoption Challenge - a free online assessment tool
Read: “Does Your User Adoption Methodology Remove Barriers To Adoption?”
Read: “Design the right metrics to improve user adoption”

WHAT’S WRONG WITH WIIFM?

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

For years many pundits have said that the best way to motivate user adoption is to “sell” people on what they get for using the new system. They argue that you need to constantly tell each person, “What’s In It For Me” (WIIFM). So, after many years of organizations beating the WIIFM drum, we find that most IT systems still suffer from low or ineffective user adoption. Is it time to re-think WIIFM? I strongly suspect that the people who first came up with WIIFM were management consultants, not psychologists.

Back in the 1960’s Yale psychologist Victor Vroom^[1]developed the Expectancy Theory^[2] that basically states that employees will be motivated to take action if:

There is a positive correlation between efforts and performance
Favorable performance will result in a desirable reward
The reward will satisfy an important need
The desire to satisfy the need is strong enough to make the effort worthwhile

The problem is that the WIIFM message – as it is typically applied - rarely meets these criteria. Here’s why:

The reward for adopting the system needs to be meaningful and desirable to each individual employee. Many IT projects do not actually take the time to learn what is a meaningful to the individual and just issue a one-size-fits-all WIIFM message.
The rewards that we desire change over time and vary from person to person. For example, what motivates a young employee is be very different from what motivates an older employee who is close to retirement.
Organizations with a poor track record implementing systems, often lack credibility. Quite simply, employees don’t believe the system will deliver the anticipated benefits or that they will benefit from using the system.
WIIFM messages often push the benefits of adopting new systems, while ignoring the costs/effort involved. Many times it just “isn’t worth it” to the employees to go through the pain of adopting the new technology.

CONSIDER THIS

Instead of trying to sell employees on WIIFM, help them focus on the need to shift their behavior. The psychological theory of Cognitive Dissonance^[3] shows us that when people hold conflicting views on a subject they are motivated to change (or justify) their attitudes, beliefs, or behavior. For us, this means we need to help people realize that the business needs, environment, performance requirements, and management expectations have changed and that the behaviors that made them successful before need to shift.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

How can you set the expectation that it is no longer business as usual and that employees need to change their behavior in order to succeed in the future?
Have you explicitly stated what has changed and what are the new expectations for employee performance? For example, have you developed communications that state things like:
- Changes in the economy require that we become more competitive by doing X
- New government regulations require we do X,Y, and Z
- In order to be eco-friendly and good corporate citizens we need everyone to do A, B and C
How can you shift from primarily 1-way, passive communications, to better engage employees in 2-way discussions? Do you engage employees in dialogue and ask them questions so that they are forced to think about what has changed and how they need to adjust their behavior to be successful in the new reality?
Have you explicitly stated that how you perform your job is just as important as how well you perform? Do you communicate that it is no longer sufficient to be a great individual performer if the way you utilize systems and processes prevents others from excelling in their jobs?

[1] http://mba.yale.edu/faculty/profiles/vroom.shtml [2] http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_vroom_expectancy_theory.html [3] http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/cognitive_dissonance.htm

MOTIVATING USER ADOPTION: COMMITMENT, COMPLIANCE OR WIIFM?

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

Many organizations underestimate the critical impact employee motivation for adopting new technology has on IT system success. The prevailing attitude is that employees will have “no choice” but to use the system. The reality is that employees have many choices in user adoption. They decide if the are going to follow business rules, if they will keep information outside of the system (using personal Excel or Word files), when they enter/share data (do they enter data right away so others can use it or do they will wait for a more convenient time to share information), etc. Once you realize that each user has extensive choice in the manner, degree and time in which they use your system you can begin to focus on the more important issue – how do you motivate people to use the system in a way that delivers maximum benefits?

Many IT projects suffer from a lack of clear understanding of how to best motive desired user behavior. People often use terms like “carrots and sticks”, “ensure compliance”, moving people along the “commitment curve”, and “What’s In It For Me (WIIFM)”, but they typically do not understand the fundamental nature of these terms and their implications for motivating desired behavior.

Let’s take a quick look:

“Compliance” and “Sticks” In its essence, this is negative approach focused on maximizing fear and punishment. The underlying principle is, “if you don’t do what I say, you will suffer.” Compliance driven motivation is:

Based on consequences/punishment
Only effective with rigorous enforcement
Only works when people think you are watching
Only drives minimum effort required to meet minimum criteria – there is no incentive to go beyond bare minimum

“Commitment” Appealing to individuals’ commitment is a positive approach that taps into their internal drives and desires to achieve a shared goal. The underlying principle is, “if we all pull together we can achieve something great.” Commitment driven motivation:

Is based on desire to achieve a goal bigger than oneself
Is “Self Driving”
Works without external monitoring
Requires trust, relationship, shared values
Encourages people to give discretionary effort above bare minimum
Taps into individuals’ creativity to overcome obstacles and achieve goals

“What’s In It For Me” (WIIFM) WIIFM appeals to individuals’ self-interests without regard to achieving a larger shared goal. The underlying principle is, “If you do X you personally will get benefit Y – regardless of what others do.” WIIFM motivation:

Appeals to the selfish side of individuals
Requires you understand the individuals’ actual goals, motivations and priorities. Unfortunately, these vary from person to person and they change over time
Ceases to motivate once the individuals’ self interests are fulfilled or there is no perceived marginal value for providing additional discretionary effort
Encourages individuals to focus on their own interests and does not necessarily encourage them to work towards larger, enterprise goals

CONSIDER THIS

Achieving IT and organizational success requires people to work toward a common, shared goal. You should focus the majority of your effort on maximizing commitment of all employees to achieving that goal. Clearly demonstrate the link between the individuals’ technology adoption and how their behavior impacts goal achievement. While in some situations (such as when there specific legal requirements/regulations) you may need to clearly define minimum accepted system use, you should minimize your focus on compliance and WIIFM.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Do you focus on commitment, compliance, or WIIFM in your current IT efforts? How effective has it been on driving user adoption?
How do you increase employee commitment to achieving shared goals? What are the skills and tools needed to increase commitment?
Are your organizational leaders effective at motivating employees and driving commitment to organizational goals? If not, what can you do to develop your leaders’ skills and abilities in this area?
Have you clearly established the link between effective user adoption and its impact on achieving shared goals? Do people believe that their behavior/IT adoption has a meaningful impact on achieving shared goals?

DOES YOUR USER ADOPTION METHODOLOGY REMOVE ORGANIZATIONAL BARRIERS?

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

Many IT implementations suffer from poor user adoption because they did not take into account the barriers to user adoption that lie outside the users’ control. There are many organizational elements that if not addressed prevent people from using the system even if they want to do so. Barriers to adoption may include things like lack of time for learning new processes or attending meetings, competing workload or other items given priority by management, misaligned rewards & recognition metrics that penalize people for adopting the system, inappropriate access rights within the system, undefined or poorly defined processes, or technical deficiencies within the system. Poor data quality may also reduce adoption since ‘garbage-in, garbage-out’ makes system generate reports meaningless for decision-making purposes.

If we want to maximize user adoption, we need to take a comprehensive approach to identifying and removing barriers to adoption. Unfortunately, most traditional Change Management programs are focused on the initial go-live and they primarily involve providing training and communications. Traditional change approaches often ignore the critical aspect of removing adoption barriers. We need to move beyond traditional change management methodologies to take a more expansive approach to evolving the organization and drive user adoption over the long-term.

When examining barriers to adoption keep in mind:

Barriers to adoption may be different in each department or workgroup
Some barriers may touch multiple departments in your organization and thus require a coordinated cross-departmental approach to resolve
The users within each department are the people who can best identify the barriers the face, and thus you need to actively engage them in your process
Perception is reality when it comes to adoption barriers. You may need to address user perceptions as well as tangible barriers
New barriers may emerge over time, so you need to periodically review your organization to address any new barriers that may arise

CONSIDER THIS

Instead of employing a traditional Change Management methodology, use a more expansive User Adoption Methodology that identifies and removes barriers to adoption. Your user adoption program should begin long before go-live and continue well past the initial deployment in order to drive initial adoption and sustain it over the life of the system.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

What barriers to adoption prevent people from using your system? Who has the authority and ability to remove these barriers?
Does your change management approach adequately address existing and future barriers to adoption?
How can you better engage your users to get their help in identifying and removing barriers to adoption?
What are the unique barriers to adoption in each user department/workgroup?
How will removing adoption barriers affect the level of benefits realization & ROI from your IT investment?

THE MYTH OF USER RESISTANCE

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

Many people blame “user resistance” as the reason why their systems are not adopted. The prevailing attitude seems to be that if we provide adequate training and communication (often the extent of the “Change Management” effort), then it must be the users fault if the system is not used. I like to call this the “Train, then blame” approach to User Adoption. There is an implicit assumption that user choice is the sole factor affecting user adoption. However, when we look closer, we see that this is often not the case.

There may be many other reasons why your people might not be using your system, and in many cases it is not their users fault at all. For example:

Many times there are organizational barriers outside the users control that prevent them from adopting the system
Design disconnects between the technology, process and users prevent users from adopting the system
Conflicting priorities, misaligned reward systems, and the directives of immediate supervisors result in a situation of, “hoping for A, while rewarding B”
The Change Management and IT implementation methodology were inappropriate for driving user adoption
No action was taken after go-live to create and sustain full user adoption

CONSIDER THIS

Blaming poor user adoption on “User Resistance” may be convenient and it may shift the onus for taking action from you to the users, but it may not be accurate. There may be other factors causing your adoption problems and the responsibility for taking action may fall on YOU, not the users!

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

What factors outside of the users’ control would prevent them from adopting the system?
Have you adjusted reward & recognition criteria to reward people for adopting the system and penalize them for avoiding the system?
What are the reasons (other than the technology itself) that people did not adopt earlier systems? What did you do to address these issues?
Did you take appropriate action before, during, and after go-live to address user behavior and drive user adoption? How can you move beyond traditional “Change Management” efforts to drive desired user behavior over the long term?

THE BUSINESS CASE & USER ADOPTION

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

For major IT projects, many organizations require a formal business case in order to get funding and approval for the project. The business case typically covers an explanation of the technology, expected changes to the business, the total cost of ownership (TCO) and the expected Return on Investment (ROI). Despite all these efforts to make sure you are making a wise investment, many completed projects fail to realize the anticipated level of benefits and ROI. Why? Because most IT systems don’t actually get used sufficiently to deliver the value you expect.

One major cause for this is that most business cases assume 100% user adoption and ignore the impact low levels of adoption have on ROI. As you know, benefits are only realized if your people actually use the system consistently and effectively. Unless you currently have full and effective adoption of your existing systems, it is naïve to think that you will achieve 100% adoption of your new systems.

To account for less than perfect user adoption, you need to examine how different adoption levels affect your business case. If you find that the projected ROI no longer makes sense you can either scrap the project or determine what additional resources and effort is required to increase adoption to the point that it will deliver an acceptable ROI.

CONSIDER THIS

Require that all business cases include a weighting factor for anticipated level of user adoption. Consider the impact that low, average, and high levels of user adoption have on your anticipated TCO, ROI, and level of benefits realization when approving IT projects.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

What levels of user adoption do you have with your existing systems? Why would you expect different adoption levels with your new system?
Have you included funding and resources to drive and maintain user adoption after go-live? If not, what resources will you need to achieve required levels of adoption? What does including these resources in your business case do for your TCO and ROI forecasts?
If you could increase user adoption of your existing systems & processes such that you get more value from your current technology, would you still want to move forward with the new project? What can you do increase adoption of existing technology?

NEW YEARS RESOLUTION - FULL USER ADOPTION!

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

OBSERVATION

New year’s resolutions are easy to make, but hard to keep. If we resolve to lose weight, quit smoking, eat healthier, exercise more, or make some other change in our lives, it requires a lot of effort, dedication and hard work. The skills and effort it takes to keep a new year’s resolution are very similar to those required to drive and maintain effective user adoption of new technology and processes.

Much like new year’s resolutions, user adoption is all about behavior change. It requires that we stop doing certain things and start doing new ones. When we slip back in to old behaviors – or old ways of working – we need to decide if we want to abandon our resolution or if we want to acknowledge our slip-up and get back on track. When it comes to IT systems, you only get full value from your investment when it is actually used. Not only do you need to change your own behavior, every other person who is supposed to use the system needs to adjust their behavior as well.

CONSIDER THIS

This year, why not make a resolution to drive full and effective user adoption of your IT systems? If you are an end-user, make a resolution to change your own behavior. If you are a supervisor, manager or executive, resolve to lead your teams in a focused effort to drive and sustain user adoption throughout your organization.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Try approaching user adoption like a new years resolution:

What can you do to get your friends & coworkers to assist you in sticking with your resolution?
What 5 specific things can you do – starting today – to increase your adoption of technology?
What things do you need to start – and stop - doing in order to increase user adoption?
What will you do if you “Fall off the wagon”? Will you get back to adopting the technology or abandon your resolution?

User Adoption Insights from Tri Tuns

Appreciate your employees? Get creative in showing you care

Employees want to know that they are valued

Words are great, but actions are better

Small gestures make a big difference

Get creative in showing you care

Things to think about

Is it in the system? Require IT use at each project approval stage

Do you have different approval stages for your business projects?

Make complete & accurate IT use a condition for project advancement

Include timely system use in individual performance reviews

Would enterprise collaboration software fix Congress?

Don’t be silly. Nothing will fix Congress.

Deploying enterprise collaboration software doesn’t mean your enterprise will collaborate

Before your invest in collaboration software, ask yourself how your organization is like Congress

IT User Adoption – a Question of Motivation

How do you motivate people to use your IT system?

Would WIIFM motivate this employee?

Watch out, SaaS vendors…your customers have a BS detector!

Sales are easy. Customer Retention is hard.

Subscription pricing means you need to prove your worth. Everyday.

Ensure your customers' success if you want to keep them.

“We don’t care. We don’t have to.” …uh, yes you do.

Customer choice means vendors need to care

SaaS vendors need to focus on keeping customers...

…but what do they need to do to reduce churn?

Focus on customer success to reduce churn

Differentiated Customer Success Management (CSM) Services

Not all customers are equal

Differentiate B2B or B2C

Differentiate size & budget

Change your methods based on customer need and value

Everything You Need for Success

5 Things to Include in Your Customer Success Management (CSM) Strategy

Investing in a CSM strategy will save you time & effort

1. Define your goals

2. Define roles, responsibilities and org structure

3. Develop CSM methodology, tool and processes

4. Recruit and develop exceptional staff

5. Manage the roll-out (internally & externally)

Does your Customer Success Management (CSM) approach remove barriers to IT adoption?

At its core, CSM is about helping customers adopt your system

How does your CSM team identify all barriers preventing adoption?

How do you remove barriers to IT adoption?

Change your CSM approach

Customer Success Management (CSM): Your Critical Path to Customer Renewals

Most companies have a process for closing the initial sales

But they don't have a plan for what happens next

And they lose a lot of customers at renewals

Including Customer Success Management activities after go-live is critical to renewals

Do You Have a Customer Success Management (CSM) Program? You should.

Customer Retention is Key to SaaS Vendor Success

The impact of customer churn is cumulative and drastically underestimated

Recurring revenue is critical component of SaaS company valuation

Customer Success Management programs reduce churn, increase revenues

Now the problem… how do SaaS vendors deliver the elusive customer success?

Resources to help with your Customer Success Management efforts

Flashback: Is Your IT System a Dreamliner? Risk, Governance & ROI Revisited

Are you prepared to manage a crisis with your technology?

Do you have the right governance plan in place?

What should you do?

Where to start? Two tools that can help.

Don’t let your IT system be a Dreamliner

8 Factors to Review BEFORE Investing in CRM

1. Expected ROI over the life of the CRM investment

2. Current level of user adoption of existing systems

3. Impact of future changes to users’ jobs and performance requirements

4. Identification of all drivers and barriers to IT user adoption

5. Formal assignment of responsibility, authority and accountability for ROI

6. Identification of resources & budget required to drive initial user adoption

7. Plan and budget resources for sustaining user adoption over the life of the system

8. Defined approach for ensuring the CRM system stays relevant

Sub-Prime CRM? What IT Needs to Learn From the New Mortgage Rules

New 2014 mortgage rules require lenders consider customers’ ability to repay a loan before extending credit

Lenders (and others) need to consider their ability to achieve ROI before investing in CRM systems

Don’t invest in Sub-Prime CRM. Require a User Adoption & ROI Plan before you spend a dime on CRM!

Contemporary Thinking on Change Management and User Adoption (video)

Are we changing yet?

How will you recognize when change is happening?

Set specific change goals. And deadlines.

Don’t invest in Sub-Prime CRM.
Require a User Adoption & ROI Plan before you spend a dime on CRM!