User adoption strategies for Sharepoint - part 2 #intra12

Part 2 of my notes from the workshop about User Adoption strategies for Sharepoint by Michael Sampson. (Part 1 can be found here.)

We're at stage 3: Enlivening Applicability. Ways to do this:

1. Over the shoulder watching: show how people use the tool in practice and learn from them
2. Group re-imagining: help a group see beyond current work practices
3. Embedded champions: one participant mentioned she connected to secretaries to speed up and encourage technology adoption. (I agree!)
4. Sandbox for experimentation: don't go live right away, but start small, let people play with the technology and use the technology for the roll out itself.
5. Easy first steps: closing down the options, focus on some affordances of the technology not all.
6. Built it and they will come: set up the tech and see if users will adopt it by themselves

Next phase (4): Making it real. How do you make it real?

1. Provide zero other options. E.g. take away all other platforms but one. Experience from the participants is this works very well.
2. Offer start doing, stop doing patterns
3. Bulk loading party. Use when lots of content has to be migrated, for instance. This strategy is hardly used.
4. Internal User groups

OK, but how do we measure user adoption? Drucker says: You cannot manage what you cannot measure. Sampson shows how a company built a business case for a collaboration platform, focusing on hard numbers (savings, productivity, etc.). Focus on the affordances on the tool, process and organization level.

What to do if nothing works? Change jobs or go back to the user adoption phases and find out what you're doing wrong.

And that rounds up the pre-conference workshop!

User adoption strategies for Sharepoint - part 1 #intra12

My notes from the pre-conference workshop with Michael Sampson about User Adoption strategies for Sharepoint. (This workshop is part of the Intranet Conference.)

Technology is easy compared to getting people to use the technology. Most people aren't first wave users. They don't say: Give the new tech to me. They ask: "Why should I use it? What is the reason for the new technology? My work has to be improved by the new technology." They basically tolerate the tools. If something is easier it's better for them than that it is perfect.
Most organizations assume adoption will be 100%. So, there's a problem. The objective is not user adoption. It's the overal effectiveness of the organization for instance. Or, improve work.
The overal approach to user adoption is very important. (Refer to the Collaboration Roadmap.)
Research shows that people are least satisfied when IT rolls out and the most dissatisfied....

Sharepoint is a platform. This means there are loads of ways you can use it. "Users need to know to much to use Sharepoint." Sharepoint roll outs are mostly too IT focused.

Roadblocks to adoption:

1. Roadblocks from individuals, like bad previous experiences, the system is terrible, gives transparency, etc.
2. Roadblocks from groups, like group habits, irrevocable change, work practice and technology are inseparable, etc.
3. Roadblocks from organizations, like organizational culture, inconsistency (vision, direction), time, playing politics and other systems.
4. Roadblocks from nations, like strict privacy laws (Germany and France).

Five models of change:

1. Stages of change: change is a process, not an event.
2. Diffusion of ideas: people follow 'opinion leaders' and that becomes the new 'social norm'
3. Culture and work practice: work practice is part of culture. Culture is not the first and only issue. It's the start of the conversation not the end.
4. Sticks and carrots: incentives, beat people...

So, change is a process, people follow people they respect, it's a non-lineair process, cultural change takes more than technology change and increased utility is a big motivator.

Four stages model of user adoption:

1. Winning attention: what are others doing?, how we get them interested?
2. Cultivating basic concepts: explain how stuff works (e.g. the Sharepoint in plain English video), train
3. Enlivening Applicability: explore reasons and value
4. Making it real: make is personally relevant

When you roll out a new technology, like Sharepoint, make sure you focus on 5-7 key affordances people will have when using the new platform. W.r.t. Sharepoint this can be lists and document versioning for instance.
Classroom training and web-based training is a way to support the successful adoption of new technology. But, again, make the training focused on a couple of points and relevant to their work. Also, pages on the intranet can be used to train people. Example for Sharepoint can be found here.

This is part 1 of my pre-conference workshop notes. Part 2 will be published in a bit!

A week in the digital workplace by @s2d_jamesr

What’s it like in the digital workplace? James Robertson recently published a report to answer this question. He took a storytelling approach and gave us insight in what working in a digital workplace looks like.

In this way he hopes to make the digital workplace more concrete. This is necessary because James there's lots theoretical and abstract talk about it. James’ report wants to bring the digital workplace closer to us.

I enjoyed reading the report. In several steps James takes us through the digital workplace. He shows how a new employee would use the workplace during the week using all kinds of concrete examples. Like a personal welcome message, a pre-populated tasklist, information about working methods, mobile intranet, accessing operational information about e.g. hotel bookings, an overview of company numbers and real-time performance data.

James rounds up his report by listing 6 keys to the digital workplace (Identity, Awareness, Trust, etc) and also points to organizations that show the digital workplace is happening now.

I do think one important key is missing though. Clearly the digital workplace can only come to be if there is an integrated backend. Shouldn’t 'integration' be a 7th key? Or is integration tackled in the keys 'Access' and 'Design'?

The sub-title of this nice report points to the future. For many this is the future. And still, the examples of the week in the digital workplace aren’t futuristic. Maybe a next report should address the futuristic digital workplace. For instance, extend the mobile intranet with a location-sensitive expertise locator. Or automatic, real-time updates on any devices based on where you are?

Finally, what is the digital workplace? Shouldn’t the report contain a short definition? Or don’t we know what it is yet? James seems to have a broad view of the digital workplace. It’s not only digital but also hardware, like laptops and other devices. To me the digital workplace is the sum of all the digital, web-based tools a knowledge workers need to get his/her work done. And if this implies some information should be accessible via mobile devices (hardware), we’ll have to get that done as well.

If the definition is broader than my definition I agree with Efraim Freed on the ThoughtFarmer blog, we should then also extend to other hardware, like sensors, GPS etc.

I hope you read the report! Let’s continue the discussion here or on James’ blog. What’s your definition of the digital workplace? What are the challenges and where do you see it happening?