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.
Great short article. I can attest to how UA really works well. Last year, we installed a new inquiry management system at my company and without my user group and their development of Best Practices I doubt it would have been adopted as quickly. I had “expert” users that I trained for a few months on the system before implementation that helped other users and helped gather the best practices for the system. We came out with a Best Practices doc and a 1 page Quick Tips sheet that everyone could keep at their desk.