82% of companies struggle with adoption. And our guess is, your company has been part of that 82% at one point or another.
Let's talk about the topic everyone loves to hate: planning to adopt a new piece of technology.
Six questions to guide your tech adoption
Here are the six questions you can ask yourself to guide this crucial piece of adopting.
- What is the real problem you're trying to solve?
Share that openly as a team and share it with your tech vendor. Ask questions, and understand so that you can pivot. Don't implement a new piece of tech because its UX looks cool, and you think it will band-aid all of your issues. Understand where the tech will work and that it won't solve all of your problems. - Do we need to evaluate our process and experience?
Work to redesign business processes and overall experience, which is proving to increase adoption rates and get teams excited for the new technology. Evaluate your current processes and establish process guidance for the new technology. - How do we define success, and how will we measure it?
Shift from usability reports defining your success to being outcomes-driven. Have clear desired business results. Meet with the different roles and responsibilities that the platform would impact, and from there, you're able to celebrate successes. Let usage inform where adoption is good or where you need to focus on and drive up adoption. Put more emphasis on the business outcomes. - What is needed to set this up for success?
The top 3 needs to set up adoption for success are integrations, implementation plan, and a dedicated project management team. What types of integrations are needed? What are the consequences of not implementing certain features upfront due to costs and timeline? And, have someone with you who knows what kind of questions to ask, and when to ask them - someone who can think about the "what else?". - What does a realistic timeline look like?
Other TA leaders warn not to set an artificial timeline based on an unrelated business objective without respect for the time needed to do things right the first time and not have to go back to fix problems. - Who are your key stakeholders, and can you gain their buy-in?
For adoption to be successful, you must first make sure your organization believes in this and obtain executive leadership stakeholder buy-in from the top down. Appoint an executive sponsor and a team of executives supporting the vision for the technology and well-understood the problems, not just at a high level. Enlist a task force: a combination of HR and technology teams. Consult outside of your organization with your peers in TA from organizations and brands that you respect.
Like any well-thought-out strategy and execution, planning needs to be a priority. Dedicating time to do the due diligence could be what pushes you into being the 18% minority of companies who adopt a new piece of tech correctly.
