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!)
Connect:
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0 comments 246 readsPosted on 2012-04-10
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0 comments 629 readsPosted on 2012-03-30
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? -
0 comments 1,064 readsPosted on 2011-09-22
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...
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0 comments 939 readsPosted on 2011-07-11
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...
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0 comments 960 readsPosted on 2011-06-27
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:
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0 comments 1,073 readsPosted on 2011-06-17
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...
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0 comments 799 readsPosted on 2011-05-31
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...
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0 comments 965 readsPosted on 2011-05-24
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...
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0 comments 997 readsPosted on 2011-05-09
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...
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0 comments 1,422 readsPosted on 2011-04-21
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...
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