4 Tips for Successful Adoption of New Technology

What good is an investment in the latest technologies if no one within the organization uses it? This is all too common in practice and in most cases is not an unwillingness or disinterest of users. It is often rather the result of a poorly conceived adoption process. Employees of the organization are often not included enough in the change process.

Think, for example, of the coronavirus outbreak. For organizations, so much information is available about the capabilities and functionalities of Microsoft Teams at such a time that there is almost no attention to how the employees should start using Teams.

Because employees are not familiar enough with the usefulness, functionalities and benefits of the technology, they have not yet been able to adopt it in their daily work. It’s a shame, of course! That is why we always advise customers to use digital adoption and change management strategy that we jointly draw up with special attention for people and organization.

The importance of digital adoption

We live in a time when new technologies are radically changing business processes and the way we work. The most important factor for success is that as a company and employee you are fast and agile to move with the latest innovations. The intensity with which technology permeates every area of society means that all organisations are forced to think about how they can transform their processes. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says;

“.. every company is a software company, every company is a digital organization.

Underestimating the impact of digital change is therefore extremely dangerous. The degree of success in your digital transformation depends on the extent to which you as an organization can quickly adopt new technology. This adoption can be achieved 

A successful adoption in 4 steps

We help our customers to determine their digital strategy and for this we have not only technical expertise, but also an eye for the human side of technology. Our adoption and change management consultants are able to give advice on the translation of digital strategy into the personal experience of the employees. Deploying technology is never an end in itself, it is a means to improve both personal and team effectiveness. Change is about people. With the following steps, you can ensure the human side of digital transformation and ensure smooth adoption:

1. You start by drawing up a digital strategy that is widely supported by the management, representatives from the business, the IT department and of course the employees themselves. By involving end users too late in the process, your adoption is doomed to fail.
2. After that, you will work out a number of business scenarios with which you describe what a successful process for an individual employee looks like when they make optimal use of modern resources. This makes it tangible for employees without the communication becoming too technical.
3. Now it’s time for the adoption and change management program, in which we describe how through inspiration, communication and training you axen the interest of the employee to embrace and apply the new way of working.
4. Especially in the early period, continue to carry out adoption activities and collect feedback to better tailor the business scenarios and functionalities to the wishes of the end user and thus ensure that the new way of working is embedded in the organization. By taking feedback from employees seriously, you show that they matter and that they are heard. A large part of your innovative power is in your own people.

Adoption in practice

Digital strategy 

In the inventory phase, you as an organization determine your digital strategy. If there is no good communication within your organization due to the delusion of the day and you do not always know within your team who is doing what, it can happen that double work is done. Very ineffective of course and that is why you want to create an open and transparent company culture with cross functional teams in which it is clearly visible who is working on what.

Business scenario

You could translate this strategy into the following business scenario: I need a central place for collaboration within a project or department team where I can easily and quickly find all communication and documentation. In this scenario, you could choose to use Microsoft Teams as an organization. This application provides a modern collaborative environment in which you can bundle files and conversations with each other around topics that are important to the team.

The adoption and change management program 

There is just no “one size fits all” solution. Do you want to implement Teams successfully? Then a specific adoption and change management program (summarized in a schedule playbook) must be drawn up. It is important that it is tailored to the different user groups with different needs, digital skills and partnerships.

By mapping these well, a tailor-made communication and training plan can be drawn up. For example, there are always specific user groups in an organization that work with sensitive data, such as HR and finance. Here other requirements are placed on the environment in which this can and may be shared.

Active adoption activities and feedback

Finally, it is advisable to “onboard” all users in phases with an early adopter group and/or an ambassador program. If ultimately everyone has the application at their disposal, additional adoption activities will be planned based on qualitative and quantitative feedback. This is to optimize the use and experience.