There are over 300,000 business professionals with “Digital Adoption” in their job titles on LinkedIn.
What is digital adoption?
Digital Adoption is, quite simply, getting your users to a level where they fully leverage the software, technology, and digital processes that you have put in place in your organization. That is to say, your team is empowered and motivated to use the technology at their disposal to its fullest potential. But there can be issues!
And that’s the subject of a great podcast, hosted by Microsoft Dynamics MVP Rick McCutcheon and ClickLearn CEO . Read on for the highlights of the show and a link to watch it in full on YouTube.
Digital Adoption Challenges
A poll recently conducted revealed challenges that people face in the Microsoft Business Applications space. With the question, “What is the main cause of user adoption issues in Dynamics 365 projects?” it was discovered that 50% of respondents felt the cause was lack of training; 21% felt it was poor design; 14% thought it to be lack of support, and the remaining 15% had various other reasons.
The results show that, although great strides are being made, there is a long way to go to bridge the gap between users and their technology. Positive strides are being made by merging support and training roles through digital adoption solutions. For example, reducing the load on support personnel by providing in-app guidance.
Why Digital Adoption Can Be Difficult to Achieve
Achieving digital adoption starts at the earliest stages of an implementation project. It can be broken down into 3 phases:
- Design: Understanding what people do, how they work, and designing the system around that.
- Development: The hard work of making the design a reality.
- User Adoption: Training, support, and coaching to be sure stakeholders can fully leverage the system’s capabilities.
Sadly, this third aspect is frequently neglected; at times, it appears as a single line in a 200+ item list on the project plan. This almost always results in a troubled project.
Training is not a one-time event. It can take months of sessions to help stakeholders to grasp the depth of what they’re going to use day in and day out, and it requires full sales management buy-in to be successful.
In an increasingly globalized society, we have users in different countries that speak different languages. While a one or two-day training event in a primary language can do some good, those users then go home and work in their local languages, making it harder to get the full benefit from the program.
Digital Adoption technology plays a critical role in user support and training. Rather than simply asking users if they understood or enjoyed the training – aka “the Smiley test” – these tools allow you to measure employee effectiveness and bolster user needs with training collateral where it can be of most help – right there in the app while they’re using it. It also lets you leverage the existing video content to translate it into multiple languages and even include different regionalizations of the user interface. This makes support and training a cohesive whole, and rather than being event-driven, it becomes a consistent trainer on a daily basis, steadily driving user engagement and effectiveness.
Training Should Not Be an Afterthought
Often, training is overlooked or even skipped because, as one of the last items to be cared for in the project, it comes at a time when the customer is running out of money or energy. Yet, training is the primary factor in driving user adoption and making the project a success.
It is also frequently approached as a top-down filter of knowledge, offering training to a few key power users within the company, who will then be expected to share their newfound knowledge with the rest of the organization. That approach is fraught with difficulties, including a dilution of knowledge as it rolls downhill.
As the need for more extensive training becomes apparent, it might be reduced or eliminated because of cost. A stopgap solution is devised, and when not successful, the blame for failure is placed on the software rather than on the inability to understand how the system works.
This highlights the need for the project champion to be fully on-board with a comprehensive training program from the start. Training needs someone fighting for the ultimate success of the project.
An effective change management strategy is also key. This includes making sure the end users are adequately represented as new features and improvements are considered and prioritized. It must also be recognized that the solution is constantly evolving, and users need support to adapt to the changes as they come, especially in the realm of cloud-based apps, which see several upgrades throughout the year, along with the multi-app world where users must know how to work with Dynamics CRM, their ERP (Business Central or Finance), Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, and more.
Training collateral must be continuously updated to meet the challenges of digital adoption of technology that is continuously changing and improving. Having the right tools to facilitate that documentation and training is essential to keep pace.
Final Thoughts
Digital Adoption is key to the success of any software implementation project. ClickLearn has been one of the pioneers, helping people get the most out of their technology for the last 12 years and counting.
Would you like to learn more about how to improve digital adoption in your organization?
, and visit our site, , to explore the topic more in-depth. And stay tuned for our next podcast episode!
By ClickLearn |
