Chapter 7 – Driving the Adoption
Well, now you are aware about your new house. You have done all the shifting and are aware about where the stuff is lying. You are all set and relaxed. Finally, it’s time to have a grand feast at home! Ah. Ah. Here you go! Yet another aspect to be looked into and perhaps the most important of all. You do not have friends nearby! You are not aware of the locality and the market place around! While getting the house done, you were so much occupied in your work that you did not interact with the people around or made new friends. Now you need to take steps to get to know your neighbors and get them know you as well.
Similarly, while implementing Alt HRMS at any customer location it is important that you get the customer on board as quickly as possible. Some key points to ensure the same are listed below:
1. Get the customer organization on board BEFORE starting the project: Lots of companies today are taking decisions on implementing a new solution without getting the buy in from the organization which is a classic error which might have an impact on the budget as well as resource planning.
How to get the team on board then??? Communication to the organization is the absolute key to success. This goes both for the management where it’s important to explain the budget in a detailed way as well as what kind of resources are required and when in order to make the project a success. Communication to the organization is equally as important as employees should be aware of what changes they can expect from the project as well as why the solution has been chosen.
2. Get the right Project Sponsor: The reason for having the right Project sponsor is to ensure the person can remove the roadblocks throughout your project which is guaranteed 100%. Therefore, it’s important to have a strong individual who’s had the buy-in from the management to do so. This person should connect as well with the other leaders within the company to ensure they’ll back him up during the project!
3. Communicate the value of the project to the entire organization: Another extremely important point to always focus is being very clear in communication of the value you are bringing into the organization after implementing the solution, this can be an eye opener for people on the floor that they for example will be able to do their job faster or more efficiently.
4. Be ready for changes: No one can plan a project from A to Z without having changes come up either from the organization, the partner or 3rd party influencers. If you start with informing your organization from day number 1 that changes will happen throughout the project, they are aware of this and it will not come as a surprise to them. The success of these changes will depend on how good you are in communication as well as how many times you’ve been in the situation before!
5. Get all departments on board: If there are multiple departments within the customer's organization who’s not buying into the project this can be a great risk to the final output of the project, so it’s important you understand WHY they don’t think the project is a good idea and then work closely with them to get them on board.
6. Cultural understanding: If your project is a multi-country project the cultural aspect is very important as people in Europe react differently than people from Asia to changes, implementations, communications etc. and therefore it’s very important you are aligned before the project kicks off as this can have a big negative impact along the way if this is not taken seriously from day number 1.
7. Training: Everyone is aware that training is required to implement a new system, but still lots of organizations take the training part too relaxed and do not put the right plan in place. Again if you are doing multiple countries remember to have a plan for each country and align this with the country’s cultural challenges!
8. Track your progress and changes: All projects will, as written earlier on, have changes – you might not want to do all the changes during your implementation therefore it’s extremely important that you keep a track of those changes to be included in your version 2 or 3 of your implementation as the end user will not forget what they’ve told you.
9. Set your expectations right: Here’s a key point that many companies forget to communicate as well. Don’t underestimate the time it will take to implement a system as well as don’t believe that the normal person in your organization will understand the technical things you are telling him, but he will understand that the system is to be ready in 6 months, which is why it’s so important to put the expectations correct from the beginning.
Do not let your organization dictate when the system has to be ready, this is a classical error that the CFO comes and let you know in 7 months its year end and perfect timing to go live, but if your project plan says 14 months there’s no way you can do it in 7 and the expectations has to be set right from day number one to avoid misunderstanding and chaos at a later stage.
Some of the Best practices to be followed at different stages of the project are listed below:
Planning the change
The attached template can be filled by the customer which would help to identify the need and now the change needs to be planned. It will also tell the target audience and how the audience needs to be linked and touch based.
Change Communication
1. Different stakeholders with different messaging
2. Different stages of communication
Adoption metrics
The first few weeks of adopting a new process are critical to ensuring its full adoption. It’s important to keep the lines of communication open so that you can be proactive in addressing concerns before they escalate. You should also take the time to celebrate the small wins and send word out to your entire company—focus on the positive and address the negative.
Who is your audience?
1. A
2. B
3. C
What is your message?
Reinforce change – reiterate why we made these changes and how they will benefit everyone
Manage negative feedback – address concerns proactively with a defined process
When do you communicate?
1. Daily communication for 30 days after go live
2. Weekly communication for 4 to 6 months after go live
How do you communicate?
1. Email
2. Posters
3. Celebratory gifts
4. Observation log
5. Weekly Report
6. Reinforce training plan
7. FAQs
8. DID you Know?
Communication Agenda
1. One Week After Go Live
a. Send email reminder about e-trainings, process map and other documentation to help your users through the learning curve
b. Observation log
c. Did you know series
2. Two/ Three Weeks after Go Live
a. Conduct a Feedback Meeting with all users
b. Review process up to this point
c. Gather comments users have about project
d. Gather feedback on the initial training
e. Provide information on corporate view of implementation
f. Provide information about approach to change
g. Observation log
h. Did you know series
3. Five Weeks after Go Live
a. Send email reminder about e-trainings, process map and other training documentation
4. Six to Seven weeks after Go Live
a. Optional consulting engagement to review as a group all feedback and make process adjustments
5. 9 Weeks after Go Live
a. Implement and communicate any process adjustments across organization
b. Develop and rollout a feedback process for moving forward
c. Reinforce training and process documentation available