The NY Nonprofit User Group got together to discuss User Adoption ("I built it, but not everyone wants to come."). Below are the ideas that came out of the meeting:

The Pain

• Cultural Shift: Changing systems from admin entering  info (bottle neck) to team entering info is a big change in cultural
• People feel like entering info is “one more thing they have to do.”
• Social Workers don’t care about reports, they are client focused & care about people (they don’t see reports as a aggregation of people).
• It's hard to get individuals to see the organization perspective
• The "you have to" approach creates friction
• "[Some] people just don't want to do it."

Questions

• How do you encourage use without a feeling of big brother?
• How do you communicate the value of the system to the team and increase comfort level?

What's worked

• Assessing skills: some people may need basic computer skills before they can get to SF skills
• Understanding Drawbacks: the new system will take more time in the short run, change is hard, learning something new isn't comfortable, there is often insufficient senior management enforcement
• Address: "What's in it for me?"- How can I better serve my client and become more productive, then address "What's in it for my organization?"
• Get buy-in from the top; make it something that is not elective
• Run meetings off SF (if it's not in SF it didn't happen): resource management, updating statuses
• Senior Management: Saying "Do it!" vs. Living it- encourage Senior management to rely on SF for info, one ceo assigned time to make sure people had time to enter data
• Give people an opportunity to look good: ex, use reports to show how quickly people complete their work, look into the User Adoption Dashboard
• Make it as easy as possible
• There should be a SF Game to help people learn in a fun way
• Difference in Perspective: You see value of the system & are excited about it; others will not. Acknowledging their perspective and addressing them where they are will help with communication.
• Reality check: User adoption will not be perfect. Work hard and be creative, and don't take resistance personally.
• Make it fun!Create an exercise for people to do, have teams competing for the best adoption for a party, give presents (one org gave stuffed animal Guinea Pigs to people who tested the system)
• Special Forces: Chris Pokrana of Points of Light Foundation gave a fantastic example of making User Adoption a team spirit event. Below are some of the resources that Chris put together and is graciously sharing with us:

                  Download points_of_light_leadershippresentation.ppt

                  Download specialforces_info_about_teams_and_training.doc

                  Download specialforces_invitation_to_join_the_team.doc