SUSAN HANLEY LLC
Best Practices for SharePoint
User Adoption
Richmond SharePoint Users Group
Susan Hanley
October 26, 2011
©2011
SUSAN HANLEY LLC
About Me
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Expertise: knowledge management, information
architecture, portals and collaboration solutions with
a focus on governance, user adoption, and metrics
President, Susan Hanley LLC. Co-Author: Essential
SharePoint 2010 and Essential SharePoint 2007
Led national Portals, Collaboration, and Content
Management practice for Dell
Director of Knowledge Management at American
Management Systems (now CGI)
http://www.susanhanley.com
Mother of three “millennials”
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Agenda
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Why is user adoption such a big deal?
Critical elements for user adoption planning
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Make sure that you’ve got a solution worth adopting
Understand how users adapt to change
Implement a training plan
Implement a communications plan
Have a user support plan
Think about incentives and rewards
Allow users to provide feedback
Document your plan
What are your adoption challenges?
Where can you go for help?
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We built it, why don’t users just come?
Adoption rarely
happens all at
once.
WIIFM
Is the solution
worth adopting?
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Why is it difficult to adopt new
technologies?
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Delayed Gratification
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No Guarantees
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Early adopters give up their “comfort zone” immediately
but receive benefits in the future.
The new solution may not work the way it is supposed to.
Squishy Benefits
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Benefits, especially with portal and collaboration solutions,
are typically qualitative, which makes them very difficult to
describe and compare. This is why collecting user success
stories is so important.
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The 9X Effect
A new product has to
offer a nine times
improvement over the
existing solution in
order to be
immediately or easily
adopted.*
*Gourville, John T., “Why Consumers Don’t Buy: The Psychology of New Product Adoption.” Harvard Business School Note
#504-056 (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2004).
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Critical Elements for User Adoption
Planning
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Make sure that you’ve got a solution worth
adopting
Understand how users adapt to change
Implement a training plan
Implement a communications plan
Have a user support plan
Think about incentives and rewards
Allow users to provide feedback
Document your plan
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Unfortunately, …
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… here’s what you are looking for
“I’m using [the solution] to get my work done.
It only takes me a few minutes to get the
answers I need. It used to take me hours”
 “Our business function has improved. It used
to take us 3 days to do [that process] and now
it takes us only 3 hours.”
 “This is helping us get things done. ”
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What’s the One Big Thing?
DONE
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1. Have a solution worth adopting!
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Identify Your Stakeholders
Understand Their Business Objectives - WIIFM
Understand Your Culture
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Identify How Success Will Be Measured
Prepare a Governance Plan
Design a Good Site
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But don’t be a slave to it!
Well organized content
Search that works
Follow design and page layout best practices
Plan Roll-Out and Launch
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Business pain matters …
Quality suffers: when
people can’t find what
they need fast enough
People feel demoralized
when they can’t manage
their work information
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… so does solving a specific problem …
60% of the winners in
the 2011 Intranet
Design Annual have
mobile versions
Not full blown, but
what employees need
“on the go”
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… and encouraging engagement
 Comments
 Ratings
 Count
and Promote
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2. Why is change so hard?
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Comfort with the status quo
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Discomfort with being forced to change
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“This is how we’ve always done it … and it works for me.”
“I’m not broken, why are you trying to fix me?”
No personal benefit
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“Sure, I see why the big-wigs would want this, but what’s in it
for me?”
Make me
“one with
everything.”
But, Master, you
know this:
change comes
from within.
Where’s
my change?
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My favorite quotes about change
 Change
is good - you go first.
Kenneth F Murphy 1955-, former SVP HR of Altria Group and writer
 It
is not the strongest of the species
that survive, nor the most intelligent,
but the one most responsive to
change.
Charles Darwin
 People
don't resist change. They resist
being changed!
Peter Senge, management writer famous for the notion of the learning organization
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Think about how you can roll out functionality aligned with how
users adopt new technology
When adopting a new tool, users typically pass through five stages, each
involving a progression of behaviors and needs
Awareness
Learning
Trial
Application
Adoption
Adoption
100%
Stage/Time
User achieves awareness
of the new technology and
begins forming perceptions
around its importance and
value.
User experiments with the tool on
current projects to experience
tangibly how it fits with current
modes of working. Obtains real-time
under-standing of benefits and
experience.
User obtains an understanding, both
theoretical and demonstrated, of the
tool’s fundamental attributes, such as
what it does, its value, how to use it, and
how it integrates with existing work
processes.
User incorporates the solution
as an indispensable tool. As
such, the solution is a formal
element within specific stages of
work processes.
User applies the technology regularly and gains
greater familiarity with it, specifically as it relates
to fundamental tasks.
Adapted by Reuben Danzing from "Diffusion of Innovations" by Everett M. Rogers, 5th
Edition, Free Press, 1995
3. Develop a training plan
 Don’t
assume “it’s intuitive”
 One size does not fit all
 Don’t try to train all at once
 Adapt to the learning style of the learner
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4. Communicate, communicate,
communicate!
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Communications planning does not end at solution launch
Communications needs to be persistent
Get SHARP
On
SharePoint
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Tested ideas for your communications plan
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Leverage existing meetings and events
Create (and use) an “anecdote” bank
Target your messages
Did you know …? rotating message (tip of the day)
“Look what they did” success stories
Cafeteria table toppers
Message board/break room/elevator bank announcements
or posters
Desktop wallpaper
Usability testing
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5. Plan User Support
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Make sure that the help desk is prepared
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“Seed” the organization with power users
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Pilot team
Volunteers
Launch week activities
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They are often left out of training – big mistake
Lunch and Learns
Ongoing support
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Office hours
Center of Excellence
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6. Think about incentives and rewards
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Key Influencer Strategy
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Key Motivators
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Someone important
“Mikey”
People tend to follow others – when we see other people writing reviews,
sharing knowledge, and submitting ideas, we get the sense that this is just
what we’re supposed to do.
Insights from MySite pilot
Gardening and Yoga drive adoption?
Fun Stuff
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Scavenger Hunt
Snow and Checkered Flags
Video
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Points, Badges, Prizes
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7. Allow users to provide feedback
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User feedback helps identify where you’ve got
adoption challenges
Provide an opportunity to provide feedback on every
page
Get up out of your desk and ASK for feedback!
Conduct usability tests and LISTEN to what people
say but WATCH what they do
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8. Write it down!
It makes you think.
 It gives you something to share.
 It involves other people.
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User Adoption Resources
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Read User Adoption Strategies: Shifting Second Wave People
to New Collaboration Technology by Michael Sampson
Read Essential SharePoint 2010 by Scott Jamison, Susan Hanley,
and Mauro Cardarelli
I Use SharePoint:
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/iusesharepoint/landing.aspx
Get addicted to Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ (Current Issues in Web
Usability)
Download the SharePoint Server 2010 Adoption Best
Practices White Paper from Microsoft by Sue Hanley and Scott
Jamison (http://bit.ly/acLyla)
Follow www.nothingbutsharepoint.com.
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What are your adoption challenges?
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This is the audience participation part of the
program.
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Contact Information
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Susan Hanley
President, Susan Hanley LLC
www.susanhanley.com
sue@susanhanley.com
301-469-0770 (o)
301-442-0127 (m)
Blog:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/sharepoint
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Twitter: @susanhanley
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