Clarity. Direction. Confidence.
IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL
COME!
Best Practices for SharePoint User
Adoption
Sue Hanley
President
Susan Hanley LLC
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 1
About Me
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
http://www.susanhanley.com
Mother of three “millennials”
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 2
We built it, why don’t users just come?
Adoption of new technologies, especially
SharePoint, doesn’t happen all of a sudden, all
at once, or without a plan.
Users won’t usually rush to embrace a new
solution unless it very clearly addresses their
overall business goals.
Before you can think about user adoption, you
have to have a solution worth adopting!
3
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 3
Why is it difficult to adopt new
technologies?
Delayed Gratification
Early adopters give up their “comfort zone”
immediately but receive benefits in the future.
No Guarantees
The new solution may not work the way it is
supposed to.
Squishy Benefits
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.
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 4
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).
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 5
Critical Elements for User Adoption
Planning
1. Make sure that you’ve got a solution worth
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
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
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 6
Don’t be confused
Don’t use user adoption as your measure of
solution success.
Remember – the ultimate key to solution
success is solving a business problem.
Achieving business outcomes – moving the
needle – is the only way to measure success.
And, by the way, if your solution actually helps
uses do their jobs (see Critical Element #1), it will
be easy to get adoption.
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 7
What’s the One Big Thing?
DONE
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 8
1. Have a solution worth adopting!
Identify Your Stakeholders
Understand Their Business Objectives - WIIFM
Understand Your Culture
But don’t be a slave to it!
Identify How Success Will Be Measured
Prepare a Governance Plan
Design a Good Site
Well organized content
Search that works
Follow design and page layout best practices
Plan Roll-Out and Launch
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 9
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
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 10
… 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”
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 11
… and encouraging engagement
Comments
Allow users to contribute content and comment on content
contributed by others
Ratings
Grading requires less work than commenting and rating systems
can broaden user participation.
Ratings also add value in search listings.
But, all kinds of issues with ratings (see presentation on social
computing).
Count and Promote
On average, better stuff gets used more so usage count is a
reasonable proxy for quality – and has the huge benefit of
requiring no extra effort from users
Consider points or badges (more later)
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 12
2. Why is change so hard?
Comfort with the status quo
“This is how we’ve always done it … and it works for
me.”
Discomfort with being forced to change
“I’m not broken, why are you trying to fix me?”
No personal benefit
“Sure, I see why the big wigs would want this, but
what’s in it for me?”
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 13
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
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 14
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
100%
Learning
Trial
Application
Adoption
Adoption
Awareness
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 realtime 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.
15
Adapted by Reuben Danzing from "Diffusion of Innovations"
by Everett M. Rogers,
5th Edition, Free Press, 1995
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 15
3. Develop a training plan
Don’t assume “it’s intuitive”
One size does not fit all
Training needs to be targeted to the end user’s role in the
organization and role or responsibility with regard to the solution
Don’t try to train all at once
Adapt to the learning style of the learner
Educational experts know that not everyone learns in precisely
the same way. This is especially true for busy adults.
You will get the best outcomes from your training initiatives if you
can offer training in multiple ways: classroom, online, “just-in-time”
via computer-based training (CBT), or short online videos, quick
reference “cards,” and so on.
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 16
4. Communicate, communicate,
communicate!
Communications planning does not end at solution launch
Communications needs to be persistent
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 17
Tested ideas for your communications plan
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
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 18
5. Plan User Support
Make sure that the help desk is prepared
They are often left out of training – big mistake
“Seed” the organization with power users
Pilot team
Volunteers
Launch week activities
Lunch and Learns
Ongoing support
Office hours
Center of Excellence
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 19
6. Think about incentives and rewards
Key Influencer Strategy
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.
Key Motivators
Insights from MySite pilot
Gardening and Yoga drive adoption?
Fun Stuff
Scavenger Hunt
Snow and Checkered Flags
Video
Points, Badges, Prizes
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 20
7. Allow users to provide feedback
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
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 21
8. Write it down!
It makes you think.
It gives you something to share.
It involves other people.
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 22
Leverage Helpful Resources
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
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.
Online end user training from Microsoft: http://office.microsoft.com/enus/sharepoint-server-help/CH010372432.aspx
Intro SharePoint 2010 training: http://office2010.microsoft.com/enus/sharepoint-server-help/take-sharepoint-server-2010-training-atyour-desk-HA101859255.aspx#_Toc260914319
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 23
What are your adoption challenges?
This is the audience participation part of the
program.
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 24
Contact Information
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
Twitter: @susanhanley
BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE SHAREPOINT 25