Change Management Strategies to Drive User Adoption

Your executive management team has just brought in a fantastic new software that’s going to increase productivity on the shop floor.

The CEO’s pumped up about it. The IT Team have been consuming copious quantities of coffee to deliver it. The program is technically brilliant and employs the latest revolutionary digital development – something cool like artificial intelligence in the metaverse, perhaps.

You’ve nailed the project management and delivered everything on time and on budget.

The program is launched with great fanfare. Heck, for this one you even created a launch video with exciting music. Go big or go home, right?

Then, crickets.

Your shop floor takes one look at the app, shrugs, and dumps the iPad the software is sitting on in the dustiest corner of the factory. It’s just been confined to the scrapheap of your company’s digital history.  

What happened?

It’s a painful lesson that many leaders have had to learn along the way. You can do (almost) everything right, but the ultimate success of your project comes down to whether it delivers lasting, sustainable change in the way the business operates.

And that means your people must adopt new practices.

What can you do to make sure that your digital solutions offer lasting business impact?

Experts at our recent Connected Worker Energy and Utilities and our Connected Manufacturing Worker summit offered up essential insight into what it takes to drive user adoption.

Here are 7 key change management lessons you can use to ensure users adopt new ways of working:

#1: Start Small

Build trust with users with small, incremental successes before tackling anything more complex.

That means avoiding what Jeremy Koster, Vice President of Natural Gas Strategic Operations at Duke Energy calls the “race car building” approach to transformation.

Race cars are big, complex machines that rely on hundreds of high performing parts. It’s tempting to try and build the entire race car all at once, but it’s better to start with the chassis, he says, because the risk of failure is higher the more complex you make it.

“The field can’t really absorb a big chunky, waterfall thing,” he says.  “If you can start small and make it really easy, then the adoption is so much greater.”  

That’s something a sentiment shared by Jason Gislason, Chief Digital Officer, Chevron Phillips Chemical Corporation.

“Go through and iterate and get the right product to the right person at the right time,” he says adding that Lean Start Up methodology, which focuses on creating minimum viable products (MVPs), and Agile, which focuses on delivering projects in sprints, offer valuable approaches to iterative development.

The other benefit is that smaller, focused changes and digital solutions offer less complexity and risk of failure.

Afterall, “high failure rates are not good for morale,” observes Carl Haycock, Carl Haycock, UK Operations Director at Domino Printing Solutions.

#2: Engage the Frontline

You’ve probably heard it before, but we’ll say it again: the best ideas almost always come from the people who do the work. Executives in corporate head offices may have great ideas too (and more power to drive them through) but it’s essential to get early feedback and involve your frontline workers right from the start.

Chevron’s Gislason recounts how the first machine learning algorithm deployed in the company’s plants came from an experienced operator who observed a correlation between a certain characteristic in the field and product quality. The observation was passed onto one of the company’s data scientists for evaluation to test its validity.

The key to the success of that project was the ongoing collaboration between the person with the direct field experience and the person with the technical know-how to deliver it.

Engagement is not a one and done deal. The frontline must be engaged throughout the process of solution development and iteration to ensure that solutions are fit for purpose.

“If they’ve been engaged the entire time, then adoption is natural,” says Gislason. “Adoption is naturally embedded in the process.”

Other leaders stress the importance of addressing the “what’s in it for me?” for the user.

“Identify the wins for the operator and the wins for the business that you’re trying to achieve,” says Chris Degenhart, Factory General Manager at Nice-Pak International. If the operator can see the benefit to them and understands why the business is doing it, it’s much easier to get the adoption you need.

#3: Solve a Real Business Problem

It can be incredibly tempting to focus on the solution – especially the cool new technology kid on the block – but it’s important to take the time to really understand the business problem.

Root cause analysis can be helpful here to avoid jumping to conclusions about the source of the problem and enable a methodical approach to addressing it.

“The change is the way you think about the way you do business and the way you apply tools to solve true business problems,” says Chevron’s Gislason, likening data science to a hammer or ratchet that you can use only if you know what you want to do with it.

Domino Printing Solution’s Haycock says that it can also be helpful to break down departmental barriers by focusing on what the customer needs and ensuring that any solution you design ultimately serves the customer.

He also suggests putting engineers or technical teams right on the factory floor so they can physically see and experience what is going on. Those insights are invaluable and might mean the difference between a solution that drives real business value and another that gathers dust.

#4:  Pace Your Change

The velocity at which change is happening – both in our professional and personal lives – has been increasing. The past few years have been incredibly challenging a individuals and organizations chart a course through a constantly shifting landscape.

If there’s a silver lining, says Angela MacOscar, Head of Innovation at Northumbrian Water, it’s that people are now more open to changing how they do things because they’ve been forced to adapt so much during the pandemic.

“We’re now able to implement new technologies and change at a much faster pace,” she says.

But there becomes a point at which people become change saturated and cannot handle further disruption.  

With so much change occurring how do you moderate it so that your users can adapt and adopt at a rate they can handle?

At Chevron Petrochemicals, Gislason says that his organization – the digital team – focus on the disruptive change so as not to disrupt day-to-day operations. The IT organization can pull those changes in at a measured rate so that users aren’t overwhelmed.

“I think it’s important to put systems in place that allow you to meter and moderate those changes and determine the right time for change,” he explains. “You basically produce as the team delivers and you release on demand.”

#5: Make it Simple

Complexity is the enemy of adoption. Solutions must be easy to use and intuitive.

For too many years, corporate software was developed by engineers who didn’t have elegance as a key criterion.  The success of Apple’s products came down to beautiful design and product simplicity that made it easy for users to simply pick up and use with minimal learning curve.

Corporate software needs to be just as easy to use as the consumer software we use in our daily lives.

Duke Energy’s Jeremy Koster points out that you can’t assume that older workers are resistant to new technology. They are likely resistant to poorly designed and complicated technology. He says that even the most tenured technicians in the field will adopt apps when they are easy to use.

#6: Small Details Matter

Don’t underestimate the importance of small details that help bridge the gap between worker’s existing environment and the new digital world you expect them to work in.

Bill Gates’ big innovation when he developed Windows was the file folder icon (and, arguably, the annoying paperclip that used to pop up all the time). It allowed users to relate the digital filing system to the real world one that they recognized. The icon is still in use today (alas, the same cannot be said about the paperclip).

Duke Energy’s Jeremy Koster says that his company incorporated a picture of a paint brush into one of the apps and had a huge amount of positive feedback on it.

“Users said this is the best thing ever!” he said.

What details can you incorporate that help your solution better reflect existing practices?

Additionally, it’s the small details that can trip you up at the final hurdle. Do all sites have the connectivity they need in all areas? What is the environment in which workers are expected to use the app like? What are the workers wearing? How will they access the solution?

Speaking at an earlier Connected Worker conference, Remi Raphael, Chief Digital Officer at EDF Renewables, recounts how his organization failed to observe that when field technicians went out into the field – where they were working at height - they had to carry multiple laptops and pieces of equipment.

The digital solution the organization created ran on an iPad. This proved too cumbersome for workers already overburdened by so many heavy items. Simple observation of this small detail could have prevented a costly mistake.

#7: Know When to Stop

As the gambler says, “you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em.”

At some point the incremental business value of improvements starts to decrease and the effort it takes to achieve them starts to increase. At that point, the business value of continuing to develop and evolve the solution becomes questionable.

The skill is in recognizing when you’ve hit that point.

Duke Energy’s Jeremy Koster sums it up succinctly: “Start small, look at how you can scale, and know when to stop.”

Organizations looking to drive adoption and harness the value of digital solutions would be wise to heed his advice.

Interested in learning more about this topic?

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