“I think what we’re going through today really calls to our attention, the need for business continuity, as we plan our enterprise technology programs,” said Linda. 

The most recent coronavirus outbreak has impacted people globally. 

Organizations need to plan for business continuity during these disruptive times while keeping their employees safe. Many companies are struggling with the delivery of their training programs for new systems which were supposed to be classroom training sessions. These sessions are no more possible during these disruptive times since people cannot gather in one room. Hence training delivery is clearly a huge issue but it not the only phase of your project lifecycle that needs attention. Is also important to think about the potential impacts on other phases like development and post-go-live support and plan on handling disruption at all the phases. 

As companies struggle to keep their processes running in these uncertain times, here are the four keys to continuity that are going to be critical for your new system adoption programs. 

Learning strategy 

What do we mean by learning strategy?

• Created based on your organization’s vision, mission, and strategic objectives.
• Defines the strategic intent of your learning solution.
• Outlines the elements of your solution (the toolkit).
• Describe which audiences will use which elements.

Once you have your learning strategy in place, what happens when you are hit with some kind of disruption? 

“My recommendation is that you need to focus on the essential elements. So I go back to the adult learning model we’ve used for many years and think about what are the most critical things that need to be in place in order to drive that adoption of new technology”, added Linda. 

1. Prepare Me: 

• Provide clear communications via reliable networks.
• Include roles, responsibilities, and a clear change story about why the new technology needs to be adopted.
• Provide an accessible means for feedback to the users and answer their questions.

2. Tell Me:

• Focusing on information that your learners need to accomplish their job outcomes. 
• Process and other conceptual kinds of information that are not included in the step-by-step procedures are the most important driver of adoption. 
• Develop using formats that can be leveraged for virtual sessions or eLearning.

3. Show Me:

• Leverage technology to model task performance.
• Explore the use of simulations, video recordings, demonstrations by super users.

4. Let Me:

• Provide a safe space for people to practice.
• Explore technology offerings (simulations, embedded help in a sandbox).
• Non-tech options could include remote or in-person over-the-shoulder coaching.

5. Help Me:

• Provide help that goes much beyond “which key to press”.
• Superusers can play a critical role in addressing processes and other questions.

Effective Operating Processes

Project management 

Make sure that you have strong project management methodologies that underpin your development and delivery efforts. Sometimes we underestimate the criticality of having good project management. But when you are trying to produce many things at a time, having strong project management is really important, especially if you have the possibility of suddenly losing access to your coworkers, a server going down, etc.

Clear roles and responsibilities

Make sure that everybody knows what they’re responsible for and how and when they’re supposed to do it. This helps when your teams are distributed or working remotely.

Structured Communication 

Having a communication plan for your global teams is important to make them communicate effectively and function as a team.

Meeting management

When you are working with people from different time zones, having a timeframe that suits every member is important. Setting a golden hour, where team members from all over the world are available, can really help during periods of disruption.

Leveraging Tool Capabilities

During development, one of the tool capabilities that can be helpful in disruptive times is the ability to automatically facilitate reviews and development workflow.

During delivery, tools can help enable a learning journey so that people get the right content in the right order. Another thing that tools can be leveraged for is supporting super user delivery. So if the plan had originally been that people were going to fly in and out to conduct classroom sessions, these teaching opportunities can go to super users. And the content is available in the tool which can be used by them in a classroom. 

For performance support, tools can be leveraged to make sure that content is easy to access. Organizations usually spend lots of money developing great performance support content but it gets buried in a SharePoint or Microsoft Teams Server where it is really hard for people to find. Hence the chances of them actually using the content are pretty low. So having tools that embed help in the production system or makes it available in a context-sensitive manner is really critical. 

For learning in the flow of work, tools can be leveraged for just-in-time availability of learning content for infrequently performed tasks.

Empowered Super Users

The role of super users is critical in disruptive times. They can provide coaching to the users and can also be your ears and eyes on the ground. So if things aren’t landing well and people are having challenges, superusers can communicate that back to you. 

The critical part of this is to make sure that your superusers are clear about their roles, what tools they’re supposed to use, etc. It’s not just about ramping them up, but also listening to them and making sure you’re hearing and seeing what they’re hearing and seeing. Creating a good super user strategy is a critical element of your continuity plan.

Looking at a few key points you should be taking care of in these disruptive times..

So these were some takeaways from our session with Linda Lamppert on “Technology Adoption in Disruptive Times” to give you a direction for handling your adoption challenges in these uncertain times.