This is the third post in my series about Caveman User Adoption. The first was an overview of 4 tenets that together create an environment where SharePoint and Office 365 can grow. This article is a deeper dive on the second of those tenets. Measuring adoption is an area where a lot of times we overthink things. We track the wrong things (like page hits and unique visitors for a site) and build solutions that are way more complicated than we needed in order to tell our adoption story.

This is the second post in my series about Caveman User Adoption. The first was an overview of 4 tenets that together create an environment where SharePoint and Office 365 can grow. This article is a deeper dive on the first tenet – Simple Governance Policies.

I’ve been doing some speaking lately on the topic of user adoption. It’s an important subject, not least of which because so many times we, as an industry, get it wrong. We either ignore it (build it and they will come) or treat it like a project (training classes will be complete by August 1). In my experience, neither of those things work. Success is not rocket science, though. There are many books and posts out there that discuss adoption from more conceptual perspectives related to vision, communications, and human behavioral changes. Those discussions are certainly valid, but I plan to tackle the topic from a more functional perspective and discuss strategies and activities as they apply to the team behind the platform.

For those of you wondering if a migration to SharePoint 2016 makes sense, we've got the inside scoop. VisualSP is teaming up with Bill Baer to explain the benefits of this latest release, the investments Microsoft has made to improve SharePoint, and why a migration might make sense for your organization. We are hosting Bill on February 22, 2017, 12 – 1:00pm EST, live on the web.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a timeline of 'adoption enhancing activities' to follow when rolling out a new SharePoint-based intranet (or relaunching your existing one)? I mean, let's get real and talk about concrete things instead of vague concepts. Let's do this!

The following is an excerpt from our whitepaper Micro-training In Context: The Path to Faster Technology Adoption. To read the full paper, click here.

At times, organizations can face inertia following a new SharePoint installation or upgrade. This can be due in part to end-user anxiety. That anxiety stems from assumptions that a new system or technology will be challenging to master.

For many companies, SharePoint is a significant investment in time, money, and human resources. Often, those investments provide little return when the SharePoint platform is not fully utilized. What can companies do when a return on investment isn't achieved? In some cases, it may require a bit more investment in a solution that can enable end users to master SharePoint – a performance support system.

According to the eLearning Guild, a performance support system (PSS) is "a tool or other resource, from print to technology-supported, which provides just the right amount of task guidance, support, and productivity benefits to the user precisely at the moment of need".

Are you feeling the pain of a muted SharePoint launch? Do you see information workers retreating back to old ways? You are not alone.