Improving Digital Adoption

If you oversee document management, compliance policies, and collaboration channels, you know the level of productivity that can be achieved using workflows.

In addition to the out-of-the-box workflows, SharePoint and Office 365 enable the creation of custom business workflows and a variety of no-code automation solutions.

Many companies build these computing processes to help employees easily and duly perform repetitive tasks. But, many of these solutions are often either ignored or abandoned.

There is a better approach to these initiatives.

In this instance, "training" means "transferring knowledge to an end-user"; and, “helping" means "guiding an end-user through steps while completing a task".

Helping works better than training because mastery is attained at work, not in classrooms. In other words, learning on the job is the superior way.

Training is necessary in SharePoint and Office 365 adoption efforts. The impact of many other components such as governance, workflows, and support depends on the outcomes of a training strategy. But, not all training approaches are equally effective.

Holding classes, conducting webinars, broadcasting tips, and using contextual help systems are the most widely discussed training strategies.

An ideal training strategy is that which enables the organic growth of the platforms’ usage. It's a way of training that actually drives user adoption. To work well, it needs to have 4 applicable attributes.

Sustainable SharePoint and Office 365 adoption is not easy to achieve. Most companies struggle to help employees use the platforms sufficiently enough to produce the desired business results.

When adoption stagnates or fails, productivity drops, frustration takes over, business processes fragment, and return on investment shrinks. Helping users to fully embrace the platforms is worth the effort.

Display policies to users right in their moment-of-need. Contextually deliver governance policy content directly to end users when they need it most.

We all want our applications to be used more. If you put your heart and sweat into building something and you don't see the usage levels that you had imagined would be there, it would definitely demotivate you. Happens all the time unfortunately.

We all want our end users to care about what we want them to do. However, do we really stop to listen and care about what they want...?

This is the fifth post in my series about Caveman User Adoption. The first was an overview of 4 Caveman Tenets of user adoption that together create an environment where SharePoint and Office 365 will grow organically. This article is a deeper dive on the fourth and final tenet – Help that is actually helpful. The core idea here is to make changes to your support and training models to increase your users’ comfortable level. Doing this requires a strategic shift, but it is probably the most powerful of all 4 of the caveman tenets. All by itself, it can make or break your adoption efforts.