Improving Digital Adoption

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.

This is the fourth 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 third tenet – Simple Solutions. The core idea here is to solve common pain points with something that is satisfyingly simple. Don't design the proverbial solar-powered rocket launcher with GPS and cup-holders when all the users really needed was a club. Clubs are easy to replicate. They cost little to maintain. They have a short learning curve. They are satisfying to use. When you've got a new club - everything looks like a nail.

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.