An implementation is delivered, the project closes, and the reports look acceptable. Two years later the benefit has not appeared and nobody can say exactly why.
Part of the answer is that non-adoption is rarely refusal. It takes four recognisable forms, and only one of them is visible in a standard adoption report.
Ceremonial use. The system receives exactly what it requires and nothing more. Mandatory fields completed, optional ones empty, activity clustered just before reporting deadlines.
Displaced use. The work is done outside the system and transcribed into it afterwards. Records are complete, quality can be high, and the timing is systematically wrong.
Partial use. The straightforward cases run inside the system. Exceptions, escalations and anything urgent leave it.
Proxy use. One person operates the system on behalf of several. The records exist and are often good. What has not happened is the change in how the other eleven people work.
Reading all four as one phenomenon called low adoption is the first analytical error most programmes make. Each produces a different pattern in the data, and each responds to a different intervention.
Which is why an organisation can be told its adoption is fine for eighteen months and still be surprised at the end of it.
The four forms, and how to see each one in your own data, are set out in chapter 1 of Built to Be Used.
#ITimplementation #UserAdoption #ChangeManagement
An implementation is delivered, the project closes, and the reports look acceptable. Two years later the benefit has not appeared and nobody can say exactly why.
Part of the answer is that non-adoption is rarely refusal. It takes four recognisable forms, and only one of them is visible in a standard adoption report.
Ceremonial use. The system receives exactly what it requires and nothing more. Mandatory fields completed, optional ones empty, activity clustered just before reporting deadlines.
Displaced use. The work is done outside the system and transcribed into it afterwards. Records are complete, quality can be high, and the timing is systematically wrong.
Partial use. The straightforward cases run inside the system. Exceptions, escalations and anything urgent leave it.
Proxy use. One person operates the system on behalf of several. The records exist and are often good. What has not happened is the change in how the other eleven people work.
Reading all four as one phenomenon called low adoption is the first analytical error most programmes make. Each produces a different pattern in the data, and each responds to a different intervention.
Which is why an organisation can be told its adoption is fine for eighteen months and still be surprised at the end of it.
The four forms, and how to see each one in your own data, are set out in chapter 1 of Built to Be Used.
#ITimplementation #UserAdoption #ChangeManagement
This article accompanies the book Built to Be Used.