I've had the opportunity over the past couple of years to work with a large customer of mine on a refresh of their entire infrastructure. Network management tools were one of the last pieces to be addressed as emphasis had been on legacy hardware first and the direction for management tools had not been established. This mini-series will highlight this company's journey and the problems solved, insights gained, as well as unresolved issues that still need addressing in the future. Hopefully this help other companies or individuals going through the process. Topics will include discovery around types of tools, how they are being used, who uses them and for what purpose, their fit within the organization, and lastly what more they leave to be desired.
Blog Series
After months of rolling out new tools and provisioning the right levels of access, we started to see positive changes within the organization.
Growing Pains
Some amount of growing pains were to be expected and this was certainly no exception. Breaking bad habits developed over time is a challenge, however the team worked to hold each other accountable and began to build the tools into their daily routines. New procedures for rolling out equipment included integration with monitoring tools and testing to ensure data was being logged and reported on properly. The team made a concerted effort to ensure that previously deployed devices were populated into the system and spent some time clearing out retired devices. Deployments weren't perfect at first and a few steps were skipped, however the team developed deployment and decommission checklists to help ensure the proper steps were being met. Some of the deployment checklist items included things that would be expected: IP addressing, SNMP strings, AAA configuration, change control submission, etc. while others were somewhat less obvious - placing inventory tags on devices, recording serial numbers, etc. We also noticed that communications between team members started to change as discussions were starting from a place in which individuals were better informed.
Reducing the Shadow
After the "growing pains" period, we were pleased to see that the tools were becoming part of every day activities for core teams. The increased knowledge led to some interesting discussions around optimizing locations for specific purposes and helped shed some light on regular pain points within the organization. For this particular customer, the R&D teams have "labs" all over the place which could place undue stress on the network infrastructure. The "Shadow IT" that had been an issue before could now be better understood. In turn, IT made an offer to manage the infrastructure in trade for giving them what they wanted. This became a win-win for both groups and has fundamentally changed the business for the better. In my opinion, this is the single best change the company experienced. Reduction in role of "Shadow IT" and migrating those services to the official IT infrastructure group created far better awareness and supportability. As an added benefit, budgets are being realigned with additional funding shifted to IT who has taken on this increased role. There is definitely still some learning that needs to be done here, but the progress thus far has been great.
Training for Adoption
Adoption seemed slow for help desk and some of the ancillary teams who weren't used to these tools and we wanted to better understand why. After working with the staff to understand the limited use it became apparent that although some operational training had been done, training for adoption had not. A well-designed training-for-adoption strategy can make the difference between success and failure of a new workflow or technology change.The process isn't just providing users with technical knowledge, but rather to build buy-in, ensure efficiency, and create business alignment. It is important to evaluate how the technology initiative will help improve your organization. Part of the strategy should include an evaluation plan to measure results against those organizational outcomes, such as efficiency, collaboration, and customer satisfaction (this could be internal business units or outward facing customers).
The following are tips that my company lives by to help ensure that users embrace new technology to advance the organization:
Communicate the big-picture goals in relevant terms. To senior management or technology leaders, the need for new technology may be self-evident. To end-users, the change can seem arbitrary. However, all stakeholders share common interests such as improving efficiency or patient care. Yet, users may resist a new workflow system—unless the project team can illustrate how the system will help them better serve patients and save time.
Invest properly in planning and resources for user adoption. If an organization is making a significant investment in new systems, investing in the end-user experience is imperative to fully realize the value of the technology. However, training for user adoption often is an afterthought in major technology project planning. Furthermore, it is easy to underestimate the hours required for communications, workshops and working sessions.
Anticipate cultural barriers to adoption. Training should be customized to your corporate culture. In some organizations, for instance, time-strapped users may assume that they can learn new technology “on the fly." Others rely on online training as a foundation for in-person instruction. Administrators may face competing mandates from management, while users may have concerns about coverage while they are attending training. A strong project sponsor and operational champions can help anticipate and overcome these barriers, and advise on the training formats that will be most effective.
Provide training timed to technology implementation. Another common mistake is to provide generic training long before users actually experience the new system, or in the midst of go-live, where it becomes chaotic. Both scenarios pose challenges. Train too early and, by the time you go “live," users forget how they are supposed to use the technology and may be inclined to use it as little as possible If you wait for go-live, staff may be overwhelmed by their fears and anxieties, and may have already developed resistance to change. The ideal approach will depend on each facility’s context and dependencies. However, staggering training, delivering complex training based on scenarios, addressing fears in advance, and allowing for practice time, are all key success factors.
Provide customized training based on real-life scenarios. Bridging the gap between the technology and the user experience is a critical dimension of training and one that some technology vendors tend to overlook in favor of training around features and functionality. Train with real-life scenarios, incorporating various technologies integrated into “day in the life" of an end user or staff member. By focusing on real-world practice, this comprehensive training helps overcome the “fear of the new" as users realizes the benefits of the new technology.
Create thoughtful metrics around adoption. Another hiccup in effective adoption occurs when companies do not have realistic metrics, evaluation, and remediation plans. Without these tools, how do you ensure training goals are met—and, perhaps more importantly, correct processes when they are not? Recommend an ongoing evaluation plan that covers go-live as well as one to six months out.
Don’t ignore post-implementation planning. Contrary to popular perception, training and adoption do not end when the new system goes live. In fact, training professionals find that post-implementation support is an important area for ensuring ongoing user adoption.
