Accelerating Technology User Adoption with Change Management

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Our client, a global heavy machinery manufacturer was seeking to enhance its digital collaboration capability at a critical inflection point in early 2020. Most of their employees had transitioned to working remotely during the COVID-19 outbreak. In order to better support their workforce of 70,000+ employees, they looked to implement the Microsoft Teams platform.

In brief

Infographic: Accelerating Technology Adoption with Change Management

The Background

Like many other companies, the client already had Microsoft Teams technology and licenses in place.  What they lacked was the adoption and utilization of the toolset.  As such, the organization needed the ability to unlock the full range of benefits of the Microsoft Teams platform. 

To achieve that, MIGSO-PCUBED, a Microsoft Gold Partner, was engaged to provide Adoption and Change Management consulting services supporting this large scale business transformation initiative.

The Solution

Where in previous attempts the client had struggled to achieve adoption targets, in this case, with COVID-19, there was a desire, moreover a need to change. With teams working around the clock in a follow the sun model, they needed the Office 365 technology to provide the ability to promote increased productivity and collaboration amongst their virtual teams.

According to TechRepublic, failing to train users on the new product or to educate users on key features are two key factors in why your technology implementation program may fail.  Both actions typically result in low user adoption, i.e. project failure.

Change Management is the practice of effectively engaging stakeholders, minimizing risk to efficient adoption and maximizing benefits through a focus on the organizational, cultural, and people aspects of business transformations.”

Woman using collaboration technology remotely

As the speed of technology adoption was the key concern, an accelerated change management start-up phase was conducted with the executive team to develop their user adoption strategy. The adoption strategy focused on two main objectives: developing and managing an integrated communications campaign and defining a scalable training approach.

Developing an integrated communications plan would increase the likelihood that users were educated on key features and would, therefore, like the end product.  Defining a scalable training plan would ensure the successful adoption of the over 2,000 employees that needed to be trained in the initial rollout.

Our three-phased approach to Change Management services is seamlessly integrated with project management delivery.  It is dedicated to ensuring that we build a foundation for change, manage the change to ensure it is effectively implemented, and most importantly in this case, to set up the organization to sustain the change.

With an accelerated delivery program like this one, in 8 short weeks, we needed to provide the client with the knowledge, tools, and templates to allow them to sustain momentum and utilization long after we were gone.

Utilizing a train-the-trainer approach the team developed all the necessary content and materials to support both manager and user levels.  They delivered not only the initial end-user training but also prepared client trainers for future training waves. Out of the 2,000 employees that needed training, the MIGSO-PCUBED consultants connected with more than 500 of the clients’ team members. The rest of the individuals were trained by the new client trainers, ensuring the team met its aggressive timelines.

The Benefits

Alongside our stakeholders, we established an integrated structure and cadence to deliver adoption activities vital for a successful migration. Partnering early on with the executives and client adoption teams was crucial to ensuring that the program would have staying power.  It also ensured that with increased adoption, there was a return on investment.

Successful change management resulted in the following outcomes:

  • Strong adoption and utilization rates for its pilot migration with momentum to carry forward into full 70,000 + user implementation
  • A variety of tailored communications content and training material to leverage in future roll-out waves.
  • Organizational capabilities to lead and scale adoption throughout the entire implementation process
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