Category: Digital Divide

The value of a Use Case in introducing social collaboration tools

The value of a Use Case in introducing social collaboration tools

One of the most powerful tactics in introducing collaboration tools within an organisation is the use cases. Get your use cases right – built around existing processes, current challenges and business priorities and you begin to plant the initial seeds of success. Don’t stop at a small number of use cases but get as many as possible lined up to run over a number of ‘waves’ (don’t do everything at once) that can take a number of months to bleed into the environment. The value of this approach includes:

  • Explores potential without too much commitment on resource (don’t run long requirement gathering sessions that turn the business off but short focused trials – not every use case is suitable of the environment)
  • Makes people feel ‘safe’ – sense of validation
  • Provides many with an understanding of what can be achieved (‘art of the possible’)
  • Begins to role model behaviours and best practice (openness)
  • The expected goals may not be the final value but getting people on-board and participating will allow them to understand how they get value. Remember any project team won’t know most of the answers so let the business ‘explore’.

No organisation should fail as a social business

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It still does amaze me that Deloitte (see below) and Gartner (“80% of social business efforts will not achieve the intended benefits”) still have the ammunition to produce these reports.

http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_AU/au/services/financial-advisory/deloitte-access-economics/collaborative-economy/index.htm

Social Business tools have been around long enough for a successful best practice approach to be evolved. The focus should be away from traditional IT implementations onto good strategy, governance (or stewardship) and transformation that will lead to most organisations that want to become social businesses achieving success.

The strategy needs to ensure the capabilities, deployment and utilisation of both technology and people align with the overall goals of the business.

The governance / stewardship needs to ensure the technology deployed is sustainable and the quality content filtered through the technology can surface above the redundant noise that will occur in many organisation and can be utilised to assist in achieving the overall goals of the business.

The transformation needs to ensure people and their communities /  networks have an understanding of how, what and when to share and collaborate to help meet the goals of the business.

But I guess most organisations are treating the tools similar to their approaches to knowledge management initiatives of the past. Build it and they will come. They focus on the technology (plugging it in) rather than the transformation needed to change people’s behaviours to adapt and cultivate new skills that are enabled by the technology.

I fear in 5 years the Gartner’s and Deloitte’s of this world will still be producing the same old reports.

Your most productive 1 minute per month on Yammer

Your most productive 1 minute per month on Yammer

It’s important to embed yammer into your ways of working. We want to avoid you thinking ‘I need to do my work and then visit yammer.’

To succeed we need to think about ‘I need to do my work and yammer is assisting me in achieving what I need to do.’

It’s easy to get lost and caught up in all the ‘noise’ that takes place (alerts, notifications, new groups being formed, people joining). To avoid this spend 1 minute per month (it should take no more than that) to revisit your notifications to ensure you have a frequency of notifications that suit you. Also be choosey about who and what groups you follow. If you have the time do this on a weekly basis.

On a general principle I try to keep the number of people I follow down to 50 and ensure I belong to no more than 20 groups. The content and people will eventually find you so don’t feel the need to follow everyone or every group. If someone is not active or providing you valuable contributions then don’t follow them. If there is no activity within the group then drop out of it.
This will soon reduce lots of the noise you may get lost in.

Go where the energy is to build an advocacy network

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One of the key themes (or attitudes as I would like to call it) of the business change project team, involved in putting one of the world’s largest airlines into the Cloud (O365), was to look at changing the normal business model and, in essence, changing the way we worked. 

An excellent example of this was the way we recruited the advocates (called Mercury Heroes) for the programme who would spread the message, coach their colleagues and be general role models in changing the way people worked through using collaborative tools.

The normal approach would have been to reach out to leadership with a request for nominees. If we were lucky we would get the ‘normal suspects’ who would be involved in every other programme and dutifully attend induction and go through the standard actions. This was not a model for us to follow!

Instead we began to practice what we preached and started to use the power of Yammer. With an agreed set of principles and objectives (but no core job description) we by-passed the traditional middle management (general road blockers with this sort of activity) and reached out to active users on Yammer (going where the energy was) to become advocates. These people were already changing the way they worked by using Yammer and we deliberately avoided the traditional ‘floor walkers’ that IT departments would generally use for the role. It didn’t matter if you were of a management grade or role within a department – we wanted people that had a desire for change rather than a knowledge or technology.

I should add we tactically deployed Yammer as the first of O365 as:

1 – it was simpler but
2 – it was one of the ‘game changers’ that would teach us so much about behaviours in a short space of time, enable us to deal with lots of leadership concern early and, if we got it right, provide us with ready made advocate and communications channels for the remaining roll-out. 

The strategy was to go for numbers. Not dissuade people with a rigid job description or time commitment but giving them a set of principles and objectives and asking them to ‘do what they can, when they can’. The assumption was to have such a large volume of advocates that it didn’t matter if we have gaps in coverage or people away during certain activities – we had the numbers to cover. 

We provided a core toolkit and built a coaching programme for them and there were some prescriptive elements around Outlook coaching, but in essence we began using the power of social networking to spread the message and the coaching. Heroes were asked to deal with any permission issues from their management. 

Microsoft challenged us to get 350 advocates for the beginning of the roll-out programme. Within 6 weeks we had over 900.

Some of the initial success stories include:

Over 400 Mercury Heroes attended physical and online Yammer coaching sessions in November with the challenge to recruit colleagues and join a group or discussion in Yammer. From the 8 weeks leading up to Christmas over 1000 new people were joining Yammer each week (with engagement levels at over 50%). 

Volunteers for use cases, testing, focus groups for SharePoint, OneDrive etc were recruited within minutes rather than days or weeks in normal programmes. 

There was some resistance to the ‘social approach’ we took and in some areas we needed to be more prescriptive (interestingly many of these were IT related departments) but the approach got us 90% plus of the advocates we needed. 

As the whole campaign was based on behavioural change and new ways of working (not the tools or IT deployment) the intention is not to stand the Mercury Heroes down once the roll-out is complete but to use them as a legacy for collaboration (and others projects) within the airline.

Giving people a voice

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Just saw this from Ragan and it shows how enterprise social networking tools can be used to engage all areas of the business and gain valuable insights.

http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/How_Yammer_connected_Air_Canadas_employees_47932.aspx

For too long we have focused on so called ‘knowledge workers’ as the major users and contributors of the social networking but, if cultivated correctly it can benefit every level and both management and workers.

There have always been fears about giving people voices in organisations but enterprise social networks have been successfully been deployed in unionised environments with more benefits than detractions.

From my own experiences one factor I believe that helps in this deployment are meetings and processes around ‘contingency planning’, from incidents at airports and in the sky, media breaches and industrial relations. We mapped out processes for each scenario that we highlighted to leadership as appropriate. These eased a number of fears. 

Also it was vital to show that this environment benefited everybody, giving workers a voice and also providing insights for leadership. One of the ways of achieving this was the development of advocates in crucial areas of the business, whether they be union activities that could spread the benefits of a tool that gives people and voice and begins to make the whole organisation more transparent and democratic, or leaders within departments that saw how much value they could get by receiving immediate insights into products, processes etc. 

This is not achieved through guidelines and corporate missives by but meeting and talking to people (lots of them) and spreading the word. Its people and not technology we engage with so it’s very ‘old school’ in terms of building this network – not just face-to-face but individual conversations via Yammer, email, face-to-face etc. 

One of the signals that I believe this was successful was an occurrence when a new member made a post about ‘how much money had the company wasted on this Facebook gimmick’. Before any of the core team could respond a large number of users from all levels of the business came on to defend the platform and giving real life examples of how Yammer helped them as individuals, as teams and as an organisations. 

I think once you get people thinking the platform is their voice and not a corporate tool then you can sit back and pat yourself on the back (only for a few minutes though).

Changing the business model for advocay programmes

It may be confirming the obvious (although not for many companies who just deploy technology and hope for the best) but advocacy programs have significant impact on engagement rates. 

One of the three key findings in the 2014 CR State of Community Management research was that community advocacy and leadership programs are a key element of the most successful communities – they correlate with engagement, ability to measure value and executive participation. These programs require an investment in community management resources and processes to scale from informal programs to structured programs to multi-tiered leadership initiatives. 

​Only 33% of communities without any leadership opportunities are able to measure value – that rate more than doubles to 71% for those with formal advocacy programs. 

One of the key themes (or attitudes as I would like to call it) of a recent business change project team,  involved in putting a large world famous brand into the Cloud (Office 365), was to look at changing the normal business model and, in essence, changing the way we worked. 

An excellent example of this was the way we recruited the advocates (called Heroes) for the programme who would spread the message, coach their colleagues and be general role models in changing the way people worked through using collaborative tools.

The normal approach would have been to reach out to leadership with a request for nominees. If we were lucky we would get the ‘normal suspects’ who would be involved in every other programme and dutifully attend induction and go through the standard actions. This was not a model for us to follow!

Instead we began to practice what we preached and started to use the power of Yammer. With an agreed set of principles and objectives (but no core job description) we by-passed the traditional middle management (general road blockers with this sort of activity) and reached out to active users on Yammer (going where the energy was) to become advocates. These people were already changing the way they worked by using Yammer and we deliberately avoided the traditional ‘floor walkers’ that IT departments would generally use for the role.  It didn’t matter if you were of a management grade or role within a department – we wanted people that had a desire for change rather than a knowledge or technology.

The strategy was to go for numbers. Not dissuade people with a rigid job description or time commitment but giving them a set of principles and objectives and asking them to ‘do what they can, when they can’. The assumption was to have such a large volume of advocates that it didn’t matter if we have gaps in coverage or people away during certain activities – we had the numbers to cover.


We provided a core toolkit and built a coaching programme for them and there were some prescriptive elements around Outlook coaching, but in essence we began using the power of social networking to spread the message and the coaching. Heroes were asked to deal with any permission issues from their management. 

Microsoft challenged us to get 350 advocates for the beginning of the roll-out programme. Within 6 weeks we had over 500 and when I left the project we had over 1200 Heroes (from an initial roll-out audience of 48,000).

Some of the initial success stories include:

Over 400 Heroes attended physical and online Yammer coaching sessions in November with the challenge to recruit colleagues and join a group or discussion in Yammer. From the 8 weeks leading up to Christmas over 1000 new people were joining Yammer each week (with engagement levels at over 50%). 

Volunteers for use cases, testing, focus groups for SharePoint, OneDrive etc were recruited within minutes rather than days or weeks in normal programmes. 

There was some resistance to the ‘social approach’ we took and in some areas we needed to be more prescriptive (interestingly many of these were IT related departments) but the approach got us 90% plus of the advocates we needed. 
 
As the whole campaign was based on behavioural change and new ways of working (not the tools or IT deployment) the intention was not to stand the Heroes down once the roll-out was complete but to use them as a legacy for collaboration (and others projects) within the company.

 

The disruptive life cycle

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Every new disruptive medium or technology goes through a life cycle. Open / social business tools such as Yammer or Jive will be no different. The five phases of this disruptive technology life cycle are:

  • Phase 1: Eager early adopters. Users eagerly experimented in the newness of the medium. Early adopters attempt to apply the medium to everything.
  • Phase 2: Ubiquitous usage. Rapid adoption put the medium in the hands of the masses. Adoption exceeds expectation.
  • Phase 3: Relevant rationalization. Enterprises apply the medium to the right business use cases and processes.
  • Phase 4: Fatal fatigue. Inundated with communications, bombarded with irrelevant content, and tired of the newness of the medium, employees begin tuning out.
  • Phase 5: Revival and Rejuvenation. Maturation of the medium ushers an improved era of engagement

Where many of the Yammer type tools stall within organisations is the belief they can avoid some of the fundamentals processes within a business. ‘Just deploy it and let it grow’ or viral / organic adoption (or adaption) to work processes only go so far. Engagement plans are good but you need some basis steps such as:

1 – Review the organisations business strategy

2 – Look how the tool can assist the business strategy and create your own ‘collaboration / KM’ (or whatever you wish to call it) strategy and get it validated by the appropriate body

3 – Develop your content strategy (what goes where) which is clear and understood by the business

4 – Clearly articulate your roadmap for adoption (plan this – don’t just let it ‘happen’ although organic growth will be part of it

5 – Get use cases that support the overall business strategy and work with those groups on how to get best use of the tool

6 – Build the case studies and use them as collateral as you move into areas of the business, in a controlled phased approach to adoption / adaption throughout the business, building champion and advocates as you develop.

7- Develop your KPI / metrics dashboard that ties in with key sponsors / stakeholder initiatives

Employees don’t like their social intranet, study says

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http://www.ragan.com/InternalCommunications/Articles/Employees_dont_like_their_social_intranets_study_s_46552.aspx

I think we are now starting to see the issues companies have faced with ‘The rush to social’ or the social silo.

Every new medium or technology goes through a life cycle. Social intranets (however one defines these) will be no different. It’s part of the phases of this disruptive technology life cycle.

I suspect many of the social intranet are at an early stage of the cycle. One of the main issues I have found is to few companies have enough evidence why they should replace some core needs which I suspect the current intranet has not addressed. For many in the workforce, collaboration often means more work, not less work. Connectivity results in more interactions, some less meaningful than others. Increase in effort often shifts the status quo resulting in internal resistance.

There must also be some choice in the user experience.
Time and time, people want to use the tool they are most comfortable with. For example, activity streams make sense for some employees who are used to high frequency, always on, information flows. However, those accustomed to using email as a task list and structured approach to filing information will find discomfort with activity streams.

Companies that were early adopters of social tools have already begun to see signs of duplication of effort and worries over the governance model. Some of the issues being raised are familiar concerns with early intranet developments of the 90s.

The social intranets that receive harsh criticism from many users will look to blame intranet maangers or IT. But if you don’t have sound governance, you are going nowhere fast. The most important element for an effective governance model – nay the intranet as a whole – is the strength and level of engagement of the end owners. People are the primary catalyst of intranet success.

If the governance is in place, then valued, relevant content can’t help but flow from it. It won’t happen overnight, and does require oversight and enforcement, and an effective user experience to support it, but strong content will surge from the right team (and governance model).

 

A realistic perspective on enterprise activity streams

702From ‘Snippets’

The multiple personality of enterprise activity streams

Why do we follow people on activity stream sites like Facebook…cause we like hearing what they are up to…further to this we can converse with them…and even ask questions and share with people.

Most of the time we know what we are in for…we get updates about their life: experiences, they share articles, pictures, etc…

So what about enterprise activity streams?

I don’t quite think we know what we are in for

ie. we are gonna get updates about their daily work that may pollute our streams

Let me explain…

I’m John (Collaboration Lead)

I follow Jason (Project Manager)

I follow Jason as he shares great articles on managing complex projects, and I also follow him to hear about his experiences.

But that’s just one dimension of what Jason posts about…

Jason’s posts are not just sharing and reflective, he also posts about the here and now of his work. He is a member of many online groups where they communicate about their tasks, and all these posts land in my activity stream. He @mentions alot with other people about things that are very detailed to his task at hand…he is, as we say “working out loud”.

Now I know this is what it’s meant to be about ie. ambient awareness (I know what Jason is up to)…but after a while the intricacies of his work don’t interest me, and become noise in my activity stream.

So I want to follow Jason, the guy who shares research and writes reflective posts on experiences…but I don’t want to follow Jason, the guy who does his “to and fro” work in the activity stream.

What do you think?

708A few months ago I saw a job advertisement for a ‘Global Director of Internal Communications and Intranet. Looking through the skills needed they were entirely related to ‘internal communications’ and no specific intranet skill was listed as a requirement (you may have a lengthy debate around what ‘intranet skills’ would be but that is for another day).

Here lies the essential issue for intranet managers / folk within most organisations. To advance, running an intranet is not sufficient. They would need to widen their skill sets to achieve progression, to a far greater extent that someone coming from an internal communications or maybe another traditional business support service such as IT or HR/People related background. Currently the value and important of the intranet environment doesn’t warrant advancement to senior levels despite some of the evidence or trends coming from Jane McConnell’s fine work.

I’m old enough to remember when organisations didn’t have large IT and Personnel / HR departments (part of the ‘big hat, no cattle’ journey through corporate life). But through certification, accreditation, organising bodies / institutes and no doubt some value to the business, these areas have grown in seniority and importance to organisations.

I fear in the intranet world people now have to look at where best they can extend their career by branching out further into other areas, whether it is IT, Communications, Marketing, Learning & Capabilities or maybe some other area of expertise that will arrive as companies begin to evolve  and adapt to the world of digital, social and beyond. But I guess constant evolution has been part of the intranet managers skillset.