P2P

41 I L T A N E T . O R G O rganizations spend millions of dollars per year on designing and implementing software systems in hopes of achieving process efficiencies and gaining competitive advantage. But software that is not adopted results in costly waste. The technology industry is replete with war stories of system implementations that turned into shelfware. There is even a book, "Software Runaways: Monumental Software Disasters," that memorializes some of the most captivating stories of software implementations gone bad. System implementations that fall flat often do so because engineers and project managers spend short shrift on the human aspects of system design and implementation. They tend to be captivated by whizbang features and functions, but shiny and seductive features may hold little meaning to the working professional. Being facile with the human and business components of systems management is essential to driving technology adoption and deriving the value we seek from our investments in both time and money. When I first started in the technology industry over 30 years ago, I decided to learn project management so I could become facile with designing and implementing systems. I was trained that all projects are assessed against scope, schedule, and budget—the three legs of the "Iron Triangle." The rule was that if I delivered a project on scope, ahead of schedule, and under budget then they would consider my project be to be successful—at least that is what the PMBOK (Project Management Book of Knowledge) advised. I was enamored by technical wizardry. I thought that if I nailed the technology, success would be certain. My life experience has taught me otherwise. Eventually, I learned about the concepts of failed successes and successful failures. I know what I just said may sound like word soup, but let me explain. A failed success is a project that met its scope, schedule, and budget criteria but the customer winds up hating the project manager. On the other hand, a successful failure is a project that blew through its budget and schedule, but the customer loves the project manager and will refer them to their friends. Ironically, I once received an award for a successful failure because my customer knew I gave it my all despite the project being canceled due to schedule overruns. Today, when someone asks me what the most important variable in the Iron Triangle is—whether it is scope, schedule, or budget—I tell them that the most important variable is people. They should always come first because if your customers hate you, it does not matter how well you perform on the other variables. The best way to connecting with our customer is through the art of conversation, primarily listening and ensuring their voice is heard and understood. I wondered if the secret to driving technology adoption could be as simple as putting the people first. To reify my understanding of the matter, I started reading everything I could on system adoption. I found the area to be nuanced and complex. I came across the Technology Adoption Lifecycle that describes how new products are accepted by and proliferate through markets. The Technology Adoption Lifecycle divides markets into segments—innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. The innovators are the ones who always want to be on the leading edge. They are tolerant of software bugs and other shortcomings. They driving need is to have the newest gadget. On the other side of the equation, the laggards are those people who still have flip phones. Their driving concern is price and convenience. The Technology Adoption Model was invented, Everett Rodgers, back in the early 1960's. It is interesting to note that the model was not invented by a particle physicist or engineering type. Nope. Everett Rodgers was a professor of communication studies. He had radically different

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