Digital White Papers

34 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Practical Tips on Staying Practical in an Innovation Culture concept are different beasts, and may not touch enough of or get to the right end users. A so launch means you gird your loins and start showing your new tool, solution, technology or process to unsuspecting end users. The purpose is to give a limited number of your professional resources a brief overview and demonstration of your new tool so that you can gather initial, spontaneous reactions. These are gold, because they help you cra the final rollout communications and allow you to get ahead of (inevitable) negativity. You will hear and discover all sorts of issues and use cases your team had not previously considered. Here are some things to consider regarding the so launch: » The so launch happens post-pilot and pre-rollout. » Opportunities for so launch interactions: » Grab your laptop and "drop by" a few offices. » At the end of existing meetings, use a casual approach such as "Before you go, can I show you something we're working on?" or "I'd love to get your thoughts on this new thing we're developing." » Avoid practice group meetings! Your soft launch tour is mostly 1:1 meetings rather than a pile-on opportunity. » Keep the interactions casual. » All team members should be able to dra, edit and review communications right down to ensuring everyone can "send-as" from a central mailbox. » Similarly, everyone should be able to post awareness messages publicly, and pull and interpret metrics and reports. » Agile teams can support day-to-day operations, whether in a pilot or BAU. This might include troubleshooting basic technology issues and managing questions. (You will need a specialist, of course, for more technical issues). » Perhaps most importantly, an agile team should feel empowered and permissioned to interact with anyone in the organization on behalf of a project. This might include presenting at practice group meetings, explaining a report to an executive, meeting a practice group leader or helping organize training schedules. A team that can work together seamlessly with flexibility and agile thinking will make innovation projects move faster with fewer bolenecks. The Soft Launch: Your Secret to Gathering Actionable Intelligence Pilots, proofs of concept and rollout communications all have their place, but nothing takes the place of a so launch. Pilot users are a special lot – many volunteered or were volun-told because of their skills and interests; in other words, they are a lile biased. Proofs of A team that can work together seamlessly with flexibility and agile thinking will make innovation projects move faster with fewer bottlenecks.

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