Avoiding Launch Failure: How to Maximize End User Adoption of SPM Solution Deployments

marci_geisler

 

Successfully launching a new Sales Performance Management program requires more than just building a solution that works – you need to ensure your deployment is user friendly, widely adopted, and becomes part of your sales team’s DNA. At Intangent, we often see the mplementations of new SPM solutions come up against the same challenges when it comes to end user adoption. 

 

Understanding how to maximize end-user adoption comes from the careful collection of requirements from the right group of stakeholders. Typically, these requirements are collected from HR, Finance, IT, and the Executive Branch. From there, the project scope is built out taking into consideration the known requirements and the resource constraints – but in this process your sales team is often overlooked. This is either from a systemic ‘out of sight out of mind” mentality or because of fear of project derailment due to big vocal personalities within the sales team.

 

Sales and Sales Management teams have limited time to learn new tools, with high expectations that any new processes ‘just work’. For this group, first impressions matter, and since they tend to have a large megaphone, their feedback and adoption of any solution is critical for launch success with respect to the rest of the organization. As part of your implementation process you need to identify change agents within this group that can champion your solution to the rest of the team. These tend to be the more vocal individuals who are excited to use new tools, believe in data driven decision making, and have openly raised concerns about the status quo in the past. Providing these individuals with an opportunity to share their needs will help your project team ensure they are gathering the right requirements and carefully set expectations for launch.

 

Communication and training are essential pieces of a successful launch – you need to design a communication plan that builds excitement at the beginning of the project, outlines expectations and provides an overview of the implementation and its benefits. A month prior to launch, the plan should reiterate expectations, advise on launch timing, provide transition notes and training plans. A good practice to consider is providing early access to your previously identified change agents – this will help build excitement and catch any coverage gaps before the solution is widely available.

 

To ensure launch success, monitoring usage post launch is essential. You need to look at login statistics and reports to see where adoption is lagging or dropping off. Involving your sales leadership will give you valuable feedback and help assess concerns and value. Conducting surveys amongst your end users will determine demographics, usage, functionality, challenges and collecting recommendations will help understand the business outcomes and build a roadmap for solution support.

 

If you are considering a new application deployment, a sales program change, or are planning the future of Sales Performance Management at your organization, generating buy-in from your sales force is essential to your solution’s success. By involving them early and often you can turn what could be your largest program critic into your biggest SPM advocate.

 

Intangent hosted a 30 minute webinar on these best practices for maximizing end user adoption. We have shared the slides from that webinar below, and you can click here to watch the recorded webinar. We would love to discuss the topic further, so don't hesitate to reach out to us today if you have additional questions.