Last month I posted a little poll on which 2022 post deserved a follow up this January. The voters have spoken: user adoption. In the original post, I gave some practical (snack based) tips on increasing user adoption, so this one will focus more on the background of WHY user adoption is so important and the stages of the user journey, as well as strategy on driving adoption from customer, product and change management lenses.
If you are like most digital asset managers, you need to influence without authority (Harvard Business School) by encouraging adoption of your new or existing DAM with users who are not your direct reports. In my career, I have served various departments, while supporting other teams who would be key DAM allies. Backing up the desire for users to start fully using what your DAM has to offer, learning the hows and whys of adoption can be a helpful education for us digital asset professionals.
Adoption 101
So, what is adoption? There are several definitions, but I like this explanation
Product adoption is the opposite of churn. It’s when users stop looking for alternate solutions and invest in a product to help them reach their goals.
When it comes to DAM, your users probably have alternate solutions. To you, maybe they are inferior - the Box, the desktop, the google image search for your company logo. Inferior, maybe. But they are working in some capacity and it is up to you to make the DAM the replacement that helps them reach their goals.
5 stages of adoption
Like any product, a digital asset management platform needs to go through the traditional 5 customer adoption stages: awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption.
Awareness can be when users first learn about a new DAM platform being built - this stage can be fraught with anxiety over how this system will change workflows or even staffing. Some will show interest and ask questions of the implementation team. Once the project has progressed (although ideally as early as possible), users can evaluate the DAM to see how it can impact their work as well as that of the overall organization. During a trial, more questions will arise - even if you think you’ve considered every angle - as more users bring real world usecases into your carefully considered plans. Then finally adoption (or possibly, and heartbreakingly, rejection) of the digital asset management system.
Types of Adoptors
Want another group of 5? How about the five types of adopter?
Innovators
Early Adopters
Early Majority
Late Majority
Laggards
Get to know your users early in the process - whether through the content audit, product scoping discussions or other regular collaboration - to discover who might fit (mostly) into these categories.
Try not to be judgmental or dismissive of those who are less excited about the new system. Laggards have reasons for holding back; this might not be their first time handling the changes required in a digital asset management implementation and maybe it was very disruptive or disappointing last time. Not your fault, but your problem.
Similarly, innovators may be extremely excited as the project launches but lose patience as testing or scope expands into an area they didn’t expect. Every user has the potential to fit into one of these categories based on the project preparation, respect shown and training you provide.
Drive user adoption
How can you encourage more adoption and convert that adoption into advocacy for the DAM?
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Mark Twain
To me that means you have to back up whatever influence you have with the truth. If you believe the new system will make the users’ jobs more pleasurable and functional, then you need to show them how. Change management is complicated, because people are complicated. As the face of change, you will only be influential if you can show how this change is worth the disruption.
I like this diagram because the adoption model really is a cycle of continuous improvement.
That cycle is how you make DAM users into ambassadors for your product. Responding to feedback, adjusting metadata, expanding asset classes, relieving pain points, communicating changes, celebrating successes and training on demand - all ways to increase adoption and improve the success of the DAM implementation.
By valuing the role of the user, you will have formed an advocate who will not only use the DAM to improve their daily assignments but share the experience with their team, their managers and other stakeholders who are going to determine if your DAM is a continuously improving platform for your organization. The movement from platform to process, from tool to requirement, from wanted to needed relies on advocates like these colleagues or clients who you encouraged. User adoption success stories are really collaboration success stories, and by learning more about how and why users fully adopt a DAM, I hope this helps the success of your project too.