Technology and Process Change.

First, we have to agree on what AI is. Then, we can help employees adopt it.

In March, tech gurus including Steve Wosniak and Elon Musk signed an open letter calling for a pause in AI development, citing “human-competitive intelligence (that might) post profound risks to society and humanity.”

More recently, Geoffrey Hinton, hailed as the godfather of AI, quit Google so he could air his concerns independently. In a 2021 commencement address, Hinton said, “I believe that the rapid progress of AI is going to transform society in ways we do not fully understand and not all of the effects are going to be good.” For Hinton, the downsides seem to outweigh the benefits, like improvements in healthcare. The risks he envisions range from job elimination to lethal autonomous weapons. He also says AI might create a world where we will “not be able to know what is true anymore.”

Speaking of misinformation…these stories made it to the table at The View, where hosts weighed in. They talked about the pros and cons of AI, but couldn’t even agree on what AI is. Notably, Whoopi Goldberg said that she defines AI as something “sentient” that “can think for itself.”

Whoa. I’m not saying a robot boyfriend is not in my future, but sentience is NOT what the scientists are talking about. There’s a big difference between smart or fast or autonomous and self-aware.

The lesson for those of us who help the workforce deal with change is this: AI is scary to some people, and possibly for the wrong reasons.

Let’s say your organization is adopting AI to gain efficiencies, reduce costs, or deliver better customer value. How should you approach employees about it?

1. Mind your language.

Maybe don’t call it “artificial intelligence.” I’m not suggesting lying to people; just the opposite. Explain exactly what the new technology will do.

The term “AI” can be triggering. Moreover, “AI” is too broad a term to be useful when talking to employees. AI is a huge category; labeling a new tool “AI” gives very little information to the people who are desperate to know how it’s going to change their work lives.

Think of it this way — will your AI solution detect and prevent dangers in the workplace? Say that! Call it Safety Software. Is AI going to supply customer service agents with better, faster answers to help customers? Say that! Call it Your Customer Service Assistant.

2. Get real.

Approaching any change, what do employees want to know? They want to know how it will affect them – their job responsibilities, their daily tasks, their compensation, their team performance, and their job security.

Get ahead of the resistance by answering questions honestly and thoroughly. Yes, even the bad news. If your new AI… sorry, Customer Service Assistant…will eliminate jobs, be up-front about it.

Most important: document and communicate the day-to-day work that will be different after implementation.

If you don’t tell people the story, they will fill the gap with their own.

3. Reframe AI.

Is the anxiety warranted? Maybe some of it. But AI can also benefit workers — sometimes in big ways. In fact, some employees have already adopted the positive mindset you’re hoping for. A Pew Research study shows 37% of workers are “purely excited” about AI.

And there’s plenty of evidence to back their enthusiasm. AI solutions, like tech before it, can take mundane, focus-intensive tasks off employees’ plates, freeing them up for more analytical and creative work.

One real-world study showed that AI offered big benefits for inexperienced or less-skilled workers by raising the quality of their work and productivity to be on par with their best-performing colleagues.

Armed with facts, examples, and those 37% already excited about it (your “early adopters”), you can – with authenticity — frame your AI adoption as a win-win.

When we need to worry about killer robots, we’ll worry about killer robots. In the present day, lead the change by taking these three steps. You can definitely make AI work for both your bottom line and your human workforce.

A global retailer once hired me to help install PeopleSoft—it was their 3rd attempt. Their pain is not uncommon. Enterprise resource planning, or ERP, is a vital management tool, but its implementation can often be a nightmare.

For example, the average cost of an ERP implementation is $4.5 million or 6% of revenue. The average time to implement is 1-3 years. (!) With these painful stats in mind, it makes sense the Wall Street Journal once described SAP implementation as a “corporate root canal.”

Here are five questions you need to ask and answer before implementing an ERP.

1. Who is on the team? The most common mistake is to assign responsibility to IT and whichever department will use the system the most. Those two silos typically don’t appreciate the implications of their decisions on the groups who will input, maintain or receive outputs from the system. This can scuttle your ERP. Instead, get a cross-section of expertise on your team. Every group interacting with the system should be there.
   

   Your ERP team should be made of your best employees—their decisions will impact how this system (and your business) will run for years.

2. What one behavior drives the business case? If your team is serious about the business case, they must articulate what they need people to do in clear, tactical terms. Then focus, focus, focus; focus relentlessly on that. An IT firm spent millions on enterprise resource planning to help them make money on license renewals. The one activity they needed most from their sales team was to call clients the month before their contracts expired. Because they didn’t make that specific request, sales people didn’t do it consistently. The firm could not hit the business case; it was wholly based on “license renewals”—a lovely concept that no one acted upon.
3. How are we managing first impressions of the system? Shteingart, Neiman & Lowenstein’s 2013 research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, shows that “first experience has a disproportionately large effect on subsequent actions,” something they labeled “outcome primacy.” In other words, first impressions matter. So the first employees who touch the system—starting with requirements definition—had better be wowed. Only someone in marketing should be giving the project a name. And if user acceptance testing sucks, stop implementation. As Kahneman and Tversky found, we feel the pain of loss more acutely than the pleasure of gain. We compulsively avoid anything that smacks of failure. Manage the employee experience as rigorously as you manage the project itself.
4. Who will be our first users? In the 1960s, Everett Rogers published a book called the Diffusion of Innovations, which analyzed why certain ideas and products capture the public’s imagination. He mapped those who adopt the idea against a bell curve, showing that 3.5% of the target group are eager early adopters, and 13.5% are positively predisposed to change. You can use this to create momentum. If you want your ERP to look like a winner, find the early adopters. Enlist the 3.5% for system test, and the 13.5% for UAT. Pilot with these employees intentionally. They’ll make the system seem safe and successful to everyone else.
5. How are we ensuring the system is employee-centric? Employees don’t think about the system. They think about their jobs. Training must be about how to use the system in the context of their jobs. What will they do, day to day? Where will new tasks and handoffs take place? Where are the data and tools they relied upon—which will stay and which will be replaced?

Generic ERP training is a waste of time and money. Train people to do their jobs, not use a system.

Enterprise resource planning is one of the most invasive and expensive undertakings your company will ever face – even if it’s “cloud-based” and “intuitive.” If you get these five things right, you’re ahead of the game and on your way to a return on your investment.

Tasha Leverette was sitting in the drive-through of her neighborhood Starbucks in Atlanta, jonesing for her usual drink. They told her they couldn’t make it; they didn’t have any peach juice. So she drove to another store. And another. And another.

“I said to them, ‘This is the Peach State, right?’ … It’s surprising because Starbucks always seems like it has anything and everything you need.”

Across the country, customers and baristas are taking to social media to bemoan not only shortages of key ingredients for popular Starbucks drinks, like peach and guava juices, but also a lack of iced and cold-brew coffee, breakfast foods and cake pops, and even cups, lids and straws.

A video on TikTok this week featured what appeared to be a group of employees screaming in frustration over a list of ingredients that the shop had run out of—including sweet cream, white mocha, mango dragon fruit and “every food item.” The caption also said they were low on cold brew and the “will to live.”

Starbucks is hardly the only company struggling with supply issues. Earlier this spring, ketchup packets became hotter than GameStop stock. Automakers have slowed production because there are not enough computer chips for their vehicles. And homeowners are waiting weeks, if not months, for major kitchen appliances.

Starbucks, Flush With Customers, Is Running Low on Ingredients, New York Times

It’s not just Starbucks. From computer chips to ketchup packets, business bounce-back has been stalled by supply chain issues.

Phil Knight, the legendary founder of Nike, said “supply and demand is always the root problem in business.” Weak demand for a product is a bitter pill for any company to swallow. But inability to meet booming demand based on supply problems is maddening.

Coronavirus has highlighted just how fragile our supply chain has become.

In some cases, the chain is very complex. Even seemingly basic products like disinfectants, not to mention higher-end products like automobiles, can have many links in the chain of component ingredients or parts. Other times, there are too few links. For example, grocery stores may not able to meet the consumer demand for meat because there are relatively few animal processing plants. Production disruption at only a handful of major plants can leave meat displays nearly empty.

A global pandemic is a black swan event, but large-scale supply disruptions are becoming more common due to events like natural disasters, changing economic policies, and geopolitical disruption. Managing risk differently is a must. Tactics include:

• Identifying alternative sources of origins of component materials
• Diversifying suppliers
• Moving to nearshore or even onshore suppliers.

New solutions often mean new processes and digital technologies, and they always require people to perform differently. Change management—the people-centered interventions—are crucial.

The Case for Change Management

Transformation

Coronavirus is a trigger event for supply chain transformation and transformation is complex. Digital technologies like analytics and artificial intelligence are part of the solution. New processes are part of the solution. Employee behavior change is part of the solution.

In the face of a big, complex change, employees might be confused and fearful—they might disengage or actively resist the new way of working. But you need that behavioral system to work just as well as your processes and technology. Managing this change is crucial.

Messages must be clear and concise in times of complex change. We help clients boil down their message to four words—one to describe the problem, the solution, the approach, and the result. Together, the four words anchor the message. Leaders and other advocates need only remember these four words to ensure a consistent message. To make each communication compelling, add supporting details that are relevant to the audience.

To guide the organization through a change you need to understand who is impacted and how.

Any change management novice knows how to identify stakeholders. We typically define them by team or department and design custom communications, training, and performance support for each group. But this type of analysis is incomplete. Teams and individuals should be categorized based on their disposition to change. Some stakeholders emerge as early adopters, who are pre-disposed to embracing new concepts. They make the change safe for the next segment of adopters: the early majority. The early majority makes the change feel like “this is how we’ve always done business” to yet another segment of the population: the late majority. Identifying, enlisting, and deploying the right people creates a bandwagon effect, until you have the momentum you need to engage the entire organization.

Behaviors, Habits, and Culture

Peter Drucker said “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It’s true. Results are marginal if your supply chain strategy doesn’t fit your culture.

How do we know whether a strategy aligns with culture? The sum of organizational habits form a culture. Habits are regularly repeated behaviors. We have to identify the behaviors that enable the desired business outcomes, and then decide whether those behaviors do or could align with the dominant culture. New behaviors can become part of the culture if they turn into habits.

Assess where you are today vs. where you need to be.

• Identify the behaviors that drive the to-be state.
• Consider what triggers or prompts each behavior.
• Make sure there is a positive consequence to reinforce the behavior.
• Ensure that employees have the ability to execute the behavior.
• Develop a plan to practice the behaviors and start creating habits.

Reinforcement

We’ve heard the phrase “What gets measured gets rewarded, and what gets rewarded gets done.” Consider this when engineering behavior change. Are employees rewarded for managing risk? Probably not—at least not yet. Cost control or cost reduction has typically been king in the decades-long quest for efficiency. But performance ratings or bonuses tied to cost savings may not reinforce risk management behavior. It’s pretty basic: leaders must ensure that KPIs and employee reward structures match the business outcomes they want.

Conclusion

The global pandemic and other natural disasters may be changing the business landscape for good. But one thing that will never change is our need for a venti caramel latte with an extra shot. Business leaders need to get it together —we have no choice but to change supply chains to be more nimble. Mastering the change might  be the difference between good and great outcomes.

Sources

https://25iq.com/2018/01/27/lessons-from-phil-knight-about-business-and-being-an-entrepreneur/

https://hbr.org/2020/03/coronavirus-is-a-wake-up-call-for-supply-chain-management

https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/companies-executives/article/21956400/are-your-supply-chain-strategies-and-reward-structures-aligned

Fogg, B.J. Tiny Habits,

Rogers, Everett. Diffusion of Innovations

Everyone has heard of Sully Sullenberger, the hero who landed US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson. At the time, he was serving as chairman of a pilots’ association safety committee. Some might say it was luck such a pilot was at the controls when a flock of birds struck Flight 1549. Sully said the many hours of training all pilots receive allowed him to assess the situation and make a timely adjustment.

In stressful, highly complex situations, like flying a plane, it is easy to see the value of training. What we might underappreciate, is the type of training pilots receive.

Picture this scenario: It’s a cloudy winter evening in San Diego, 1977. A plane is taxiing to the runway. All the pre-flight checks appear to be in order. The flight engineer has given the go-ahead to take off. As the plane accelerates down the runway, it begins to pitch upward and lift off the ground before reaching the standard takeoff speed. It’s an odd situation, but not alarming. Unfortunately, it immediately gets worse. The nose of the plane continues to rise while adjustments to the control stick do nothing. It’s a dire situation that requires immediate reaction to avoid a crash.

Captain Jack McMahon knew what to do in this situation. On that evening in San Diego, Delta Flight 1080 was in trouble. With the nose up and airspeed dropping, the plane was critically close to stalling and crashing. When none of the standard fixes stopped the climb, Captain Jack masterfully adjusted his throttles to take advantage of a feature his plane. The engines were arranged so that the wing engines point slightly down, their thrust making the plane pitch up slightly. The tail engine, however, is pointed slightly up. The thrust from the tail engine makes the plane pitch slightly down. By decreasing power to the wing engines and increasing power to the tail engine, he was able to bring the nose down and avoid a stall. More creative problem solving enabled the plane to make a safe emergency landing in Los Angeles. An investigation soon identified the problem was a tail stabilizer stuck in the up position, constantly trying to lift the nose of the plane. Investigators would note that comprehensive training played a critical role in preventing a crash that day.

So what is it about pilot training that makes them so good in a crisis? It is true they spend many hours in training, but it is not just the amount of training that is important. The type of training, and the types of scenarios they practice are just as important. They train for situations where everything seems to be going wrong. The airline industry creates moments of controlled failure in training, to the benefit of pilots and passengers.

What is controlled failure and why is it important? When we design courses, it is common to create scenarios trainees will encounter in real life. In controlled failure scenarios, trainees are set up for trouble, allowing them to solve the problem, learn, and grow. Using only predictable scenarios geared for simple wins gives learners early successes, but it might not prepare them for real-world performance.

The real world doesn’t always give us easy scenarios and quick wins. In The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien captures a more common new hire’s experience: “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.” In any job, issues come up force employees to think on their feet. This is where controlled failure training is important. By mixing difficult scenarios with easy ones, we build both small wins and adaptability into a training course. The result is employees who have the confidence to manage any real-life situation that comes along.

If captains Sully and Jack had practiced only takeoffs and landings in normal conditions, they would have been ill-prepared to handle the situations that threatened the lives of their passengers. The results might have been disastrous. Controlled failure pilot training probably saved many lives.

Most of the training we design doesn’t prepare people for life or death situations. But controlled failure makes for a workforce ready to adapt to difficult situations and keep your business in the air.

You need new technology and processes. You know how you want your organization to use them. So you choose a system and start designing the way you want to do business in the future. What’s wrong with that?

You’re wasting time and money.

Organizations are naturally impatient to describe and document their futures. But it’s sometimes hard to convince them to carefully document where they are right now. I mean, everyone knows what you do now. Isn’t it a waste of time?

No. You must carefully document the current state—of your systems, processes, and work.

Think of it this way. Planning to implement a new system is like planning a road trip. Typically, you have a clear start and end point; with that information you can pick the route, identify sites to hit along the way, and estimate the cost of gas, snacks, and hotel stays. But what if you didn’t know your start location? Now you don’t know any of your routes, what supplies you might need, or even how long it will take to get to your destination.

You might be thinking, this is silly. Of course you know where to start your road trip; it’s right where you’re sitting! And you’d be right, except on this particular trip, you’re not the only one on the road. You’re traveling with everyone in your organization; you all have to end up in the same place. Say everyone agrees to meet at the Starbucks parking lot, but no one clarifies which one; now the wheels are falling off, and you haven’t even left yet. You need to get in touch with everyone, figure out where they are, and tell them where to go…you’re spending time, and maybe money, rounding everyone up. And when you’re finally together, everyone might not agree to follow your original plan.

Sounds pointlessly exhausting, right? Well it’s nothing compared to a system implementation without a properly documented current state.

Documenting the current state isn’t just about avoiding pitfalls on the road. There are significant advantages as well.

Knowing the “as-is” enables you to pick or design the system properly, analyze the impacts, and design employee engagement and good training.

So what does it take?

• Leadership must align on where the organization stands. What are the current assets and liabilities, and what are the obstacles to success? To figure that out, establish a common vocabulary and confirm current workflows. This identifies the current dependencies and interfaces to maintain, and illuminates gaps the new system must fill if you want to reach your goals.
• Concurrently, identify repetitive processes and cut down on customization where it’s not necessary. Get the right amount of technology to reach your goals, don’t pay for fancy features you don’t need!
• Speaking choosing technology, make sure all decision-makers understand something: the system is NOT the destination; it is the car. This is important. Technology is a tool that helps you achieve the business outcomes you want. Make sure you pick the right tool for the job.
• After identifying your start and end locations and selecting your vehicle, you’re ready to plot a course. This includes assessing the gaps between current and future states and conducting an impact analysis. Studying who is impacted and how gives you a blueprint for the employee transition—engagement activities, communications, and training. In other words, you’ll deliver the right solutions for the right people at the right times. (Check out our three key principles of organization change: familiar, controlled, and successful.)

Documenting your current state is a critical investment in the success of your implementation. Give it the time and effort it needs, and your journey to those business outcomes will be a lot more rewarding.

Phil Knight, the legendary founder of Nike, said “supply and demand is always the root problem in business.” Weak demand for a product is a bitter pill for any company to swallow. Inability to meet demand based on supply challenges is maddening.

Coronavirus has highlighted just how fragile our supply chain has become. In some cases, the chain is very complex. Even seemingly basic products like disinfectants, not to mention higher-end products like automobiles, can have many links in the chain of component ingredients or parts. Other times, there are too few links. For example, grocery stores may not able to meet the consumer demand for meat because there are relatively few animal processing plants. Production disruption at only a handful of major plants can leave meat displays nearly empty.

A global pandemic is a black swan event, but large-scale supply disruptions are becoming more common due to events like natural disasters, changing economic policies, and geopolitical disruption. Managing risk differently is a must. Tactics include:

• Identifying alternative sources of origins of component materials
• Diversifying suppliers
• Moving to nearshore or even onshore suppliers.

New solutions often mean new processes and digital technologies, and they always require people to perform differently. Change management – the people-centered solution – is crucial.

The Case for Change Management

Transformation

Coronavirus is a trigger event for supply chain transformation and transformation is complex. Digital technologies like analytics and artificial intelligence are part of the solution. New processes are part of the solution. Employee behavior change is part of the solution.

In the face of a big, complex change, employees might be confused and fearful – they might disengage or actively resist the new way of working. But you need that behavioral system to work just as well as your processes and technology. Managing this change is crucial.

Messages must be clear and concise in times of complex change. We help clients boil down their message to four words – one to describe the problem, the solution, the approach, and the result. Together, the four words anchor the message. Leaders and other advocates need only remember these four words to ensure a consistent message. To make each communication compelling, add supporting details that are relevant to the audience.

To guide the organization through a change you need to understand who is impacted and how. Any change management novice knows how to identify stakeholders. We typically define them by team or department and design custom communications, training, and performance support for each group. But this type of analysis is incomplete. Teams and individuals should be categorized based on their disposition to change. Some stakeholders emerge as early adopters, who are pre-disposed to embracing new concepts. They make the change safe for the next segment of adopters: the early majority. The early majority makes the change feel like “this is how we’ve always done business” to yet another segment of the population: the late majority. Identifying, enlisting, and deploying the right people creates a bandwagon effect, until you have the momentum you need to engage the entire organization.

Behaviors, Habits, and Culture

Peter Drucker said “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It’s true. Results are marginal if your supply chain strategy doesn’t fit your culture.

How do we know whether a strategy aligns with culture? The sum of organizational habits form a culture. Habits are regularly repeated behaviors. We have to identify the behaviors that enable the desired business outcomes, and then decide whether those behaviors do or could align with the dominant culture. New behaviors can become part of the culture if they turn into habits.

Assess where you are today vs. where you need to be.

• Identify the behaviors that drive the to-be state.
• Consider what triggers or prompts each behavior.
• Make sure there is a positive consequence to reinforce the behavior.
• Ensure that employees have the ability to execute the behavior.
• Develop a plan to practice the behaviors and start creating habits.

Reinforcement

We’ve heard the phrase “What gets measured gets rewarded, and what gets rewarded gets done.” Consider this when engineering behavior change. Are employees rewarded for managing risk? Probably not — at least not yet. Cost control or cost reduction has typically been king in the decades-long quest for efficiency. But performance ratings or bonuses tied to cost savings may not reinforce risk management behavior. It’s pretty basic: leaders must ensure that KPIs and employee reward structures match the business outcomes they want.

Conclusion

The global pandemic and other natural disasters may be changing the business landscape for good. However, the age-old problem of supply and demand remains. Business leaders have no choice but to change their supply chain strategy to be more nimble, more planful, and avoid risk. Mastering the change to people’s performance may be the difference between good and great outcomes.

Sources

• https://25iq.com/2018/01/27/lessons-from-phil-knight-about-business-and-being-an-entrepreneur/
• https://hbr.org/2020/03/coronavirus-is-a-wake-up-call-for-supply-chain-management
• https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/companies-executives/article/21956400/are-your-supply-chain-strategies-and-reward-structures-aligned
• Fogg, B.J. Tiny Habits,
• Rogers, Everett. Diffusion of Innovations

Sorry, I was on mute. Can you hear me? Great, let’s get started.

Virtual meetings are nothing new, but in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are the only way many of us can meet. Which means all the annoying, inefficient, and counterproductive aspects of working together, while apart, are magnified.

When people are in a room together, there are subtle visual and auditory cues that manage the flow of conversation. Online, we lose so much of that information. We talk over each other. We start and stop talking abruptly. Some people just choose to clam up. Because we aren’t in the same room, we can’t point at things, huddle around the same flipchart to add our ideas, or pass out information and tools to use during the session. Our virtual meetings are often inefficient and just plain awkward.

Here are some tips to cure our virtual meeting woes.

HOSTS

Be the boss. One person should act as host of the meeting. Tell folks how it’s going to be and maintain those new norms. Virtual meetings are harder to get right, so they need more structure and a firmer hand. Before the meeting, make sure everyone has the information and technology to participate. After you share your screen and confirm that they see it, show everyone the participant list and take attendance. Show them the agenda and walk through it. Tell everyone that you will build in engagement – how you will be using the chat and other shared spaces to capture all of their input, facilitate good work, and make sure everyone has the summary and clear action items after the meeting.

Chat them up. Everyone should keep the chat window open and use it. Encourage participants to chat their comments or “raise their hands” on chat. Read those comments and stop from time to time to ask participants to speak. Notice who’s not speaking OR chatting; call on the quiet kid in the back of the room to give that person the floor for a minute. At the end of the call, invite participants to leave any final comments in the chat, then make sure you capture those in your meeting notes.

And promote a little chat anarchy. During our internal virtual meetings at Emerson, we do a lot of socializing on the chat – greeting each other, joking around, and posting shout-outs and celebration. Even if it’s not strictly on-topic, that’s ok! You should allow the kind of connection that normally happens as people gather in-person.

Use your words. Even if you’re on video, your facial expressions and gestures won’t land the same way as when you’re in-person. So add a layer of words. Make sure everyone knows where you are in the agenda, all the time. Ask them whether they can see what you think they’re seeing. You can’t point at something with your hand, so use your cursor and tell everyone where you are looking and which item you’re talking about. Pause at critical points to confirm that everyone is with you. Also, capture on screen and online, agreements, issues, comments, and next steps.

Think outside the screen. Consider structuring your work differently. For example, if you would normally ask small groups to put their heads together during an in-person session, chunk up your virtual meeting: a set-up, a break for small group work on the phone or email, and then a sharing session so groups can report out virtually. What might have been a continuous session in-person could be conducted in smaller sessions over a two-day period.

End on a high note. Use humor. Congratulate someone or celebrate a win. Switch to a grid or gallery view, so everyone can see all the faces on video. Ask participants to answer a fun question in the last few minutes. Do this often enough, and it becomes part of your culture.

PARTICIPANTS

Get ready to work. Arrive ahead of time and test your audio/video. Make sure you’re in a quiet place – no construction, family activity, or barking dogs. And just in case, MUTE when you’re not speaking. True Story: one of my virtual meetings was interrupted by a rooster crowing outside my colleague’s window! To be fair, it wasn’t his rooster. But do try to make sure your next call is rooster-free.

Don’t just join the meeting; be present. This is really hard, but don’t multi-task. Would you be texting or answering emails if you were in a small group in-person meeting? Probably not. Follow your host’s direction, so you don’t lose track of the conversation. And engage! Have mercy of your poor facilitator. Nothing’s worse than that dead silence when they ask for a response.

Be part of the solution. Are you frustrated with the meeting process or see an improvement? Don’t resign yourself to it— let your facilitator know, one on one. Your input can help virtual work evolve to serve your organization better.

Virtual meetings are here to stay especially after the COVID-19 crisis. But virtual work can evolve and change. Let’s resolve to be better at virtual tomorrow than we were yesterday.

Research on behavior and learning shows that the learning context matters. So, when users learn to use new technology, make it click. Put them in a realistic context. That means immersing them in the right setting and information, so they can imagine themselves doing business in the new way.

How do you make it real?

Scenarios. Training scenarios describe all the conditions under which people will practice using the new technology to do their jobs. This is a great opportunity to merge the things they already know with the elements of their to-be world.

Data. The data the user sees during a practice session or simulation should look as real as possible. Customer names, product names, services, sales data… all these should mimic live data. Resist the urge to get too creative by building whimsical data into the training program. It’s fun for us, but for the learner it’s more of a distraction than a delight.

Job Context. Yes, training should be developed by role, and roles combine to make jobs. But use any job information you can. If there are only a few jobs that perform a certain role in the organization, let the learner branch from one job’s version of training or another. Have instructors or coaches embellish training by discussing real issues, process hand-offs, and the other roles users will deal with on the job.

Wrapping realistic discussions around realistic training helps people make the mental leap to the new way of doing business.

A model workspace is as real as it gets.

The model workspace is a dedicated and supported space equipped with the same hardware and infrastructure as a real workspace – desks, tables, computers, printers, chairs, reference materials, and conference spaces. Participants use a training environment that mimics live production. The model workspace is staffed by project team members and – most importantly – change agents or super users from the stakeholder groups being trained.

Better? Have entire work teams use the model workspace all at once, so learners can rely on their peers and the people who will be there on Day One.

Even better? Use the actual workplace or space inside the same building.

Does it have to be an office? Nope! A plant floor, medical facility, or an employee’s home office can be made into a model workspace. Whatever the setting, you can simulate it.

Realism is not just a cherry on top of your training – it has real business impact. The more real you get, the better people learn, retain information, and perform with your new technology.

Most kids today have never seen an actual floppy disk. They know the icon means “save”. Over the years, where and how information is saved and accessed changed significantly. In the days of floppy disks (and writable CDs and thumb drives), working on a group project meant making several copies of the disk so each person had one. When anyone made a change on one copy, none of the others would update. The final days of work on the project were spent consolidating work into a single file. Even with email to share project pieces back and forth, one person had to consolidate everyone’s work.

When I entered the working world, tasks were very much like one big group project. Several employees would update deliverables and, in the end, it was consolidated into a single product for customers.

By 2009 processes changed. Instead of saving individual pieces of data locally, we used a centralized system. Software ensured formatted deliverables, we just entered the data. Clicking “save” on my PC, meant validated work was passed to a company owned data center 1700 miles away on the ninth floor of a building in Chicago. There was no need to compile work across all 2000 employees. It compiled as we worked! That data center had to cost a fortune, but it housed all our company’s data. The cost for rent, electricity, and 24/7 IT support was surely worth it, right?

By 2012 it was all gone. The risk and cost associated with keeping everything in-house were simply too high. A single natural disaster, malware, or IT screw up could wipe out all our work. The solution was the “cloud.” Not simply a data center, but the ethereal server farms somewhere in the world. It was impervious to being wiped out by a single event. It also freed up overhead for investment in new services. The way forward was obvious, but that didn’t mean there weren’t bumps along the way.

My experience in migrating to the cloud was as a passenger. However, I picked up considerations along the way.

3 tips cloud migration

Who are you going to call?

When saving work locally, it became part of my responsibility to format and secure the data quarterly. Being fairly technical, I didn’t have much trouble adhering to those standards. However, it was a challenge for all employees with various backgrounds and proficiencies to follow the same standards. If a piece of data wouldn’t merge properly when packaging the final product, it could be an exhausting investigation to figure out what happened and how to fix it.

In 2009, our internal IT department oversaw a large database stored at the data center. The software ensured proper formatting, so managers could trust consistent product delivery. If there was a problem, we all knew who to call: IT. If there was an issue packaging the final product, the managers and IT worked it out.

Once on the “cloud”, who to call became unclear. The IT professionals were on the vendor side now and they treated all client data the same. If there was a problem, who should help? The vendor? Only a privileged few had access to the vendor, and it was on their schedule, not ours.

When migrating to the cloud, it is important to consider the impact and roles the IT department will play post-migration. They may no longer hold the keys to the Porsche, but if the Porsche is in the shop, it’s good to have a spare mechanic or driver around to ensure the business runs smoothly.

Don’t forget apps

Running apps in the cloud became a big deal around 2017. Some benefits include no installs, centralized tech support, on the fly company-wide updates. On the downside, if apps are proprietary, should that IP be out there in the open world? Working for a data-driven company that used proprietary software, this became a concern.

The solution was to create an entirely new piece of lite, online software. The legacy software would do the grunt work, while the cloud-based software would handle the rapid data input. Of course, the two had to talk to each other, and it required more people to validate the data on the back end. The faster, more efficient “cloud” based solution, turned into an amalgamation of tools and responsibilities, causing confusion across the board.

Consider how all employees will interact with the software. Do apps even need to be in the cloud? When migrating to the cloud, think about the benefits of running software from the cloud or whether customizing an off the shelf solution is an option. Allow extra time and roll it out in stages to build on successes.

Anticipate employee adoption

When migrating to the cloud, the saved data location changes. Don’t overlook changes to the literal “save” button. The user interface can completely change and impact skillsets in unanticipated ways. For innovators and early adopters, this can be an exciting new world, but those fearful of change can potentially bring down the boat and delay full adoption of cloud-based systems and software.

The first time I went through a similar migration, we had trainers and champions communicating a consistent positive message. They advocated for the new tool and the benefits it would bring. They were quick to point out improvements and show us the software in advance. Our office looked forward to discussions about the new system as we lamented the challenges of the old software. This was due in large part to the solid communication channels established by our training department. The 12 trainers, leveraging the early adopters, spread tastes of the new system across 2000 geographically dispersed employees.

When go-live was close at hand, a massive training initiative was executed within a month of the go-live date. As can be expected with complex systems, there were last-minute delays, and the release of our new cloud-based infrastructure was pushed back. Fortunately, our training team anticipated this might happen, and post-go-live materials were repurposed for just in time training.

When migrating to the cloud, it’s about more than bits and software on a computer. Software stability and employee preparedness must meet at the same intersection. Be prepared for the human aspect of migration. Communicate a positive message through the early adopters and take advantage of flexible training delivery tools such as microlearning or just in time training to ensure a smooth transition.

Learning new technology platforms can be difficult, even for experienced techies. It’s even harder for those who aren’t tech-savvy. Many organizations are introducing low-code platforms as tools that are easily learned by everyone. Users are called “citizen developers,” people who may be required to build apps but do not have technical backgrounds. Companies use experiential learning approaches to teach these new platforms. You may be surprised to learn organizations use hacking as a learning tool.

What Is Experiential Learning?

Experiential learning is the process of learning through experience. Recently, I had the privilege of leading an experiential approach for learning Microsoft’s PowerApps platform. To prepare this client for PowerApps, we used a Hackathon. This is where hacking as a learning tool comes into play.

The Hackathon is a fast-paced, three-day, team-based, competitive event. In this event teams are formed, use cases are assigned, and teams huddle to design and build business-enabling applications. At the end of the event, teams pitch their solutions to a panel of judges like the television show Shark Tank. The judges determine the winner. Prizes are awarded.

During the Hackathon, participants enjoy music, food, snacks, and beverages, while learning new skills leveraging the low-code platform. Participants attempt to prove their ideas for new business applications in a friendly competition. This is an opportunity to accelerate innovation. Participants work through new concepts while broadening knowledge and a company’s internal network of new developers.

The Hackathon Process

• Hackathons are usually made up of 20 participants from across a company or business unit. Individuals with software development experience or anyone with a little computer savvy and desire to learn is welcome to participate. Participation is not limited to IT professionals.
• To start, participants attend the (one-day) App-in-a-Day Session (prior to the Hackathon). They get introductory training in PowerApps or whatever low code platform you’re introducing.
• Between the App-in-a-Day Session and the Hackathon, participants can use what they learned in the App-in-a-Day Session to “play” in the low code sandbox environment. They can explore other online training and information before the hackathon.
• The Hackathon itself usually runs for three days. At the end of the third day, the judging takes place.

Have you considered using hacking as a learning tool? Think about hosting a hackathon. It is a great way to parachute your employees into the wonderful world of low-code apps. Give it a try!