C4

The pursuit of the Enterprise 2.0 utopia promised, described and promoted across the web has attracted the committed, the curious and the cautious. As we move further up the adoption curve the amount of success as well as failures increase. This is the second in a short, three part series about the common mistakes in Enterprise 2.0 strategies and how to avoid them.

The three common mistakes of E20 are:
1. Technology treated as an ends rather than a means.
2. IT as leading the business rather than supporting the business.
3. Information architecture that is walled and gated when there is no good reason for it to be that way.

Let’s continue to take these one by one.
Mistake 2. IT as leading rather than supporting
It is undeniable that the Web and Enterprise 2.0 trends, memes and capabilities are largely technology driven. I have joked for some time that Web 2.0 represented the resurgence of the old time web master. The power to create cool new experiences on the web is squarely in the hands of the geeks, nerds and propeller heads. They became sexy again. But for all their sexiness, it is still often true that when IT leads, users buck, kick, grumble and complain. Top down mandates do not usually work in E20 experiments (e.g.”We’re killing email and just using Wikis now!”). This is exacerbated when a top down approach is taken by a part of the organization that is often seen by the rest of the organization as a supporting group. Strong CIOs who confuse IT project success with business success are the worst offenders. For all the success of Enterprise 2.0 BSTechnology, most of us still wrestle with our email inboxes, send and receive snail mail and engage in all too many (corded and desk-tethered) phone calls.
The reason why well intentioned but bewitched by BSTech CIOs are so toxic to the enterprise is because when IT has a habit of leading, the business problems take second seat to the technology. Solutions become the proverbial square peg that IT tries – through “training”, mandate and ridicule (“sigh! You’re having problems logging into your personalized, multi-faceted, self-service idea factory AGAIN Mrs. Whiggins?!”) – to force into the round hole of a business problem. Adoption suffers. Attitudes worsen.

Answer to Mistake 2. To avoid focusing on IT rather than the business IT supports, forgo the lip service to the business side or inviting a BA rep into weekly IT strategy meetings. Such actions are typically bollox. Instead you need to hit the ground. This means interviews. It means observing the way people work. It means spotting their work-arounds! It means asking them what web sites they use when they’re not at work. You’ll be surprised at the sophistication and savvy of the average worker whether a line worker or knowledge worker. Chances are they are already on Facebook. In Europe the adoption of corporate social media amongst Fortune 100 companies is higher than it is in the USA. This means that there is at least a desire to adopt.
There is a sense that this whole Web and Enterprise 2.0 thing makes sense. To be sure, IT needs to be play an important part in the continued evolution of the organization. They should not simply kowtow to the curmudgeonny grumpiness of stuck-in-their-ways employees. But neither should they adopt a cram-down “this is the new systems now use it!” approach. Whenever adoption pundits talk of finding an executive champion or two this is what they mean. There has to be acceptance and gentle leadership from the top and front .

The new systems need to provide enough seduction to entice users into adoption or at least experimentation. Outlining the benefits and being very explicit about the expected outcomes as well as the business justification help to bolster user confidence. It also provides a benchmark by which users can measure their own success or struggle. This helps to tamp angry calls to IT and temper frustrations that are common to any new system. Having internal launch or roll out parties helps. But simply flipping a system “on” and waiting for users is a sure way to generate expletive laden calls for the killing of the new system, inevitable and unfavorable comparisons with “the way we used to do it” and general unhappiness. Instead roll out a system with “this new system will cut out 2 of your most troublesome steps” or “our focus group trials have shown that this new system helps you fill orders in 1/3 less time.” When you do this people will inevitably compare their experience to the announced and expected outcomes. They will pause or consider their actions before picking up the phone to drop an F-bomb on the project team. Of course you really do need to do the user acceptance testing and benchmarking over old systems. But if you are focusing on the business problems first, then this should be inherent to your IT strategy.

Keep an eye out for part 3 coming soon.