Some say the most difficult part of any digital transformation project is actually getting the business to change so they can utilise and realise the benefits of the newly implemented technologies. While there are plenty of other challenges to fully realising the benefits of a digital transformation project I do agree with this statement and I believe that getting the business to adopt technology is generally the hardest part (if you survive the budget cuts by those with “less vision”).

There are several factors that contribute to this behaviour. It can be driven by comfort levels, status quo feeling adequate, change or technology fatigue or just downright stubbornness to any change whatsoever. As you engage more stakeholders you will typically come across a range of views from outright enthusiasm, willing participants, those who will happily change once it’s been proven, those who begrudgingly change once it’s been proven and the ones who will finally be forced into submission by the overwhelming weight of others who have made the switch. Turns out this is normal behaviour and has been demonstrated consistently throughout the years as the world has evolved. Also turns out there is a great model that has been developed to help us understand this phenomenon.

The Product Adoption Curve has been used for decades as a way to describe the behaviour of people when adopting new products. It has been extrapolated for many use cases and popularly used in the technology industry. As depicted below the 5 types of “customers” are represented on a typical bell curve illustrating the volume of adoption over time.

The innovators are the people who get enthusiastic about technology and are often fiddling with the latest gadgets and can’t wait to be given something new. The early adopters are the people who have the vision to see the potential value of a technology before many others and are eager to get in early. Early majority are those that willingly adopt the new technology as its benefits are clearly identified, growing in volume over time while the late majority adopters are generally those who will only adopt a new technology when it has become mainstream or they face the possibility of being left behind. The laggards are true sceptics, resistant to any and all change and will only adapt to the change once there is no other choice and they are forced too.

It’s also important to note here that not everyone has this same profile for every type of change. For example, some might be an early adopter when it comes to mobile phone apps but might be a sceptic when it comes enterprise technology change – so it’s never safe to assume.

The key to successful adoption is to get to the early majority adoption phase, it’s also the most difficult phase to get to. This difficulty is termed “The Chasm” which was a phrase coined by Geoffrey Moore in his book “Crossing the Chasm”. Although this book is more aimed at marketing and selling it has some fantastic advice and strategies for driving adoption of organisational technology change. And let’s be honest, when facing such a change within in an organisation you are essentially marketing and selling.

One of the key strategies employed in the book is to successfully establish a beachhead, where you find a small yet successful adoption of your technology, and branch out across the rest of the organisation. Although Moore speaks generally about how to win over customer markets the lesson can equally be applied to delivering transformation within your organisation. Win over one department or a subset of your organisation with successful change and you’ll have strong momentum and credibility to push into the more difficult early majority pragmatists and over the hump to the late majority sceptics.

For example, let’s say you have a new finance system you want to roll out across the entire organisation. Trying to make such a big change to a system with such importance is going to be a very steep hill to climb and there is no doubt you will be met with plenty of resistance and opposition from the majority of those who will be affected by the change.

In this scenario, utilising the “Crossing the Chasm” style strategy you could target a small department who use the financial system that may be open to change and only have relatively simple needs. This can give you an “easy win” and establish your “beachhead” before moving onto more difficult or complex departments.

Whether you are building products for sale to market or trying to deliver transformation within in your organisation you need to have a solid plan for dealing with the behavioural side of technology change and adoption. I highly recommend reading “Crossing the Chasm” for a great insight into the behaviour and psychology of technology adoption and how you can use this knowledge to improve your chances of success. (Please note the link is an Amazon Affiliates link – please consider buying via this link to help support this site).