User Adoption Strategy for Dynamics 365 Implementation Success
Problem Statement
After an implementation has gone live, do we experience that the user participation tapers off before starting to decline? That’s when we feel the need to have an adoption strategy and metrics into place.
Strategizing User Adoption
Here are some thoughts on thinking about how to plan for User Adoption –
- In project planning stage – make sure Users who will use the system too are part of the requirements gathering. This gives an idea of whether the requirements are in line with users who will use the system and not only IT heads.
- Capture sentiment of users while discussing requirements and identify how implementation is not adding to the learning curve of the new implementation.
- While participating in UAT, make sure you use Customer Data and see their process going through end to end. Once the Users see the operational value in UAT, as an influencer of the system for your organization – you’ll identify that the implementation will be adopted.
User Adoption Measurements
Here are some of the measurements and steps to take for User Adoption –
- In Dynamics 365, look at User Adoption metrics in Power Platform Admin Center.
- Identify the records owned by different sets of users and their cadence of using the systems.
- Create reports to share with the management to monitor the adoption rate over 2 quarters to get into a routine and forecast usability.
- Review if any change requests are coming through – change requests are a good sign that the system is being used and needs to be course corrected to suit the business needs at a point in time.
Tracking change requests gives an idea of the implementation.
- Talk to stakeholders to identify the processes taking place outside the system which are not part of the implementation – if those processes can be implemented in the system, they must be staged for discussion.
- Talk to users if they are bypassing the system to get any work done – this shows that the system is not serving the purpose of being useful and users must find a way out to get work done quicker / efficiently.
Conclusion
When you measure user adoption through trackable metrics and numbers, you can monitor the implementation’s success path. This helps in rethinking the implementation and taking corrective action before the implementation itself is in question and why was it planned in the first place. Participation of partners, peers and all stakeholders share equal responsibility to make the implementation a resounding success.
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