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home > July 16, 2007 issue > article
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| Photography by Rick Steele |
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| “Get users comfortable with doing one or two things and then add more capability.” – Maj. David Sylvester, Marine Corps |
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Collaboration made easy (or nearly so)
By Caron Golden
Special to Defense Systems
Experts outline 6 ways to make sure users learn to take full advantage of online collaboration software
It’s not difficult to understand the benefits of online collaboration, at least in abstract terms. Suppose you have a dozen employees who need to work out the requirements for an upcoming project, but those people are scattered across the United States and perhaps at bases outside the country. Internet-based collaboration avoids both the cost and hassle of air travel and accommodations and the inconveniences that they entail.
Given the advances in commercial software, it’s feasible to get the work done as quickly and effectively as if everyone were in the same room. That’s the theory, anyway. But there’s a catch.
Although the benefits of online collaboration are easy to understand, the daily practice can present a challenge — not for the tech staff, which installs and manages the software, but for the users. Instant messaging, shared digital whiteboards and other virtual meeting applications require users to learn a new way of working. Much of the functionality in those applications is analogous to real-life activity. It may be analogous, but it’s not the same. If employees are not willing to change their work routines, they will never realize the full benefits of those technologies.
So how do you get that buy-in? We talked to several vendors and end users to discover the best ways to make it all come together. Here are their words of wisdom.
1. Make sure the value proposition is obvious.
“At the core of keeping end users engaged with the product is adoption of behavior change,” said Amy Fadida, senior vice president of corporate business development at Viack, which is now deploying its VIA3 virtual meeting software at the Defense Department through Verizon.
“People are often averse to change,” Fadida said. “They want to know if this new something will make their work life easier and more productive. No end user will change their behavior unless they see the value in doing so. Typically, the strongest value will stem from making some business process more effective, efficient or easier for that user, like saving time, money and resources.”
Linda Marshall, a DOD agencies partner at IBM Global Services, agrees. It’s just human nature, Marshall said. People will not use technology if it does not meet a clear need — or if they perceive it as a roadblock in their daily routine. IBM’s Lotus Sametime Suite, which has more than 12,000 registered DOD users, offers Web conferencing, instant messaging and chat rooms. As a basic application, people can use the software to run simple virtual meetings. When that works, people often begin exploring new, unfamiliar features.
“What happens typically is that as soon as you begin to use the basic capabilities and realize there’s a benefit, you want to explore further,” Marshall said.
But remember, that value proposition has to be determined before selecting the technology.
“One of the most common mistakes we see collaboration strategy teams make is developing a technology strategy instead of a more business-oriented strategy,” said Erica Driver, principal analyst at Forrester Research. “The [information technology] group will go off and do an analysis and make the investment without even knowing what the team needs. A development team should include both IT people and stakeholders to do a full analysis to determine what they’re trying to improve. It’s hard and takes time, but you can’t achieve success without it.”
Mark Levitt, vice president of collaborative computing in the enterprise workplace at research firm IDC, said users need to see the new tools as a natural extension of their environment. “There have been many great tools that never went anywhere because they required users to change too much. Given that e-mail and telephones are ubiquitous, people wonder if they need these new tools.”
Levitt added that, generally speaking, case studies derived from pilot programs can be very effective to show people how a solution can be used in their jobs, and day-to-day activities to share information better and receive it faster.
For the Air Force, the value propositions have been immediate and varied. The service has 900,000 users worldwide on its Global Combat Support System, which includes the Air Force Portal and Air Force Knowledge Now (AFKN) with an ever-expanding group of communities of practice. That system enables individuals working on a common problem or in a working group to discuss issues in chat rooms and post data and files such as briefings and working documents to get comments and address rudimentary tasks.
“Setting up a community of practice helps streamline working on a team that can be as large as 100 people,” said Col. Marcus Miller, division chief of the Air Force’s Warfighter Systems Integration and Deployment Directorate.
He also pointed to more than $1 million in savings gleaned by the Air Force’s financial community, which uses AFKN to post documents and billings. “Using collaboration technology, they eliminated mailing and shipping costs as well as manpower requirements to process paperwork,” Miller said. “They reduced the amount of time to receive and post obligations by 84 percent. They’re now able to process 99 percent of their obligations the same day, where before it took days.”
And on the most basic level, collaboration technology — specifically instant messaging — has been a morale tool, Miller said. “We have a Family and Friends capability on the portal,” he said.
“Each individual can sponsor up to five people on their list and it’s completely integrated with the Army. So, service people can stay connected while they’re deployed,” Miller said.
2. Start small, keep it simple, gradually ramp up.
Some comprehensive systems, such as VIA3 with its electronic meeting and communications services, require formal on-site training programs. Others, such as Bantu’s, are designed to be intuitive and need only embedded help features.
For example, NKO provides a gateway to other Navy applications with tools such as threaded discussions, Chat and instant messaging, and incorporates Bantu. The service has built in several tutorials to guide users through NKO, along with frequently asked questions and a site map. But, said Peg David, NKO program manager of the Naval Education and Training Command, “there’s also a course under the Navy e-Learning Application that assists users with understanding what is available and where.”
Sametime Suite is also designed to be intuitive, but, Marshall said, “If people are very uncomfortable using the technology, we have gone into clients’ facilities and worked them through how to use it at their workstations. We’ve also had them come to our facility to show them what to do,” she added. “And, we can set up presentations in Web conferencing methodology by inviting people as guests to the meeting.” Because part of the offering includes persistent chat rooms, “Users can enter the chat room and ask questions informally,” she explained. There is also documentation through user guides and FAQs.
“We use the method most beneficial to the audience,” Marshall said. “The most straightforward way is to register on the service and go to the support page, which displays training offerings.”
Users of VIA3 typically get formal training that lasts one to three days. “We have one-on-one training to work with new users as well as group training for those in a work group,” Fadida said. “It can be more efficient, not just for us, but for the team — they’re doing similar jobs and it provides reinforcement. We also have online modules that are self-paced and accessible as reference material. And if you’re using the service and find you have a question, you can press F1 anytime and be taken to the help area.”
Of course, there’s training on how to use specific tools, and then there’s training that helps users know when to use the different tools, how to address etiquette issues such as during a virtual conference when team members are in different locations, and general issues around optimization. “If the software is good, contextual help should be enough to learn how to use tools,” Driver said. “But a neglected area is when to use different tools and optimize them within the culture of the organization.”
3. Teach them well, with whatever works.
Four years ago, the Marine Corps launched a succession management program, which included a Web site for senior officers to support career-management activities. At the time, said Maj. David Sylvester, who leads the Marine Corps Senior Leader Management Branch in the Manpower and Reserve Affairs Department, there were many stories of unhappy users. The software was too complex and not intuitive. If officers and their staffs did use the software, that was only because the boss wanted it.
That scenario improved in April when the first phase of the new Senior Leader Services Portal was launched. The new portal, developed by InfoReliance based on ASP.NET and secured with public-key infrastructure technology, offers a simple registration and sign-on – a card swipe instead of long forms to complete. It also has straightforward offerings, such as alerts, event announcements, current individual profiles, a frequently updated personnel directory and – coming soon – a message board.
Now, Sylvester said, some 1,500 senior leadership users worldwide turn to the site to get the information they need and manage their own profiles. It has the look and feel of an information Web site and is easy to navigate. “Don’t try to solve all your problems at once,” he advised. “Get users comfortable with doing one or two things and then add more capability.”
Larry Schlang, chief executive of Bantu, an instant-messaging platform that is part of the Army Knowledge Online (AKO) and Navy Knowledge Online (NKO) portals, said he also believes in starting out with only the basics. “From our experience, if you really want your folks to leverage a particular capability you’re planning to deploy, simpler is best. If it’s too complex or time-consuming, you’ll get push back,” he said. “AKO has recognized this and the result is a simpler, more intuitive interface.”
Collaboration entails a lot of different features, Marshall said. “One is as simple as instant messaging and having presence and awareness. If you sign on in the morning, you know who of your colleagues is available. You can ask quick questions – ‘Are you busy?’ ‘Are you available?’ A new user can accomplish a lot of easy things very quickly.”
That also goes for Web conferencing. Start with the simplest features first and do it regularly. Then, to the degree that people are willing to explore rich features and capabilities such as screensharing and whiteboarding, add them.
4. Find and support the in-house tech evangelist.
In almost every work environment, there are people who are tech-savvy and are looking for the most efficient ways to use technology. Encourage them and their enthusiasm, and chances are the adoption of new technologies will be easier.
“If you have someone like that in your organization, they’ll be the grass-roots champion for making the most out of the technology,” Marshall said. “They frequently can be the go-to person. In our DOD rollout of collaboration services, generally the first people on are those who have an intuitive understanding of the power of collaboration services.”
Miller has found that outside the real-time environment, such as instant messaging, it can be challenging to get people to use AFKN communities of practice because they must go through different steps to familiarize themselves and even find someone who knows how to use it to help them. “What you need is to find some core people using it who can turn around to others to say how cool it is,” he said. “And that’s what’s happening with AFKN.”
“It’s been our experience that one or several individuals identify with the vision and immediately put into practice the demonstrated value proposition,” Fadida said.
In some cases, the evangelist has a formal role on the team. “A trend we’re following is the emergence of a knowledge trainer or evangelist in a business unit in the corporate world,” Driver said. “It’s not an IT person, but someone who sits in the business unit and makes sure people know how to use the tools, how they benefit from them and understand why they’re using them. They can do this through brown bag lunch meetings, little training sessions or just informally available for quick questions.”
“Often these same folks become the ‘go-to’ person for how to do different things and to do things differently,” she said. “It’s important, from an implementation perspective, to actively support these users by providing them with information, guidance and personalized support to keep them at the forefront of implementing the software for different users within a given organization and culture. Identifying and nurturing these individuals is a vital and strategic part of any effective implementation.”
However, the best evangelist is the boss. If the organization’s most important stakeholder insists on using the collaboration services and changes the culture accordingly, then everyone will follow.
5. Give ageism a shove.
Because so much collaboration software is already widely used by the public, it’s getting easier to encourage older, wary users to get on board. However, sometimes you find resistance, and it’s usually among high-ranking folks who have always had employees taking care of their every need.
“I think this is an issue that DOD leaders and others are all struggling with day in and day out,” Fadida said. “But if you’re going to retain and attract new employees, the workplace has to be equipped with technology that attracts the younger generation. If DOD isn’t willing to learn from this new generation of technology users, as a nation, we’ll fall behind in worldwide competitiveness.”
The Marine Corps’ succession planning targets the highest ranking people, including generals, and that’s presented some interesting challenges, said John Adamson, InfoReliance’s director of DOD and federal program business development. “We solved the generation gap issue by spending a lot of time working through intuitive interfaces,” Adamson said. “Given that the whole angle is succession planning, the key is training itself in various executive skill sets, of which this is one.”
Older workers might be a little apprehensive or resistant, but they have the benefit and wisdom of many years of experience and should recognize that there are many offerings available that can make their lives easier and more productive.
Marshall said they want to learn as much as someone fresh out of college. “They know we’re all interested in achieving mission success, and if they see a way of achieving mission success, they’ll adopt it.” And, she said, the kids just out of college who are accustomed to extensively using technology are a great resource. “They’re happy to offer their help and insights” to the older generation, she said.
“This can also be a means to open channels of communication that will allow the midcareer and retiring workforce to transfer institutional knowledge to younger workers,” Fadida said.
You may, however, be surprised at how eagerly older workers embrace these new technologies.
“Last fall, I went to a conference in Washington, D.C., where a lot of colonels gave briefings on their initiatives,” Miller said.
“Almost everyone said, ‘Well,you can find all my slides and information on our community of practice on AFKN.’ These colonels are
old guys and had been reluctant to realize the power and potential of
collaboration technology, but when you get to the point where colonels are using it and talking about it, you’ve reached a certain level of usage.”
6. Get the word out – again and again and again.
Of course, none of this matters if your people don’t even know what’s coming. They can’t use what they haven’t heard about. And because software is constantly evolving, they can’t take advantage of updates or new services if they’re not told.
“When we launched the Senior Leader Services Portal, we started sending administrative messages to every command and unit throughout the Marine Corps,” Sylvester said. “We had a deliberate rollout strategy so there were no surprises. We sent personal e-mails to all general officers and at least one member of their personal staff with rollout information and log-in instructions.”
The Navy, David said, used the normal communications roll-out plan when deploying NKO — through Navy channels, articles and Navy messages. “As we move toward a Program of Record…we’re striving to publish quarterly program updates, specifically when new functionality or other features might be of interest to our audience. We also publish What’s New within the NKO portal itself to make users aware of new items of interest.”
In the Navy, members of the JAG Corps use its message board to confer on legal matters worldwide where they may not have other local judges. Reserve units can access their unit pages anytime from anywhere to better prepare for drill times. And, the Individual Augmentation group has a message board that sailors can use to send questions to on-site chain-of-command personnel stationed in Iraq, Bahrain and Afghanistan and receive near real-time responses.
What’s also needed is the compelling operational story, that “Aha!” moment that inspires with every retelling, Schlang said.
The Air Force has a procedure and requirement to keep a tally of aircraft readiness in different regions worldwide. “When there’s a change or anomaly somewhere, the way different regions used to communicate was through a phone tree, which took a lot of time before everyone was up to date,” he explained. “But some smart operational people figured out that they could use our...chat room capability to exchange information by posting it in real time to all the relevant people.”
It was a simple solution made possible by collaboration software and users’ buy-in and creativity.
“If people are excited about the possibilities, they’ll use it in ways that hadn’t been thought of before,” Schlang said. “Men and women on the ground will always find the tools and most effective way to do the job.”
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