User Adoption for Nonprofits: An Interview with Medha Nanal

In my last issue of Future Proofing Nonprofits, I wrote about user adoption. While composing that, I was also in a conversation with Medha Nanal, a nonprofit technology consultant with expertise in taking organizations through large-scale CRM initiatives, process design, artificial intelligence, and machine learning (among other things).

I would like to share with you our interview-in-writing, which covers what user adoption is, why it matters, what success looks like, and what gets in the way. 

. . .

Karen Graham: When you’re talking about user adoption, what do you mean?

Medha Nanal: We can say that it is the extent to which your business users have begun to effectively utilize their new tools and follow the newer processes, after the technology migration is over and the new products and systems are live.

KG: What's the big deal about user adoption? Why does it matter for nonprofits?

MN: A really great question. Let’s unpack it step-by-step:

For an organization undergoing digital transformation, user adoption is important for several reasons. 

First, your organization’s ROI is directly dependent on user adoption. Technology projects are expensive, and obviously the return on investment is a top concern on the minds of the leadership. Some of the ways the leadership is hoping to get this ROI is through increased efficiency, streamlining of operations, increased visibility and clarity into data, more informed business decisions etc. 

If the users do not adopt the new systems and processes, then that means they are not using the new technology to its fullest potential and therefore leaving money on the table (either by lost opportunities or by working less efficiently, etc.)

Second, it’s a threat to the mission. Typically, any new technology project has some known benefits for the users and staff. (Again, enhanced reporting, more streamlined processes, etc). When users do not adopt, your constituents and program participants are not receiving the best service they can, if the staff is not able to act with sufficient efficiency. This can threaten the very mission of the organization.

KG: When you think about user adoption that's wildly successful versus just okay, what's the difference? What does it look like to excel at this?

MN: Even the wildly successful adoption is a gradual process. Therefore, it is unrealistic to expect that the users will be excited with the new tools on Day-1. However, adoption is successful if the users achieve their goals within a reasonable time frame.

That said, successful user adoption looks different for different user roles:

• Leadership will begin to make more informed, data driven decisions,

• In some cases, the staff will find that their time is spent in more relevant activities, because mundane tasks will be automated, and will find themselves to be more productive,

• Everyone across the organization will be able to access pertinent information more easily and securely. It’s common to have the user feel more “woke” because they feel that the tools are at their fingertips.

• From a pure IT operations perspective, the users will file fewer tickets and will provide more quality feedback leading to quick case resolution, thus lowering the maintenance costs and leading to overall infrastructure improvement.

KG: What you’re describing is a great set of outcomes for the organization. What about the process to get there? Are the organizations experiencing this level of user adoption doing something different from the organizations that aren’t getting positive results?

MN: Hmm, yes, many things. Fundamentally, successful organizations keep users engaged and excited about the new product throughout, whereas the less successful organizations seem to distance themselves from end users at some point. Here are some examples.

Successful organizations consider user adoption as an important metric of project success, and nourish a culture to include end users in all important conversations. This starts with gathering user stories from users, and continues through regular touchpoints with users throughout the project. These touchpoints may be to demo the developing product, have users fearlessly test-drive the developing product regularly, include their feedback in making important project decisions etc. 

Less successful organizations treat user adoption as an afterthought, or as a separate, last phase in the project (which it is not!). They seem to base their success primarily on completing the project on-time and on-budget, and keep the organization’s leadership in the loop. The important project decisions such as prioritization, scheduling of deliverables, go-live decisions, etc. are made without checking the pulse of the users. Note, It is important to keep the leadership AND the users in the loop.

User Acceptance Testing in successful organizations is an important opportunity to gather user feedback. For this to happen, successful organizations provide a safe environment for users to voice their opinions without pressure or pushback, and the activity is often managed by a liaison who acts independently of the project delivery team. 

In my experience, in less successful organizations, this interaction was often more akin to setting user expectations than listening to the user feedback. A lot of times delivery teams sought feedback, but got defensive when users voiced slightest displeasure. This dynamic was not conducive to fostering trust and excitement among users. 

KG: I've often heard people say that resistance to change is at the root of user adoption problems. Do you agree? Are there other underlying issues that might explain it?

MN: Resistance to change is certainly a factor but that is not the only one. We all are humans and a change is inherently unpleasant, but we are also remarkably motivated to adapt when we see concrete benefits at the end of the journey. 

Another significant factor impacting adoption is the lack of trust for the tool among the users. Several small missteps during the project, starting from budgeting & planning to design and implementation, ultimately snowball into eroding the user’s trust in the tool and the overall project.

Karen, in your write up on this topic, you touched upon an important aspect: user adoption often falls into a sort of twilight zone. It is neither the responsibility of the technical delivery teams, nor is it the responsibility of the leadership. I agree with this observation wholeheartedly!

A lack of a sound change management methodology is often at the root of these problems. Change Management is an abstract and fluid concept, because there is no one-size-fits-all approach. A sound change management approach keeps the users aligned with the project reality, and also keeps the product aligned with the users and their needs. 

KG: In your experience, what's a small thing a nonprofit organization might do or change that has a huge positive impact on user adoption?

MN: This question has no single answer, because there are many areas where a small change will make a large difference. 

My vote goes to having an independent Product Owner.

KG: Oh, let’s talk more about that. I believe it connects to an earlier conversation, when you mentioned a connection between user centered design and implementation. 

MN: User-centered design means including the users’ preferences, wish list and needs, in the technology transformation process. 

During the design phase, this is done by conducting interviews and seeking user input to create user stories to create a baseline feature set. However, users often don’t know what they don’t know, and this is where a need for a Product Owner/advisor becomes apparent.

In order to continue this user-centered approach into implementation, I have found that having a seasoned professional acting as a “Product Owner” has benefits. A product owner is someone who understands the technology well, maintains a close connection with users, and acts as a liaison between the delivery team and the users. This person can become a user’s advocate in technical discussions with project delivery team to ensure that their interests are being appropriately represented, and acts as a trusted advisor to the users, by making them aware of the possibilities and the potential user impact of their choices, etc. 

KG: I like this idea of a product owner, which is something I encounter mostly in larger nonprofit organizations, but it’s a concept that even a tiny organization could take advantage of. Any other tips?

MN: Taking the time to review and redesign the end-to-end organization processes alongside the new product. Any time we transition from one tool to another, the new tool comes with inherent strengths over the old tool, but the tool is most effective when the surrounding user roles and processes are restructured. 

Often, this aspect is ignored and the users fail to realize the benefits of new technology even after investing in transitioning heavily. This causes an erosion of users’ trust.

KG: User adoption can be an opportunity–or a curse–to organizations of all sizes, and I hope my readers will find some practical wisdom here. 

Thanks, Medha, for sharing your perspective on this. Would you like to offer a way for people to contact you to learn more about your work?

MN: Sure. I can be reached via LinkedIn, or simply my email id: medhananal@topcloudconsult.com. If you have questions or are facing a challenge related to your project, or if you are interested in knowing the value I can bring to your project, then these are excellent ways to reach out to me.

My website is www.topcloudconsult.com, and I would encourage folks to take a look there, but with a disclaimer that it is a bit dated, and is being updated as we speak.

For general discussions and conversations, I am active on various nonprofit technology boards such as NTEN forums (my NTEN profile), AFP Community, where I participate in advanced technology-related discussions, Salesforce Nonprofit Trailblazer community (for discussions specific to large CRM initiatives and related matters), etc.