For Hivos, we are supporting a major organisation change, driven by their migration to a new core application that combines financial management and project management. This has been one of our major projects for the last two years, and over 60% of Hivos’ projects are now migrated to the new system! This is a turning point for the project, as we shift our focus from migration to ensuring the users make use of the possibilities of the new system and see the benefits for their work.
User care and adoption is an essential part of implementation to ensure the system is used as designed long after the implementation project is completed. We would like to share some of the best practices so far from working with Hivos:
- Training of staff and key users: After the first training rounds in 2019, we gathered feedback and set up additional training amongst key users as well as new staff members and those who are still insecure when using the new application. Apart from the standard training setup, online training and short instruction videos are valuable additions to training materials, as reading all-text-manuals is usually a lot more time consuming for end users.
- Sharing user tips and tricks: As word-of-mouth promotion of a new system works best, we regularly ask users what features of the application they love best and we share their valuable knowledge within the organisation.
- Monitoring adoption of features: Another key success factor is a mixture of being available for support when needed and tenderly pushing users to use certain features. For example, as time registration via the system was new to many of the users, it took some time before the entire organisation not only understood the steps but made it part of their regular routine. Challenging users (with the promise of a tasty treat for the departments with time registration in order!) and offering one-to-one support seems to do the trick. Now Hivos is reaping to benefits by having steering information on time spending and subsequently, project budgets.
- Support and becoming future proof: While providing support for users new to the system, we also work together with Hivos’ application management to ensure support provided within the project makes a smooth transition towards business as usual via the helpdesk. This includes for example, feedback provided for further finetuning and frequently asked questions that are made available to all users.
For the upcoming weeks, we will gather even more feedback from Hivos users and ensure the issues they raise will be addressed as we move into hypercare mode, carefully supporting all users globally to ensure maximum user satisfaction and adoption.
Is your organisation getting ready for an organisational transition? Are your core systems causing you and your colleagues a daily headache? We are happy to think along and develop a tailor-made plan for your organisation. Learn more here and get in touch via info@data4development for an open conversation!