Many of us have heard the old parable: “To whom much is given, much will be required; to whom much was entrusted, more will be asked.” Or, if you prefer the Spider-Man version: “With great power, comes great responsibility.”
As we discussed in a previous blog, the Now Platform gives Citizen Developers great power. Citizen Developers have the tools to turn their unique expertise into automation that makes the world work better for those around them. Low/No-Code tools in the Now Platform can turn any of us into workflow superheroes, but, like Peter Parker, Citizen Developers may find themselves with new responsibilities (and opportunities!) that they didn’t consider. One such responsibility is successful user adoption of your application, driven by a strategic communication and training plan. In this blog, I’m going to share some tips for ensuring that the apps that are being created in your organization are being adopted the way you intended.
Consider the name “Citizen Developer.” The name evokes configuration in the Now Platform – designing and building your application. Developers in IT, however, are typically part of a larger team, that often includes an organizational change management (OCM) workstream, project management, marketing, and other release functions. When you take on the role of Citizen Developer, you may also be taking on the role of Citizen Project Manager, Citizen OCM Lead, and Citizen Trainer. But if you plan ahead, you can give your custom application the best chance for success, great adoption, and longevity. In my 8 years at ServiceNow, I’ve built and delivered user training, and I’ve helped entire organizations build their adoption plans. More recently, I’ve also led the development of several custom apps, including a customized knowledge base, a sales calculator, and a specialized support request, all of which have been successfully adopted. Here is my advice for Citizen Developers who want to drive adoption of their applications:
1. Leverage shared services
- Before you go it alone, explore whether your company offers shared services for functions like OCM, Learning & Development, and communications. You may be surprised to find that many organizations manage such functions centrally and can offer support for your rollout.
2. Analyze your stakeholders
- In order for your application to be successful, who needs to be using it? What motivates those people, and how do they typically learn new information? In addition to your users, who needs awareness of your application? For example, when we rolled our new knowledge management workflow, we knew we needed to provide hands-on training to knowledge authors. We also knew that for the project to be successful, we had to raise awareness for all potential knowledge viewers throughout the organization.
3. Deputize champions
- A central tenet of change management is that people support what they helped create. So, create “insiders” for your app by giving select users early access, and asking them to be part of the rollout. When we rolled out a new application to our sales team last year, I handpicked several influential sellers to be testers during UAT, and then asked them to help guide and advise their colleagues during the formal training sessions. Those superusers felt unique ownership and helped influence the rest of the team.
4. Establish a timeline by working backwards
- While you’re building your app, chances are that your manager is asking you when it will be ready. Consider not only when development will be complete, but also your training timeline. Can you Go Live and then bring one user group onboard at a time? Or, does your project require a “big bang” Go Live where you need everyone to adopt at one time? How much time do you need after the development is relatively complete to be able to put together formal or informal training material?
5. Reduce adoption friction
- Much has been written about the dip in enthusiasm that takes place after the high of a great training, when a user is ready to do the work in real-life conditions. Frustrated users often give up when they encounter the first hurdle. When it comes to adopting your application, anticipate this hurdle and remove it. When we rolled out a new request for consulting support, we provided step-by-step documentation for users when they were ready to submit their first request. We also set up a Teams channel to provide real-time support if they got stuck, and pinned the training documentation at the top of the channel.
6. Eat Cake!
- I’m just saying – If IT gets a GoLive cake for their implementations, you should definitely get one too for deploying your custom application!
The true power of a Citizen Developer Program is realized only when applications are adopted by key stakeholders. So, if you’re ready to build and deploy your own application, remember to build user communication and training into your plan from the start. Get started with your Citizen Developer journey today here.
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The Ask a Training Expert blog series is published monthly by members of the ServiceNow Training Solution Consulting team. For more information about ServiceNow Training and Certification, visit our website. Please comment on this article to see your question featured in upcoming blogs.
