What are other criteria for success?
- The migration of the old data into the new system was insufficiently thought through. This point is partly related to address and data quality. The important thing at this point is to take the opportunity to derive new variables from the existing data/information. These can be new KPIs. Those can also be newly compiled histories. These can be fields like “months or days since last order” (i.e. calculated fields). The user will be pleased if such “auxiliary variables” in the system make his work easier.
- A software introduction remained incomplete for the modules and functions considered important by the user. There was no further development after introduction. On the one hand, this can happen for cost reasons. Depending on the type of license, the range of functions varies greatly and the best features are – logically – always only available in the next higher price league or in the Enterprise or Platinum Edition. Less often it happens that the users do not even know the possible range of functions. They only use 10% – 20% of the range of functions.
- The software has only been partially introduced in certain departments. This is the case when extreme silo thinking still prevails. The software is introduced in sales, but not in service or marketing. And the work process already stops at the point where the user on the other side of the silo would like to continue but cannot. If this waiting time is too long, the other departments will hardly feel like using the new software when it comes.
- There is a lack of benefit communication – the Why (see also Vision). The vision is the framework, the why is the justification. What do I, as an employee, gain from using such software? For example, the sales force should enter their conversations and thus disclose knowledge. Of course, the sales force doesn’t like to do that. So what do he or others get out of doing this? What contribution do these people make to the added value? This is a very important management task.
- There is no training at the start for the basic acceptance and jump-start of the individual users. There was only a short train-the-trainer course instead of a detailed employee training. It is a cardinal mistake to save money on this. The more and more specifically a training phase was budgeted and consistently carried out, the more successfully the software will be accepted and used later. It’s like playing a musical instrument: the more exercises a person gets to start with, the faster he or she will master the instrument – or the software.
Part 1 of the success criteria are here and for part 3 please click here.
Picture source: Pixabay
Note: This is a machine translation. It is neither 100% complete nor 100% correct. We can therefore not guarantee the result.