Purchasing software is the easy part
The majority of costs and failures appear during the implementation stage. Put simply, everything runs smoothly until actual human users become involved.
Here’s an example. The author of an article on the management-issues.com website was once providing training for a group of smart and capable professionals. The topic was virtual meetings; he talked about webcams. And since he always uses a webcam for these classes, he asked what value people saw in them.
The responses he received were:
- It helps to put a face to a name.
- It’s more interesting and engaging than watching a blank screen.
- It makes the training less formal and more relaxing.
Then came the next question: Would it be a good idea to use video with remote employees and customers?
The smart and highly competent people answered thus:
- People only want to use webcams in order to spy on subordinates and make sure they are working.
- No way are we going to use a webcam when working remotely.
- It’s too complicated.
- I don’t have the equipment (even if this was quite clearly a false claim).
- My staff would never do that (and I have no intention of asking them).
So these professionals admit there are significant advantages of webcams. They even consider them one element of the best practice. And yet none of their objections had anything to do with logical argument. They accepted the logic of the decision, yet still didn’t want to implement it.
The powers of habit, priority (people think they have better things to do than learn how to use new software) and social conditioning (personal appearance on webcams) often combine and override both financial and logical arguments - and this is happening in too many organisations.
-jk-