Success Story 2: Working Together Globally in the 21st Century

Situation

It's 2011.  A global consumer products company knows its employees need to collaborate better.  Emails are duplicated, threads lost, and lessons learned in one region are not communicated to others.

One thing everyone agrees on: On-line collaboration tools should be deployed to help people work together better.  The Chairman has mandated this, and all are aligned: senior management, the IT department, and the eBusiness group that runs the company's intranet.

But there's devil in the details.  The IT department is anxious to fulfill the Chairman's decree and wants to deploy the IBM Collaboration Suite ("Connections"), mostly out-of-the-box.  The eBusiness group, though, is wary of deploying the un-configured, un-customized tools, especially with little support or training.  If the tools are unleashed as-is, will employees know how to use them effectively?

Approach

The eBusiness group and its consulting partners studied the IBM Suite.  Lots of tools -- blogs, wikis, forums, networks, file sharing, feeds, activities.  Impressive functionality, but will the on-the-ground employees across the globe know what they are and how to use them?

Working for the eBusiness group's consulting firm, I put together a research proposal to gain insights into the employees.  We looked from different angles: Could the tools in the suite help what the employees actually needed to get their work done?  And what would employees have to learn to be able to use them?

We conducted over two dozen one-on-one usability sessions with employees in different roles all over the globe.  We also conducted stakeholder interviews with senior management to get their perspectives.

Insights

What we learned:

  • The employees confirmed what management had told us: They needed to collaborate better.  They were having trouble working efficiently with their global colleagues, and they knew it.
  • Despite the rising use of social media on the Internet (Facebook, Twitter, forums, blogs, etc.), almost all employees had no idea how they would be able to use similar tools in the workplace.
  • The word "Connections" didn't resonate with the employees.  They preferred more descriptive tool names, such as Forums and Networks.
  • The work they did pointed strongly toward the use of certain tools in the Suite -- but not all.  In fact, certain tools were completely irrelevant to what they did.

And:

  • In interviews with senior management, we were mandated to be cautious.  Some of the tools could pose a risk to security for the company, so they would have to be disabled from the Suite.

Action

Armed with insights from the research, eBusiness and its consultants recommended deploying the IBM Connections Suite, but only with certain configurations and customizations:

  • Only select tools would be deployed -- those most aligned with what employees needed and understood.  These included Community functionality with embedded forums, as well as a networking tool that leveraged the employees' profiles.  
  • Certain tools would be hidden because their presence could be confusing and, in general, they were not optimal for the work.  These included Blogs, Wikis and Feeds.
  • Any tool that posed a security risk would be disabled.
  • Since the brand "Connections" was not evocative to the research audience, we branded the value-add tools (such as Forums) and provided direct links to them.  (This idea was met with some resistance, but we found out later that IBM itself re-brands Connections on its own intranet!)
  • To promote awareness and use, the launch of the tools would be accompanied by certain communications and training seminars defined in a Change Management program.
  • Use of the tools would be monitored and reported on weekly to assess usage trends and see opportunities for improvement.

Results

  • Although customization requirements delayed the deployment of the tools, the IT group made the changes before launch.
  • The Change Management program promoted awareness and usage via site banner ads, e-mails, lunchroom learning, roadshow training and more.
  • Usage reports were issued weekly to management and showed steady upward trends of compliance and usage.

For this project, the following assets were created.  For samples, contact me.

  • Business Requirements 
  • Heuristic Analysis
  • Research Plan
  • Research Protocols
  • Research Report and Recommendations
  • Functional prototype
  • Wireframes
  • Brand visualizations (guidelines for configuring existing tool)
  • Functional Specifications
  • Senior Presentations (different stakeholders)