Monitor The Performance Of Your Collaboration Program

Transcription

1 Monitor The Performance Of Your Collaboration Program by Art Schoeller Why Read This Report The benefits of collaboration are hard to quantify. With the exception of and audioconferencing, collaboration hasn t reached the phase where we re wondering what we ever did without it. Application development and delivery (AD&D) pros at the helm of the collaboration leadership team should read this report to learn how to track the progress of their collaboration programs and tailor their choices of metrics to stakeholder expectations. This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and updates it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy. Key Takeaways Most Organizations Don t Measure The Benefits Of Collaboration The challenge of proving the monetary value of better productivity and communications leads most organizations to not measure business outcomes stemming from collaboration tool use. Track Metrics In Five Areas For A Comprehensive View Of Success A holistic view of performance includes adoption metrics, business outcomes, collaboration workloads, and the user experience. It also includes management of the program itself. Consider Stakeholder Expectations And Use Cases When Applying Metrics AD&D pros at the helm of the collaboration leadership team should recognize whether they are dealing with conservatives, pragmatists, or visionaries and tailor their communications and choice of metrics appropriately. FORRESTER.COM

2 by Art Schoeller with Stephen Powers, Kevin Driscoll, and Peter Harrison Table Of Contents Notes & Resources 2 2 Most Organizations Do Not Measure The Benefits Of Collaboration Track Metrics In Five Areas For A Comprehensive View Of Success Forrester interviewed top vendors and recommended end users in addition to gathering information through inquiries and briefings for this report. 6 7 Case Study Example: SharePoint Rollout Strategically Pick Business Processes And Outcomes To Measure Recommendations Adjust Your Message To The Audience, And Tell Compelling Stories Related Research Documents Design Your Contact Center From The Outside In Say Goodbye To UC; It s Time For Customer- Activated Communication And Collaboration Vendor Landscape: Social Customer Service Solutions Forrester Research, Inc., 60 Acorn Park Drive, Cambridge, MA USA Fax: forrester.com 2016 Forrester Research, Inc. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Unauthorized copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law.

3 Most Organizations Do Not Measure The Benefits Of Collaboration Today s AD&D professionals face the challenge of supporting an increasingly complex collaboration strategy that spans people, devices, applications, and data the goal of which is to ensure that employees have what they need to win, serve, and retain customers. 1 Because most of the benefits of giving employees access to collaboration technologies are intangible gains like enhanced productivity, faster information access, better communication, and more-informed decisions, it s difficult to measure them. This challenge often leads organizations deploying the tools to not measure the benefits at all. Track Metrics In Five Areas For A Comprehensive View Of Success The collaboration leadership team should look at the performance of collaboration along multiple dimensions to measure its own progress and to spur corrective action when necessary. It should also use metrics to prove the value to business stakeholders and to inspire other areas of the organization to adopt the technology. Forrester has identified metrics in five different areas to (see Figure 1): 1. Monitor program activities to keep on track. Collaboration performance includes management of the program itself. Program management comprises documenting the collaboration needs of the workforce; having the staff, executive sponsorship, and business leader buy-in to effect change; and creating training and policies to guide employees on when and how to use the tools. Key performance indicators should not only include milestone activities but also track ongoing engagement with key stakeholders and what segments of the workforce are trained. 2. Assess collaboration workloads so employees can choose the right tool for the job. Employees should have access to technologies for and messaging, team workspaces, real-time collaboration, and social interactions. Collaboration road maps and maturity models today should include new cloud-enabled, real-time, and asynchronous collaboration workloads including crossdevice file sharing and file sync and access to the tools on mobile devices in general. 3. Improve the user experience through integration and standardization. The proliferation of noninteroperable tools with overlapping functionality, poor network connectivity, and cumbersome remote-access procedures all contribute to a poor user experience. The collaboration leadership team can show progress by consolidating a set of well-integrated tools and by working with the network architecture and security teams on solutions to standardize the quality of experience for employees, regardless of their location. 4. Look at adoption as an indicator of behavior change. Adoption is not an indicator of business value, but it demonstrates worker affinity for the technology, which is necessary for change. Adoption is also important for the network effect to maximize the benefits of the technology. A global aviation company saw a dramatic uptake in instant messaging when it switched to Google s collaboration platform. Although this uptake is not an indicator of business value, a survey of employees found that most of them agreed with the sentiment that the move made the organization more collaborative. 2

4 5. Measure business outcomes like improved customer experiences or cost savings. Collaboration analysts should work with change agents involved with those processes to measure them. At a consulting organization, the metric would be producing better proposals faster. At a loan processing center, it might be faster exception handling by using social tools to find the right expert. 2 FIGURE 1 Five Areas To Measure The Progress Of Collaboration Program Documented requirements We have documented the collaboration requirements of our workforce, including the needs of different employee groups. Strategic plan We have created a collaboration strategic plan (goals, work streams, schedule, staffing plan, etc.). Staffing We have staff dedicated to driving the adoption and use of our social and collaboration tools. Cross-functional council We have a cross-functional enterprise collaboration council that meets regularly to define policy and priorities. Policies and certification We have a single social media use and certification policy shared with all employees. Training We have social and collaboration tool training for new and existing employees. Workloads Instant messaging We use instant messaging. Webconferencing We use webconferencing. Desktop videoconferencing We use desktop videoconferencing. Team sites/document coediting We use team sites and/or document coediting. File sharing/file sync We use file sharing and file synchronization across devices. Social collaboration We use social collaboration tools (including internal blogging, microblogging, wikis, and social networks). 3

5 FIGURE 1 Five Areas To Measure The Progress Of Collaboration (Cont.) Quality of experience Tool standardization We operate a standard set of collaboration services for all employees companywide. Remote access Our remote and mobile workers have the same quality experience using social and collaboration tools as office workers. Mobile device access Our collaboration tools are available on smartphones and tablets. Experience design and monitoring Adoption Business outcomes We have a team focused on user design and testing for our collaboration tools. We monitor the performance of applications on computers and mobile devices. A high percentage of employees with access to the tools is using them regularly. Cost savings We are able to show cost savings that stem from our use of social and collaboration technologies. Revenue increases We are able to show the impact of social and collaboration technologies in bringing in additional business. Customer experience We are able to show improved customer satisfaction scores resulting from deploying social and collaboration technologies to employees in customer-facing roles. Case Study Example: SharePoint Rollout A fictional organization (but one that closely resembles many organizations Forrester works with) has multiple business units with operations spread out over a large geographic area. The headquarters is the primary work location for about 40% of the workforce, but the company has a major field worker presence, and most employees report to regional or field offices. Based on interviews with business leaders and an annual employee satisfaction survey, the company has prioritized rolling out the latest version of SharePoint to improve project management and document collaboration internally and with partners. The collaboration leadership team has produced a snapshot of its progress in the five areas of performance (see Figure 2). Progress in each of the five areas affects the others. The pilot rollout was successful due to the involvement of collaboration analysts to help business stakeholders adapt SharePoint to their needs and measure its impact on business outcomes. 4

6 However, adoption has been disappointing in the subsequent rollout due to the lack of training and involvement of employees and business sponsors in other business units. Adoption also suffers because of the poor remote access conditions for employees in the field. This presentation format lets the collaboration leadership team show a comprehensive, yet concise, status of the rollout and make recommendations for improvement. FIGURE 2 An Example Of A SharePoint Rollout Status Report Program Documented requirements Training Staffing We aim to learn from mistakes in the first phase of the rollout. We will need to do a better job of informing employees and supervisors about the available training. We should also offer those employees from the previous wave a chance to attend. Focus groups and the employee survey show that employees are confused by too many document repositories, and many don t know how to use SharePoint. Only 10% of employees attended SharePoint training. Many were unaware of the training or weren t granted permission by their supervisors to attend. We are now evaluating more candidates for collaboration analyst positions. We are considering hiring a community manager if/when we proceed with rolling out a social platform. Workloads We have deployed SharePoint, adding important capabilities in team workspaces and collaborative document editing that employees have been asking for. Social capabilities are on the road map pending further discussions with legal, HR, and security. and calendaring and calendaring Presence and instant messaging Desktop videoconferencing Webconferencing Document coediting Real-time collaboration Blogs Wikis Team workspaces Ad hoc team workspaces Structured collaboration workspaces Collaborative workflow applications Document sharing Social networking Discussion forums Social computing 5

7 FIGURE 2 An Example Of A SharePoint Rollout Status Report (Cont.) Quality of experience Standard tools Remote access Mobile devices We need to do a better job of supporting remote and mobile employees. Recommend a committee to explore options for improving access to document management tools remotely. The iphone and ipad trial is underway. We have standardized most of our collaboration capabilities on a single suite supplied by a strategic vendor and are sunsetting redundant applications. Although HQ workers have a good experience, employees in the field and in some regional offices suffer from long upload and download times for documents. We only support on corporate BlackBerrys. Executives and sales are demanding iphones as well as a solution to access work documents on ipads. Adoption Active team sites Business units using Employees active The number of employees using SharePoint and the number of team sites created so far are disappointing. We need to improve access to training and have collaboration analysts work with business stakeholders on how to leverage the new capabilities. 24% 18% 50% There are just 12 team sites active against an original goal of having 50 by the end of this month. Two out of four business units are deployed, with the remaining expected to be on board next quarter. Just 18% of employees at business units on SharePoint use team sites weekly or more compared with our goal of 30% by this point. Business outcomes Cost avoidance User productivity Improved collaboration Besides the obvious cost avoidance benefits of displacing old technology, the pilot group has experienced strong user productivity and improved collaboration benefits. Collaboration analysts have to be involved early to help maximize these benefits. Upgrading SharePoint has eliminated the need to upgrade our document management system and spend on software maintenance for our old portal software. Better version control and less time spent locating existing proposal documents have sped up RFP response time by a day on average. The average of 0.5 more authors involved per project bid has resulted in higher-quality proposals. Easier partner collaboration has improved on-time project delivery. Strategically Pick Business Processes And Outcomes To Measure Adoption levels are easy to monitor because collaboration technologies are typically bundled with management tools and dashboards to track activity. Business processes, however, take special effort to measure. Therefore, AD&D pros supporting collaboration initiatives should be selective and: Pick high-value, high-viability process opportunities. Certain business areas are more fertile ground for the transformative impact of collaboration than others. Locating experts and sharing information are more beneficial in complex sales opportunities than in defined, repetitive manufacturing processes. 3 That s not to say the manufacturing function would not benefit from improved collaboration. However, focus on measuring areas where the potential for improvement is high and where the difficulty of getting employees on board will be less. 6

8 Define measurable business outcomes. A challenge of measuring the impact of collaboration on discrete processes is attributing the outcomes to tool use. Travel expense avoidance is more directly attributable than increased revenue or an improved customer experience, which are influenced by many factors (see Figure 3). Be careful in assigning business outcome metrics to tool use by particular actors. Customer satisfaction and revenue outcomes are more directly attributable to processes involving customer-facing employees. Measure structured collaboration outcomes whenever possible. Structured collaboration involves defined roles, workflows, and specific outcomes, which makes it easier to measure the impact of technology on processes. In contrast to general-purpose collaboration tools, Central Desktop, for example, has workflows for marketers to collaborate with agency partners on TV ad projects. ThinkTank is a set of collaboration tools for professional services engagements; companies such as Bain & Company and KPMG use this to implement their methodologies. FIGURE 3 A Framework For Assessing Business Outcomes Desired outcome Cost savings Productivity improvement Breakthrough innovation Size of return Low Medium High Likelihood of return High Medium Low Recommendations Adjust Your Message To The Audience, And Tell Compelling Stories AD&D professionals should measure business impact in different ways for different tools used in different processes. The collaboration leadership team should also gauge its requirements for showing hard metrics when engaging with key stakeholders. It may even have different requirements for different programs. One thing the collaboration leadership team can always do to show value particularly when dealing with visionaries is collect and tell stories. Reach out to early adopters through surveys, focus groups, and the intranet to solicit examples of how collaboration tools have helped achieve direct, measurable business results. Ask people for their before-and-after stories. Reinforce the program by highlighting adoption successes and socializing the use cases and learnings of groups where uptake has been the strongest. 7

9 Management consultant and author Geoffrey Moore defines three positions on measuring these programs: 4 Conservatives need hard metrics for ROI. Conservatives need ROI in the form of cost avoidance like travel savings by using videoconferencing instead of paying airfare or in the form of quantifiable process improvements, like call deflection in a call center. This was the case at Cisco Systems, which integrated communities and gamification with its customer relationship management to transform customer support. 5 Conservatives are more interested in deploying the tools to a subset of the organization that can benefit the most rather than giving them to everyone. Pragmatists just want to solve problems. Pragmatists observe problems, like too much churn and too much repeat work, and see collaboration technologies as natural solutions. This was the case at a global media company that deployed a community platform to improve communication between business units. The Cheltenham Borough Council saw the benefits of improved document management from using Huddle when meeting participants started showing up with the latest versions of documents for discussion. Pragmatists see a business case for the technology without hard metrics. Visionaries want to gain competitive advantage. Visionaries want to change the top line, not the bottom or middle lines. Sometimes you can measure the impact of these programs by looking at outcomes like whether partners are bringing in business or whether sales proposals are trumping competitor offers. Benefits can also be intangible. One large Canadian bank s justification for deploying collaboration tools comes from a philosophy that positive customer experiences stem from positive employee experiences. Ideally, these programs would be measured by customer outcomes or by revenue yield. 8

10 Engage With An Analyst Gain greater confidence in your decisions by working with Forrester thought leaders to apply our research to your specific business and technology initiatives. Analyst Inquiry Ask a question related to our research; a Forrester analyst will help you put it into practice and take the next step. Schedule a 30-minute phone session with the analyst or opt for a response via . Learn more about inquiry, including tips for getting the most out of your discussion. Analyst Advisory Put research into practice with in-depth analysis of your specific business and technology challenges. Engagements include custom advisory calls, strategy days, workshops, speeches, and webinars. Learn about interactive advisory sessions and how we can support your initiatives. Endnotes 1 Empowered customers are disrupting every industry and CIOs need to understand how technology management must adapt in this rapidly evolving world. We refer to this as the age of the customer, and it will place harsh and unfamiliar demands on institutions, necessitating changes in how they develop, market, sell, and deliver products and services. CIOs and their teams will be called on to support these changes, widening their agendas beyond IT (infrastructure) to include business technology (BT) technology, systems, and processes to win, serve, and retain customers. BT investments must include key capabilities for: 1) engaging customers undergoing a mobile mind shift; 2) providing superior customer experience in all customer interactions; 3) understanding customers through big data and analytics; and 4) adapting to and ideally driving digital disruption. See the Technology Management In The Age Of The Customer Forrester report. 2 Alcoa carefully documented the long-term results of the value of social software it used to manage critical IT projects. The results included a 61% reduction in work required for compliance-related activities. Check out Alcoa s entry to the 2011 Forrester Groundswell Awards. Source: Alcoa Fastening Systems, Empowered ( com/groundswell/awards2011/detail.php?id=666). 3 Our research points to sales, customer service, and the supply chain as initial destinations where collaboration adds measurable business value. Once organizations reach one or more of these initial destinations, they seek out broad adoption to build on this early success. This report outlines the business impact of collaboration for the CIO. See the Mapping The Value Of Social Business And Collaboration Forrester report. 9

11 4 Forrester interviewed Geoffrey Moore to get his thoughts on IT s role in social business and collaboration. Source: Geoffrey Moore ( 5 Cisco Systems Technical Assistance Center (TAC) used social technologies for its traditional escalation model. Check out Cisco s entry to the 2012 Forrester Groundswell Awards. Source: Lithium contributes to Cisco s success reinventing Customer Support for high-tech products, Empowered ( awards2012/detail.php?id=792). 10

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