6 Steps to a Smooth New Tool Roll-out

For many organizations, the decision to bring a new tool in house is painful enough, but even more painful for some is gaining widespread user adoption across teams.  Because Polarion is adaptable to your way of doing business, we like to think that this presents a path of lesser resistance, but there are always factors internal to the organization that will naturally oppose any kind of change, even if it is clearly good.

We completely understand this challenge, which is why our Systems Engineers spend the better part of two days during the Rollout phase just learning about how things are done and gaining an understanding about the internal dynamics of how teams operate and interact.  We then map those findings into Polarion’s powerful Rules Engine, making Polarion follow your process and workflow.  We’ve often said that it’s important to have a process in place when considering Polarion, because this is a problem that we don’t claim to solve.  But we’ve observed that even the most organized and well thought out processes are brought into question as we take our customers through the Rollout discovery process to understand their methods and procedures.

So back to the real challenge, which is getting your new tool adopted and accepted by your entire team.  Having observed many Rollouts from the sidelines, some clear guidelines emerged that can be applicable to the deployment of any new tool.  Some of these may seem elementary, but they are often times overlooked.

1. There WILL be detractors.  Everyone will not be on board with the change, or ANY change for that matter, regardless of the value to the team.


2. Establish Clear Communication.  Make sure everyone affected by the change understands the corporate vision and goals for the deployment, and how the use of the tools will map to the mission of the organization.


3. Establish Clear Goals. Clear goals and expectations that are measurable are necessary for project success.


4. Establish a Core Pilot Team.  Pick key members for their specific expertise in the areas of discipline to be addressed with the new tool.  Pick a detractor to be part of the team to help with user adoption when the tool is rolled out to the user population.


5. Create a deployment plan.  Select a pilot project for the Pilot team to work with and demonstrate success.  This will make the final deployment go smoother when the rest of the user population can see success and hear it directly from the Pilot team.


6. Get Management Buy-in.  Make sure that management is on board with your team selection and deployment plan.  Institute discipline, accountability, and motivation into the plan with consequences that are supported by management.

Just as with successful software development, good planning is always a key component with the rollout of a new tool in your organization.  With planning in place, Polarion makes adoption even smoother, because your process and workflows are embraced, rather than confining you to a built in, rigid workflow.  You’ll find that users will adapt right away to the interface and begin collaborating immediately.  Pre-packaged templates help you get started quickly, and our Rollout Packages provide you with customized templates, getting you up and running quickly.

In the end, you want your team to embrace both the tool deployment process, as well as the tool itself.  Polarion helps on both accounts, in both the realm of the software technology as well as the guidance you’ll receive from our talented support team.

 

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