Cecile Demailly
at the French consulting firm, Early Strategies, recently completed an
interesting study of enterprise 2.0 adoption that I learned about through
Twitter. The report titled, Toward Enterprise 2.0: Making the Change in the
Corporation, is based on an online survey conducted between November 2009 and
January 2010. The participants included a primary set of people involved in enterprise
2.0 deployment, and a secondary audience of well-informed users of enterprise
2.0 applications and projects. The majority of participants were European with
18 percent from the US. The report stated that they mostly belong to CIO/IT
(38%), followed by HR (16%), Communications (12%) and Marketing (12%).
A number of themes for successful enterprise 2.0 adoptions emerged from
the data. Like many others, the
respondents indicated that, “though technology is important, it is not about
technology.” The report went on to
state that, “moving toward enterprise 2.0 is not a standalone game; it has to
serve the overall corporate vision. The transformation has to plant its roots
into the organization’s culture and strategy.” The report used Schein’s organizational culture model, and
the Early Strategies’ Enterprise 2.0 maturity model. It segmented the transformational requirements into three
levels.
At the
organizational level transformation must support a strategic vision. This could be a broad goal such as
being a pioneer in the area or a more focused one such as moving toward more
corporate social responsibility. At individual level, the transformation has to
help with the daily work. The
broad goals of the organization may not be top of mind for the employees who
have to undergo a change in the way they work and/or the tools they use. Getting the job done better and more
efficiently will be the main driver for them. At management level, an
enterprise 2.0 transformation needs to help create a different and more
accurate and up-to-date management model.
I believe that the transparency built into enterprise 2.0 tools and
practices can certainly address this management goal if used properly.
I think this is
a useful approach and these three levels need to be working in harmony for the
general health of the company, as well as any enterprise 2.0 adoption efforts. The report also states that the
benefits on all three levels need to be communicated widely during the adoption
process. So far these results are
consistent with most management and technology transformations. The report goes
on to offer some new insights that may be more specific to enterprise 2.0.
First, it stated, “although
there are complex impacts on management, it is important to note that by simply
participating, managers transfer their status into the new paradigm; while not
participating creates a real discrepancy.” I would agree as the nature of
transparent tools changes to course of work. I know of one firm that had its
first project come in under budget when they adopted enterprise 2.0 management
tools. They attributed this to the transparency as everyone could see what has
happening at all times in the process so accountability was clear and continuous
improvements were made (see Changing Organization Behavior at XM Radio through
Enterprise 2.0).
Next, the report stated,
“Middle management appears to be the organization layer where adoption is the
slower, or most difficult, for all types of organizations and at all stages.”
Now this has frequently happen in organizations going back to the Roman army
but it remains an issue to address. Booz Allen spent the majority of its change
management efforts on this level as it moved to an enterprise 2.0 collaboration
platform.
The third point was, “Networking
tools (rich directory, profiles, microblogging, forums, tagging, …) may be
deployed just before collaboration tools (wikis, groups, …), or together,
rather than the other way around or not being prioritized.” Some of the vendors
have recognized this and are prompting their networking tools as a “Trojan
horse” before getting into the more complex process of aligning collaboration
platforms to work processes. These networking tools can show quick returns and
provide a means for viral marketing of these benefits.
The report suggests that,
“communicating externally about the internal change may help to change the
mindsets internally.” This is an interesting idea. Those that have been
successful in enterprise 2.0 are by definition early adopters who often like to
promote their efforts in the external world. This external promotion will indicate the importance of the
transformation, as well as potentially provide more pride within the workplace.
Finally, it added that it
helps when “new educational modes: mentoring and collaborative learning,
structured or unstructured, when the community takes care of improving each
one’s participation.” I have
always found that collaborative peer learning produces the best results.
Enterprise 2.0 tools now allow for this peer learning to be more effective. For
example, I have seen several instances where switching to blogs in the learning
platform dramatically increased results.
I think these are all
excellent points. There is much more in the thirty eight page report as I have
just touched on a few highlights. It is available at the Early Strategies web
site.
Comments