Change Management¶

As stated before, it is very important to involve users in the process. Otherwise risks protests and never-ending discussions. In this chapter we cover a few basics about change management and provide hints about how to approach users. However, it is recommended to consult a consulting company if support is needed for this matter, because the change management within an organization is complex and requires expert support.

About people enablement¶

There are four major areas that need to be addressed with the users: the will, the knowledge, the ability, and the guidelines. First of all, the users must be able to make the change, which, e.g., means they need to have the time to participate in the project. Also, they need the knowledge to complete the process, so they need to know why the move is made, what it is about, and what they have to do. Of course, this includes how to use Nextcloud, too. Guidelines are necessary to set the guardrails and get people moving. This can also create some kind of will; however, it should make sure that the users are participating voluntarily and see the advantages of the project.

It will be possible to rate the users in all four categories and identify where it still needs to be worked on. While will, knowledge, and ability are individual attributes, guidelines of course need to come from the decision makers. So it is a good idea to sort out the guidelines first and get decision makers on board. It needs to be communicated clearly that there is no way around the change, but the project team will listen to the users’ concerns. With that decision in hand, it should make sure that everyone is able to make the change, especially in a timely manner. Talk to team leads about their schedules and how they can free up some space for their team. Keep in mind that all management has to be ready in all four areas, too. If it was ticked the guidelines and the ability from the list, solving knowledge issues is an easy part—this can be done by in-house or external trainings. Now, possibly the most difficult part will come: create will. If it did the steps before well organized, a majority of people will look positively on the project so they will follow more easily. However, there always will be resistant people who can only be convinced by talking to them about their concerns. No one is just against a project; they always have concerns. If it is known them, can work on that.

Building internal ambassadors¶

Working with people on all four stages on one’s own can be an impossible task in large organizations. Additionally, one might be seen as an external person in departments one does not work with, which will make it harder to get honest responses from some persons. That’s why it is a good idea to identify and build up some key users as internal ambassadors. Key users should be people who have good technical and process knowledge, are positive about the project, and are well connected within their departments. It is recommended to not choose team leads as key users, since they usually cannot communicate to team members in the same way team members do among themselves.

Key users should be involved closely in the usage analysis, since they should know how other team members work, and in the concept design. The latter is important because they will point out possible problems early and, more importantly, it will communicate the state of the current discussions to the teams. That means information is spread widely in an easy to consume format like a ‘coffee machine talk’. It is also very important to constantly support the key users so as not to lose their support. As the name suggests, they can be the key to a successful project.

How to get information from users¶

The usage analysis is one of the most important parts in a migration. However, this requires good methology since users won’t always just tell you everything if you ask. The following chapters will walk through some of them as examples. It is nevertheless recommended to get support from a consulting company, since they have way more experience with different workshop formats and can take away a lot of preparation and analysis work.

Questionnaires¶

Probably one of the most commonly used methods are questionnaires. They simply ask users predefined questions and are either handed out on paper or an online form. This has two major advantages: it can be done fairly fast and a big mass of answers can be processed. However, since you don’t have a direct contact to the users, they won’t tell you the most valuable details and will try to answer in a way that is beneficial for them. Also, there is usually not much time put in questionair answers.

It’s recommended to use questionnaires as a tool to get a quick overview. The standardized answers are great to prepare presentations for decision makers and make a first plan. Don’t use them as the ‘single source of truth’, since they won’t contain all and always correct information.

Interviews¶

The next method many people come up with are interviews. In contrast to ques- tionaires they give the project a face because users see you as the responsible person. You will also be able to get more detailed information since you can talk freely to the people and ask follow up questions. Unlike in questionnaires they will also tell you some honest opinions after some time which can be really valuable to improve the future usage concepts. Also, the interviewed people can ask questions.

The biggest downside of interviews is the time effort required. Every inter- view should take one hour and only up to three users can be interviewed at once. This is not practical in big organizations. Also having interviews with only a few selected people can lead to blind spots.

Workshops¶

Workshops can be really powerful to gather a lot of information in a comparably short amount of time. They need, however, to be very well prepared and the participants need to be given precise tasks to work on. There are too many workshop formats out there to mention them all in this guide. But here are a few ideas how to structure workshops:

1. The warmup: After a quick introduction round a simple warmup task should be given to the participants. This should already introduce them to the tools used in the workshop and to each other, if they do not yet really know each other.
2. The overview: If a top down approach is chosen, the participants should work on a birds eye perspective of their work. This could be a map of used tools or a macro process draft. If a bottom up approach is chosen it should be started with a simple starting point to gather more information around it. Working in small groups is recommended.
3. The details: After everyone is familiar with the tools used in the workshop and productive groups have formed, more complex tasks can be given. This can also include a discussion with all participants. Keep in mind that not only the people happy to speak in front of people should get their chance to speak up, but also the quiet ones. It should be actively asked for their opinions.

Of course, every workshop needs to have a precise result, which should comply with goal set earlier. That result must be prepared and ideally a result documentation should be created. That documentation does not have to be a text document, but can be a mindmap, process drawing or anything that can be understood by everyone easily. Especially for workshops it’s recommended to get support from consulting companies, although outsourcing that completely will result in too generic results with no practical relevance.

Process management¶

The most expensive but also most detailed way of analyzing the current state is process management. It does not only analyze which tools are used when and how, it also analyzes how the organization works in general. Therefore, process drawings (models) are created where the used tools can be linked to process steps. A process analysis is a long taking process, so initiating that just for a migration is definitely overkill. But if an organization already has a process management and process managers in place, existing data can be extended to include the tool usage.