You know how I am always saying that most of the big issues standing between us and unbridled project success have more to do with psychology than technology? (Trust me; I am always saying that.) Well, some of my most recent client experiences have brought this home to roost in terms of what I want to call “pre-learning” – giving users a chance to get up-close-and-personal with new concepts before simply throwing them into their new environment.
Take, for example, the large insurance company I have been working with to help staff members over the SharePoint hump. The IT director there literally has spent years trying to get his people comfortable with the idea of ditching their shared drive in favor of a central repository. But it only became clear recently that much of the resistance he’d been facing was due to a lack of general understanding of the why’s and wherefore’s of using an information management system in the first place, rather than specific uncertainties regarding SharePoint. So I went in and took them back to basics, and it now seems that the train is finally lurching forward.
But don’t take my word for it – check out the Marshmallow Challenge, which was developed by Peter Skillman, current head of design for HERE and former VP of at Nokia and Palm, and incorporated into the design activities of Autodesk Fellow Tom Wujec. Simply stated, the Challenge requires teams of four people to take no longer than 18 minutes to build a free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow that must be placed on top.
As discussed in his TED presentation on the subject, Wujec tracked several fascinating outcomes:
- In their first attempt, 6 or so teams out of 10 created qualifying structures
- With a $10,000 prize on the line for building the tallest structure, no teams succeeded at the task
- Repeating the exercise 4 months later, 9 of 10 teams accomplished the job
Wujec described these results as reflecting the need to apply performance-based incentives only to specific kinds of tasks rather than all of them (something other research also reinforces), and to highlight the value of prototyping when introducing new designs.
From where I sit, I see them as validating my long-held philosophies that different kinds of people need different kinds of reward structures, and that early introductions to new concepts breeds better long-term results than cold immersions. This latter point is what was at work with my insurance company client, and I fully expect that we will get to the former point before a whole lot longer. The lesson for you is that care should be taken to give people an opportunity to pre-learn about the changes you intend to make so they will be maximally receptive when the time comes to make them.
The content of this blog post was developed from current research taking place here at Holly Group on the subject of change management. We’d love to hear any stories you have to share on this subject – and if you could use a little outside support to improve your own efforts in this regard, well, we’d love to hear that too.