There’s one piece of technology platform management that most organizations are under-doing, even though it’s probably the most important piece. Which is making sure people actually know how to use the platform effectively in the first place.

Of course, when you’re stewarding a technology platform like a CRM or a website, it can feel like there are a million elements to consider, and areas of the field to cover. How do you make sure you’re covering all the right bases?

To help simplify that question, we divided the platform management ‘portfolio’ into three simple sections: In Place, In Progress, and On Deck.

“In Progress”

Most thinking about roadmaps focuses on the middle circle. "In Progress" represents the fixes and enhancements that are currently underway. They could be bugs that you’re squashing or new functions that you’re adding, and you're probably working with an expert firm to execute some or all of them.

This is the making of the machine… project management, executing, building, tweaking. This playground is often most fun for product-minded people to play, and the work is often time-bound and demanding of attention, so it’s the most obvious place to spend most of your hours and brainpower.

"On Deck"

Next, the circle on the right, “On Deck” represents the critical business of prioritization. Out of a limitless world of possible next directions and competing needs, the platform manager must make informed decisions about what comes next, and then keep updating those decisions as the landscape evolves. It's a sophisticated balancing act of needs from around the organization together with knowledge of short and long term goals and strategy.

Most organizations do some prioritization of platform enhancements, but how? We often see managers prioritize by intuition, when the need to prioritize provides a perfect opportunity to talk to people, get a deeper understanding of their challenges and hopes, and get buy-in for upcoming projects.

So what else?

Those two circles – “In Progress” and “On Deck” – are the most intuitive for many people, and the easiest in many ways to spend time on. They understandably take up the majority of most people’s attention in their management of a technology platform.

So what about the circle on the left?

"In Place"

“In Place” is the realm of system adoption. In many ways it is the most valuable, and the most frequently underserved area of the platform portfolio.

Your system has a ton of capabilities. But how well do your staff know how to use them? How comfortable do they feel with it? How easy is it for them to get support with a new challenge or a training point that they may have forgotten about? How good is the quality of data resulting from their usage?

The best way to increase adoption is to get out from behind your ticketing queue. Make appointments to talk to as many people as you can. Swing by people’s desks (or Slack them or jump on a Zoom) and ask them how it’s going, ask if they can show you how they do their work. Often they aren’t thinking of their hurdles until they’re in the middle of using the system, and then the frustrations start to reveal themselves popcorn-style, one after the other.

To state the perhaps massively obvious, the whole point of your system is for people to use it, and to use it well. Otherwise why are you investing in it in the first place?

Start with training

As a starting point, you need a robust training program. The standard way we “roll out” systems is to give people a training or two, and fool ourselves into thinking that’s enough. This ignores the reality of how people learn, and how many nuances there are to the effective use of these sophisticated platforms. 

Yes, you need to train people when they’re new, but you also need to refresh them again even when they’re no longer new. You need to train people when their job and responsibilities shift, or when new features or programs come online. You need to monitor the important points of data quality or user experience quality that are important to you, and offer further training for people when you see it could be helpful.

Follow with a different level of support

But even more than training, your internal platform management team needs to “flood the zone” with user support. It’s not enough to just offer trainings. People also need to be able to be in the midst of a task that is confusing them and readily and quickly get support. They need to be able to run into a wall and have a clear path to getting it resolved quickly and helpfully, in a teaching-to-fish manner that empowers them to overcome similar hurdles in the future.

They also need to be able to spot an optimization that could make their work more effective or save inefficient future hours, and have a clear path to suggest that change, have it weighed fairly in the mix of priorities for the platform, and receive clear communication back about both short term workarounds and a longer term plan, or even to receive straightforward feedback about why their idea can’t be incorporated, if that’s the case.

So who’s going to do all of this?!?

All of this takes time, energy, intention and focus. And it might be intimidating to consider adding to your already long list of responsibilities. But it’s one reason why a more robust team is needed to manage technology platforms well. And remember also that some people absolutely love this type of work, deftly supporting their colleagues to use the system ever better and helping grow their colleagues’ skills and impact.

The “In Place” part of your roadmap planning is just as important as everything else, if not more. But it cannot happen in between the cracks of what you view as your “primary” work. This is just as primary, and just as important to the success of your colleagues, the health of your systems, and the impact of your organization.