A ‘Gem Like’ Software Rollout Communication Channel

There are many communication channels we can use for our software rollout communication but there’s one which I especially like and I may imagine that you don’t use it yet or you maybe underestimate its value, so I decided to share it with you in today’s blog post to help your work. I like it so much that I compare it to a precious gem.

Here’s how I came up with it. Quite some time ago I was a project manager for an absence planning software solution. To access this software the employees were using the same entry screen as they were using for their weekly time reporting. So while making the communication plan it occurred to me that we could put a banner in this screen because the employees visited it regularly. So we decided that at the times when most employees visit this screen we would display banners with beautiful pictures associating with summer holidays as we were approaching that season and texts that encouraged employees to use the new absence planning solution.

It worked really well. As a confirmation of that we could see proof in the follow up reports that showed software functionality usage increase during these times.

An important practice to make it work is not to display the banner for a long period but to install it for a week or so and then to remove it for a similar period. Then to attract attention again a different banner should be installed and displayed after the empty period. If you display the same banner for a long time and never change it then people will get used to it and will ignore it after a short period of time.

Since my successful experience with the absence planning software solution I have used this communication method in every software rollout, I have also advised my colleagues to use it and I consider it so effective that I consider a valuable gem.

For sure your new software will not always have a common entry screen with another software solution that your target audience already uses. But it also works really well if you insert such banners in unrelated software solutions that you know your target audience already use because you can be certain that that is a location that they will visit.

To get a permission to display banners in other software solutions you’ll need to agree it with relevant system owners. Be ready that they will not necessarily be willing to agree to this practice as they might believe that it will disturb the users of their software solution. But I see this channel as so effective that if it happens, I use my best negotiation and persuasion skills to get them on board. And so far we have agreed that it is worth doing it because we are all interested in supporting our companies’ goals and visions and new software rollouts are essential to achieve them.

Below you can see an illustration of how it could potentially look in an example to help you imagine how it could look in the software solution you are rolling out.

To your software rollout success!

Illustration for this blog is designed by Konstantin Burcev. Source: My book: ‘How to Be a Software Rollout Rock Star’