Five Recommendations to Consider Along Your Adoption Journey

At Apptio, we have learned that gaining or increasing adoption is a common challenge for TBM Programs, because there is not one prescribed approach that works for every company or use-case. Many factors contribute to the challenge, including your company’s industry, culture, politics, etc. However, we can provide some tactics to help you generate ideas for your own TBM program!

Recommendation 1: Compiling a Communication Plan

There’s one piece of advice we’ve taken to heart in our collective careers: “There’s no such thing as over-communication." For example, during a months-long advisement with a company, we began speaking with major stakeholders about chargeback transformation. In consistently meeting with these stakeholders, we learned of other key user groups that had not been on our radar. Without this discovery, we would have gone live with a service that excluded major portions of their organization, which could have ended up delaying the initiative.

If your company is still in delivery, testing, or trying to implement a new process or capability, it is critically important to communicate with your stakeholder groups, especially end users. If their processes are going to change, get those users involved early. Ideally, they would be part of the process design, to lend advice on how pending changes will impact them in the future. While it is a challenge to make everyone happy and excited for change, you will identify those who are supportive and can use their relationships to gain buy-in from those that are apprehensive.

In our chargeback transformation initiative, we communicated using emails, leadership meetings, process mapping sessions, “road shows” and office hour sessions. There are many ways to communicate with any stakeholder or user group; your knowledge of each audience will guide you to the most effective activities or methods.

Recommendation 2: Interview Stakeholders

There is an element of showcasing “the art of the possible” when speaking about Apptio’s capabilities and solutions. But before you go building a complex report or presentation for a client, ensure that what you are building fits the needs of your stakeholders and end users.

We highly recommend hosting short interviews or meetings with your stakeholders, to better understand what exactly they are looking for and if Apptio’s products can deliver the right solution. Some great questions to start an interview conversation might be:

• What types of financial processes are they struggling with, and how frequently?
• What are their current processes, and what shortcomings have they identified?
• What are their goals for the next year and beyond?
• Do they have accurate reporting or tracking for their measurable goals?

Through interviews, you will gain a sense of where Apptio can realistically assist your customers and prepare you to iterate on existing and future reports. Once you begin building reports, check in with your stakeholders to ensure your reports are effective, and continue iterating as necessary!

To take this a step farther, once your team begins receiving requests for reports and dashboards, we recommend having a mechanism to take in requests to be prioritized by your team. ServiceNow, Microsoft Forms, as well as Smartsheet or a simple Word Document, are all perfectly reasonable options. You will want to document the request, along with its business impact, how the report will be used, ideal production date, etc. However, it is vital to use these submissions to start a conversation, and not take the request at face value. Not every request will come from Apptio experts, so it is always best to further discuss any request and ensure you have a proper understanding prior to building reports.

Recommendation 3: Building a Champion Network

Your champion network should be comprised of early adopters who express enthusiasm for the capabilities and functionality that your Apptio solutions provide. These individuals can use their positive experiences to influence others on their team to spur adoption. Your champions will have the background and experience of your target personas that your TBM Office may not have, which helps build trust and credibility.

By spending time to train your champions, understand their user experience, and explore their areas of interest, you can leverage them to:

• Dispel negativity, concerns, and resistance regarding new tools or processes.
• Support the messaging that is being sent to their respective teams, weighing in on messaging, ensuring it is articulating to the audience "What's in It For Me."
• Provide feedback on other reporting needs that would further assist their teams.
• Act as a training resource when rolling out a new dashboard or process to their respective teams.

As you consider which individuals to include in your champion network, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Is there a need to have champions in multiple geographic locations?
• Do these individuals work together as a team?
• Are these individuals’ persuasive? Will their team members listen to them and take their advice?
• Are there any cultural boundaries or regional dynamics to consider?
• Is there a balance of seniority?
• Do they display the right behaviors? Are they collaborative and open to change?
• Do these individuals have the capacity?
• Do you have representatives to help target all relevant personas?

Recommendation 4: WIIFM (What's In It For Me)

In many cases, your TBM adoption journey will require a change in process for stakeholders or end users. Regardless of whether the new process is more efficient, change can be scary and people generally shy away from it when possible. The way to sell your message is to consider their perspective on "What's in It For Me?" Highlight all the benefits of the new process, whether it’s to save time, remove activities from excel, see greater data transparency, etc. Be sure you understand what these teams care about and showcase how they will benefit. Do not guess how you think they will benefit: use the "Interviews" we discussed in Recommendation 2 to ensure your team understands what end users and stakeholders are lacking today, and how the Apptio solution will make their work lives better.

Another way to consider "WIIFM" is to provide recognition where it is due. If some of your early adopters’ experience "wins" using the tool, be sure to highlight those successes. This can add motivation for others to find similar benefits to experience the "reward" of recognition. Even a simple "job well done" can be hard to find in the workplace, and it is one of the best motivators that leadership can provide.

Recommendation 5: Identify Target Personas & Prioritize

As you consider increasing adoption, or even beginning your adoption journey, it is critical to consider "target" personas. These are teams that the TBM Office believes would ultimately benefit from utilizing your Apptio capabilities. Some of the more common teams to consider are IT Finance, IT Leadership, Application and Service Owners, and Business Consumers. You will need to consider which teams to target first, based on your solutions and objectives of your program, as well as who could realize value quickly.

• One of Apptio's selling points is bringing in multiple source systems' data, so which team's data represents the largest chunk of data? Perhaps you begin with that team.
• If your Finance team is being tasked with finding cost savings, perhaps you begin with IT Finance.
• You can also prioritize by organizational objective: identify which teams are on the hook for “delivering” in your current or upcoming fiscal year.

As you work to identify target personas, also consider other resources these teams will need beyond reporting, such as documentation and training materials. A collaborative workspace (such as Sharepoint or Teams) can provide easy access to users and help the TBM Office maintain current material. Your documents should be structured towards your personas - such as TBMA's, Subject Matter Experts, Project Managers, Application Owners, Executive Sponsors, etc. The groupings could differ by company and use cases, this is not a one size fits all.

Consider including Apptio overview documentation, including "WHY" your company decided to purchase Apptio (it all comes back to the Foundation of Why), and use case documentation. Use Case documentation should contain clear outcomes and value statements. This documentation helps socialize the value and purpose to new users further cementing the value to the organization. Governance, training, and procedural documents are also important pieces of your repository. These documents can outline the various processes put in place, as well as procedures and operational calendar of the TBM Office. These can serve as a foundation for success for new and existing users that come into the tool with "How-to" questions.

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In conclusion, there are many steps to consider and ways to action the organization’s adoption journey, some recommendations to consider are compiling a communication plan and communicating often and thoughtfully. Conducting stakeholder interviews will provide greater insight into the types of reporting and solutions key stakeholders would benefit from. Building a champion network has many benefits and can help increase adoption more quickly, the champions can serve as an extension of the TBM Office’s adoption efforts. Remember to include messaging on “What’s In It For Me” when discussing the benefits of Apptio. Identifying and prioritizing target personas will help your team prepare for your adoption journey while ensuring the TBM Office will not overextend themselves and impede progress.

As you are working through these efforts, please consult your Account Team to discuss methods and options that may work best for your team.

Bethany Reyda is a Strategic Customer Success Advisor with Apptio.

Resources which contain more information on adoption strategies:

·        TBMC 2022 Presentations

o   Improving Apptio’s Perception and Adoption Through Better Stakeholder Engagement

o   Maintaining the Apptio “Buzz”: End Users Engagement and Adoption Tips

·        Apptio Community

o   Apptio Value: Resource Center

o   Sample Communication Plan & Template

o   ApptioOne Adoption Methodology

o   Onboarding Plans by Product