Succeeding with HR Tech, Five, Make it Six Things HR Needs to Know

I did a Human Resource Executive Webinar on Tuesday titled 'Suceeding with HR Technology, Five Six Things HR Leaders Need to Know (and an HR Technology Conference Preview), and while it would be hard to share the information shared in webinar in full, I thought I would pull out the FiveSix 'Remember This' kinds of takeaway slides to share here, along with a little of the pithy commentary I dished out on the live Webinar.

Also, if you head over to www.hrtechconference.com, you can probably access a recorded copy of the webinar when it posts in a day or two.

(Email and RSS subscribers may need to click through to see the images)

Number One: In the Pre-Contract stage of the project, here's my one thing you need to know/remember:

Always. Be. Negotiating. Don't fall in love with the first demo you see or with the vendor that takes you out to the swankiest dinner at HR Tech. Play the long game if you can. You have just about all of the power before the contract is signed.

Number Two: In the Planning stage of the project, here's my one thing you need to know/remember:

We, all of us, humans primarily, are terrible at estimating how complex most undertakings actually are, and how long they will take to complete. Planning for HR tech projects is not immune to this phenomenon. Take your time, find some experienced implementers, challenge your assumptions, and be realistic about your organization's willingness, capability, and capacity for change when you set goals and milestones down. And it might not hurt to add another 15% for 'you never knows'.

Number Three: In the Teambuilding stage of the project, here's my one thing you need to know/remember:

One of the surest ways to limit your success with HR tech projects is to fail to devote the necessary resources for the needed time to the project, and get them some relief from their normal, day jobs. Almost every large project struggles with this to some extent. Getting a resource for 10 hrs/week does not automatically free that resource up from their normal duties, and you just may have added 20% workload to a key person you are counting on for the project.

Number Four: In the Managing Relationships stage of the project, here's my one thing you need to know/remember:

Your HR Tech project team will likely consist of a slew of different groups and organizations - core team, project sponsors, vendor staff, external consultants or SIs, and maybe even independent contractors. Managing the ownership, accountability, and communication across and among these different groups is so important, and a skillful and savvy project manager spends a ton of his or her time in this area.

Number Five: In the Technical Considerations stage of the project, here's my one thing you need to know/remember:

While many of the technical tasks have migrated from customer-owned to vendor-managed in the HR Cloud environment, most medium to large scale HR Tech projects have important technical considerations, chief among these are the integration needs from cloud solutions from different vendors, as well as the integrations from HR cloud solutions to legacy and sometimes on-premise downstream or upstream systems. And be mindful of the Planning Fallacy from a few steps ago when planning, scoping, and finding resources for your integration tasks.

Number Six: In the User Adoption stage of the project, here's my one thing you need to know/remember:

Most people don't like change. We like what we know, but maybe would not mind it if things were just a little bit better or faster or easier or more enjoyable. A good approach to user adoption is to couch and describe the change you are creating as the beginning of a movement towards something better, not necessarily a complete overhaul of systems, processes, and the way people work. We like 'better'. We don't always like 'different'. It's a subtle difference but maybe one that will make user adoption efforts and results more effective.

Ok, that's it for my Top 6 things to remember. If I would have had more time on the Webinar I could have come up with more, but these are a decent starting point. We will be hitting all of these topics in much more detail at the HR Technology Conference in September - use my code STEVE300 to get $300 off the best rate available when you register here.

A chart, like a picture, says more than words do

Welcome back to the work week (and try not to skip out on too much of what you need to do this week to watch the World Cup). Actually, can we pass a law that makes the World Cup more convenient to my personal time zone? But enough about that.

Here's what I wanted to share today, an interesting, quick read from the Washington Post on how much more effective charts are when compared to straight text for making sure your audience clearly understands the underlying data surrounding a particular issue.

Researchers from Dartmouth College and the University of Exeter recently published some interesting findings, ones that you probably already would have guessed at, around the effectiveness of charts in combating false conclusions or ones that are not supported by the facts.

To prove this thesis, the researchers took a given issue, say whether or not participants believed that the Earth's temperatures were increasing, and then showed one group a chart containing the relevant climate data, a second group was given a text-only version of the climate data, and a third group was given no additional information at all.

Here's the chart (naturally), of what the researcher's found happened to the levels of incorrect or non-factual beliefs that were held by each group after seeing the chart, text, or just going with their gut.

I am sure you noted on the chart that the actual groups of people being tested in this experiment were folks who identified as Republican, but for what I took away from the Post piece and the research itself, that is only a footnote. What really matters here is that among folks holding a particular belief, one that seems to be counter-factual, (or even flat out false), you have a much better chance of getting them to embrace the facts (and change their opinions of those facts), by showing them a chart of the relevant data, not a text-only passage. Doing nothing at all, or just shouting at them, is definitely the most ineffective strategy.

In the experiment above, using the chart of global temperatures drove the percentage of people holding incorrect beliefs down to 10%, a huge improvement from the text-only or 'nothing' strategies. That's the takeaway from this, don't get caught up in the political topics themselves. T

his strategy can be used for just about anything in the workplace where there are incorrect beliefs, perceptions, or just a person or a group that has dug their heels into the ground over a particular issue and you can't find a way to make them budge.

That's your assignment for the week - find one opportunity to send your message and make your point in chart form - don't rely on a simple email or a chat message to convince anyone of anything.

Ok, I'm out - have a great week!

Learn a new word: The Illusion of Truth

Repeating something over and over and over again doesn't make it the truth.

That seems like a pretty easy statement to understand, and with which to agree. I mean we all get that right? It doesn't matter what the statement is, or who is saying it again and again, the act of repeating it so many times doesn't impact the fundamental nature of truth.  I think we all learned that back in grade school.

But here's the tricky part, even though we know, or think we know that repeating something doesn't make it the truth, or at least closer to the truth, we often are easily deceived.

And that brings us to today's 'Learn a new word' submission, especially interesting and relevant with Election Day in the USA bearing down upon us in then next week or so.

Today's word is 'The Illusion of Truth'. Definition from our pals at Wikipedia:

The illusory truth effect (also known as the truth effect or the illusion-of-truth effect) is the tendency to believe information to be correct after repeated exposure. This phenomenon was first discovered in 1977 at Villanova University and Temple University.

This illusion of truth effect, which has been known for a while, was recently repeated in a study titled 'Knowledge does not protect against illusory truth' published in 2015 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

In that study,  40 participants were asked to rate how true a statement was on a six-point scale, and in the second, a different set of 40 participants were asked to simply state whether a statement was true or false. In both cases, repetition made the statement more likely to be categorized as true. This was the case even for statements that contradict well-known facts, such as, “Barcelona is the capital of Spain,” (when in fact, Madrid is Spain's capital).

Why were the participants in the study, and the rest of us too, more prone to believe a statement was true if we had heard it repeated over and over? According to the researchers, it is because trying to figure out whether new information is true is kind of hard, and requires more brain processing power than just simply accepting it.

From the above mentioned study's summary:

Research on the illusory truth effect demonstrates that repeated statements are easier to process, and subsequently perceived to be more truthful, than new statements. Contrary to prior suppositions, illusory truth effects occurred even when participants knew better. Participants demonstrated knowledge neglect, or the failure to rely on stored knowledge, in the face of fluent processing experiences.

And this from the conclusion:

Inferring truth from fluency often proves to be an accurate and cognitively inexpensive strategy, making it reasonable that people sometimes apply this heuristic without searching for knowledge. 

Thinking about things is hard.  It takes energy. Even doing simple fact-checking might be a bridge too far in many situations. But 'going along' with something largely because we have heard it many times before is always easier, and often makes sense and is a sound and harmless strategy.

Except when it's not.

So that's the trick then. To know when to trust the process if you will and when to do your own research and make your own conclusions. Gosh, that sounds like work.

But be aware that we all are more susceptible to the illusion of truth effect than we may think.

Happy Halloween!

SLIDES: Digital Transformation and Talent - #Inforum2016

I had the privilege to present yesterday at Inforum 2016, the annual customer conference for Infor, a leading provider of enterprise cloud technologies - including Human Capital Management.

My topic was Digital Transformation and Disruption, and the impact that accelerating and profound technology innovation and change is having on talent and talent management. I also included and talked about the incredible Pokemon Go phenomenon, and what that suggest for HR and talent. My only regret from the talk is that I really didn't get in a solid 'Sport and HR' re-set, but I guess I can try and do better next time.

Embedded below are the slides I presented at Inforum, and after the embed, (email and RSS subscribers may need to click through), I want to expand a little on the last slide - the recommendations that accompany the pic of Maxwell Smart.

Steve Boese - Digital Transformation and the Future of Talent from HR Happy Hour

The tough challenge for HR and business leaders when faced with all this disruptive technology is just how to go about getting started, deciding on what types of technology in which to invest, and how to prioritize time, investment, and resources.

On the Maxwell Smart slide, I offer three catergories of value that you can consider when evaluating new technology. Whatever technology you consider, it needs to meet a need in at least one of these three areas - two is better - but if you can find a project that manages to provide value in all three? Then you are basking in the glory forever more.

1. Reduce or eliminate organizational barriers- these are the inefficient systems and processes that get in the way of your employees being able to do their best work. Things like convoluted approval processes, endless email chains with no one making a decision, or antiquated and disparate technology solutions that fail to integrate smoothly if at all. This is the proverbial 'low hanging fruit' that the smart HR leader looks to exploit for quick, easy, and visible wins.

2. Improve and enhance customer service - HR is at the end of the day still largely a service organization providing support and consultation to the rest of the organization. How can you provide that service better, faster, with more inherent value tomorrow than you are doing today? Where can you leverage modern tools to allow employees to get access to tools, information, and people to enable them to focus on their roles and not on your rules? Technologies in this category don't just make HR better, they make the organization overall better as well.

3. Create a differentiated and persoanlized experience - One of the themes that I touched on in the talk was the way many of these modern breakthrough technologies like Uber, Stitchfix, and even Pokemon Go succeed by creating individual and personalized experiences and do this at massive scale. Stichfix sends out thousands and thousands of 'fixes' - collections of clothes and accessories to its customers - and no two are ever the same. Most organizations send out a handful of offer letters in a month, and except for the salary, everything else about them is EXACTLY the same. The same can probably be said for benefits and perks packages, physical characteristics of the work environment, and the method and process for training, development, compensation, and evaluation. Is it easier to have uniformity in all of these processes? Sure it is. Does it make the most sense for you business? Maybe not. It would be easier for Stitchfix to send all its customers the same 5 garments each month, but would that make the customers feel special and valued? Would they keep coming back?  I doubt it.

So those were my big three points that I wanted to leave the audience with today, and what I hope you think about when making the important organizational decisions around technology investment. Make sure you are hitting the best value category for you and if you can punch 2, or even 3 of the categories then you will probably be giving the keynote at Inforum next year!

It was super exciting and fun to be a part of such a big event - many thanks to the team at Infor for having me! 

SLIDES: Busting the Common Myths in HR Technology - #SHRM15

I had a great time (early) this morning co-presenting along with Trish McFarlane at the SHRM Annual Conference in Las Vegas. Trish and I were really glad to see somewhere near 300 folks brave the 7AM start time to hear us talk about HR Technology and more specifically, HR Technology implementations.

The size of the crowd, the high level of attendee enthusiasm and engagement, and the really long line of folks who came up to chat after the session was completed was a great indicator of the continuing and increasing importance of technology to the HR professional.

The slide deck we shared is up on Slideshare and also embedded below, (Email and RSS subscribers may need to click through).

After the Contracts Are Signed: Busing the Most Common Myths in HR Technology from Steve Boese

The big messages that Trish and I shared were a few - that even in the age of modern SaaS technology platforms the fundamentals of great project management remain important. Executive support, a dedicated project team, intentional attention to change management, and making sure the 'right' users at all levels of the organization are appropriately engaged in the implementation project are just as important in 2015 as they were in 1995.

This was a fun session to present, and Trish and I want to thank everyone who came out this morning as well as the folks at SHRM for allowing us to be a part of the event.

We'd love any thoughts, comments, suggestions any one has on this deck as well!