The cutting edge of technology is usually a pretty dangerous place to spend your time. It’s sharp, uncertain, and many times results in some blood-letting. But, it’s also a very important place for certain members of your project team to spend their time. Find out why early adopters are important and how your next technology project can benefit from their involvement.

Brett was a cool guy. His office was a treasure trove of electronic knick-knacks. Partially assembled hard drives were stacked on top of each other in the corner. Countless smooth metal objects identifiable only to the technology savvy lay all over his desk and spilled on to the credenza behind it. When you’d poke your head in the door he would always invite you to sit down. It would take a moment to clear the chair of cables and wires in order to take your seat, but when you did, you were rewarded with a direct view of colourful blinking gadgets and stacks of glossy technology magazines.

Brett was an early adopter. He was the guy that would get the latest and greatest of anything. He loved doing alpha and beta tests on software that had not been released yet so he could provide his input and feedback.  He was on the bleeding edge of technology, and as the company’s VP of IT, he would make sure the rest of the organization was just one step behind.

Some considered him disorganized, dishevelled, and a bit too much of a risk taker. I thought he was brilliant, and always looked for types like him to be a part of my project team. Why? Because early adopters of new technology or software bring a lot of value to you as a project manager.  This is especially important if you are involved in projects that are revamping, updating, or revising existing processes or systems that people are already familiar with.

How Do You Work with Early Adopters on Your Projects?

Early adopters will take your new technology through its paces, probably in a testing process that most software development projects go through involving pre-alpha, alpha, and beta testing. This testing ends up as a release candidate, which eventually winds its way into a production or live release of the software.

You want people like Brett involved in early testing stages. They’ll kick the tires, check under the hood, push the limits, and test the fringes of what the new software can accomplish. The best way to accomplish this is to release the beta version of the application to a small group of people like Brett, letting them know that everything is not perfect and it’s just a test drive. Challenge them to find what’s wrong with the application or doesn’t make sense from an end user perspective. Early adopters LOVE to find things that are wrong and will gladly report their findings to you.

Provide them with a mechanism that makes reporting their findings extremely easy. The best approach is to create an online form where they can record their findings. At a minimum, the form should capture what they were doing, what they expected to happen, and what actually occurred. This will give you and the project team enough information to fix any issues that surface.

Something else to remember is that it’s not just about uncovering things that are broken; it’s also about identifying processes or workflows that don’t make sense in the application. The last thing you want is to release something as new and improved when it’s actually old and worse.

The Benefits of Working with Early Adopters

Beyond great feedback, the following are some additional benefits of working with early adopters.

  • You Can Uncover Costly Mistakes – It’s better to discover something that is not working with a small group than it is to discover it later with a large production release. Case in point: a number of years ago I worked at a company that deployed software for use with handheld devices. Now, this was a number of years ago when PDAs were all the rage and smart phones were just making their way onto the scene. The application allowed PDAs to make a 10-second or less long distance phone call each night to sync data (yes, it was a while ago).

There was a rush to get this particular release out to the field. There was no time for early adopters to kick the tires and check under the hood.

The software was released, and everything went fine until a couple of weeks later. Suddenly, the thousands of users were getting hit with ridiculously large phone bills in the hundreds, and sometimes in the thousands of dollars! What was going on here?

It didn’t take long to figure out that the software was not hanging up the phone automatically as it had done previously. People would connect right before they went to bed and then walk away. The previous release of the software would dial, transmit data, and then disconnect. But, not this release. It would dial, transmit data, and then hold the line!

This technical faux pas cost the company tens of thousands of dollars to reimburse everyone for their bloated phone bills. This would have been very easy to spot if someone like Brett had a chance to get his hands on the Beta release!

  • You Can Get Them to Tell Others about the Application – Early adopters can also be early advocates of your software. Anytime you change the way people do something, you are faced with an uphill battle. People frequently cry out, “Why do we need to do anything different, the old way is working just fine!” The small group of people you engaged during the alpha and beta testing process can help you overcome this objection.
  • Here’s an example: I worked for a company that introduced a new invoicing application to independent franchise owners in the field. Up to this point, everyone invoiced manually. They would write the invoice out and then tear off a copy for the client, keep one themselves, and then send one into the corporate office. This process was antiquated and full of errors.

The new way of invoicing would require owners to purchase a laptop and small printer (about a $500 – $600 investment) and receive some training. You could imagine the cries of anguish when we floated that idea! “Are you kidding me? You want me to spend that much money to replace something that is working perfectly now?” they protested.

We strategically chose who would comprise our small group of early adopters: the unofficial leaders in the community of small business owners. The other independent business owners looked to them for the head nod that something made sense (or did not make sense) to implement in their own businesses. We then made it a great experience for the early adopters by incorporating their feedback into new releases, showering them with cool gifts (like beta tester t-shirts), showing a substantial ROI, and giving them recognition in the company newsletter.

The result? They spoke highly of the new application and encouraged the rest of the system to follow in their footsteps.

  •  You Only Get One Chance at a Great First Impression – Once you release your product or application into the wild, it’s next to impossible to bring it back. People will instantly form an opinion about your application…instantly. Think about how little patience you have for an app you download on your phone. If it doesn’t resonate with you immediately, you delete it even faster. You don’t want it taking up unnecessary space. To prevent a bad first impression to an untold number of users of your software or application, do a small release in an environment that still has a fence around it. This will allow you to see how it fares in the wild but still maintain some control if things don’t go as planned.

Do you have early adopters and advocates on your software or application development projects? They are an absolute must if you want to ensure project success and have your next product release not turn into a product escape!

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