Customer Enablement Onboard and launch

Change Management Basics: Planning adoption milestones considering the Rogers Adopter Categories

Authored by: Holly Whitaker, PhD, Learning Strategy Consultant at D2L.

As a change leader, your goal is to get your institution to full adoption by defining what "full adoption" means for your institution and creating a strategy to get there. But we know that not everyone will be happy to comply with your adoption mandate - and not everyone will be eager to jump on board with Brightspace in the timeframe we would ideally love for that to occur.

The dark secret of leading these kinds of initiatives is that change leaders all know that adoption is a process, but yet we create these grand expectations for our initiatives that fail to take human nature into account. Human nature, when it comes to adoption, is well captured by Everett Rogers's Adoption-Diffusion model that describes five different Adopter Categories. Integrating Adopter Categories into your adoption strategy is one way to take human nature into consideration.

The diffusion of innovations model by Everett Rogers shows that there are five main adopter categories: First are the innovators, then the early adopters, followed by the early and late majority and finally the laggards.
As we consider how to integrate Adopter Categories into an adoption plan, it will be helpful to look at one Brightspace tool to examine how the different instructors in each Adopter Category will eventually adopt it. I'll use Discussion Boards as the tool example in this article.

Note: The descriptions of each Adopter Category can also provide you with an easy tool to know who on your campus fits into which of these categories.

Innovators: "Discussions are so yesterday"

Innovative faculty members & instructors are constantly on the hunt for new, cool tools. They have extensive networks outside of your institution where they learn about new things. They heard about discussion boards in your LMS, tried them out, and they may have already moved on to something like messaging apps for direct student communication.

Include Innovators in your adoption milestone planning by offering them early access to tools you're thinking about rolling out, like Discussions. Gather their feedback about how easy Discussions were to get started & use consistently. Use their enthusiasm about Discussions to gauge whether you should roll the tool out to all of your instructors. If Innovators maintain excitement over the course of a semester & don't move on the next semester to another innovation that performs the same function, that's a good signal that your Early Adopters will be interested in starting to use Discussions.

Adoption Strategic Goal	Tactic	Timeline	Milestones/KPI	Next Action Triggered
Introducing the right tools at the right time	Give Innovators early access	One term	Innovator enthusiasm for the new tool remains high over the term Innovator enthusiasm high from one term into the start of another	Invite targeted groups of faculty to come to a training session about Discussions. In the invitation email, share quotes from Innovators who had early access. Select quotes about the ease of getting started or excitement over using new ways to reach students.

Early Adopters: "Discussions are a new, effective way to interact with students"

Early Adopters are usually higher status faculty members who seem to always have a cool factor with their innovations. They don't try everything new right away - that's the Innovator's job. Early Adopters watch the Innovators inside their own institutions to gain awareness of innovations and to be sure that a particular innovation isn't an empty promise before they invest their time in trying it.

Include Early Adopters in your adoption milestone planning by targeting your communications about new tools you're introducing. They will be among the first to respond to your email that was triggered by the first Adoption Milestone (see "Innovators" section above). If you know who these individuals are at your institution - and you should - invite a group of Early Adopters to a special lunch-and-learn to give them a sneak peek into the uses and results from the Innovators achieved with Discussions in the previous semester. Plan training sessions either virtually or in-person to provide an opportunity for Early Adopters to work with Discussions in their online classes. Include a Quick Start guide for this training.

Getting Early Adopters on board with Discussions is key to getting the other Adopter Categories on board, so don't skip over this vital step.

Adoption Strategic Goal	Tactic	Timeline	Milestones/KPI	Next Action Triggered
Getting Early Adopters on board with Discussions	Targeted communications, special events, tool-specific training sessions	One month	Satisfaction surveys from special events & training sessions are very positive Discussion tool use in their courses has consistently increased since training	Broad communication plan to increase awareness of Discussions for all faculty & instructors. Include quotes & success stories from the Early Adopters. Since Early Adopters are high-status, this will inspire Early Majority adopters to strongly consider adopting Discussions.

Early Majority: "If that professor thinks discussions are a good idea, then I do, too"

Early Majority people look to Early Adopters at their institutions to learn about innovations. Early Majority people will need more support for adopting Discussions simply because they have less time & fewer resources to spend in pursuit of doing something new that may not work for their class. They perceive more risk, so they have a higher value on getting things right the first time. Therefore, always present Early Majority with a Best Practices guide that you walk them through as part of a more engaged, longer training session than previous groups needed.

Include Early Majority in your adoption milestone planning by showcasing Early Adopter success at department-level meetings. Select showcase examples from that department if possible - or from a similar field (Biology & Chemistry are very similar fields, whereas Education & Business are less similar). Plan a cycle of communications that come in several media: email, mailers, posters inside the buildings that house these departments. Communicate several times well in advance of any meetings or training, as this group will need repeated communications to respond.

Take comfort in knowing that once you get this group using Discussions, you will have achieved about 50% adoption, and that's cause for celebration!

Adoption Strategic Goal	Tactic	Timeline	Milestones/KPI	Next Action Triggered
Reaching 50% adoption for Discussions	Early Adopter Showcases at department meetings preceded by a variety of repeated communications	2-4 Months	Tool awareness surveys show awareness among Early Majority instructors Early Majority instructors complete Discussions training Discussion tool usage will increase	Move away from focusing on individual success stories, and toward communication that focuses on the per cent of faculty using Discussions or data-driven success in terms of student persistence or achievement increases when Discussions are used. Make it seem like everyone - not just the cool kids - are using Discussions in ways that increase student success factors.

Late Majority: "Everyone else is using discussions - I need to think about how I would use discussions"

Late Majority people tend to adopt once there are more users than non-users - or once adoption tops 50%. There's a big peer pressure factor with Late Majority individuals. They are deliberative, often are risk-averse, and need to do a lot of consideration before they will try Discussions. They need to hear about an innovation several times, see it in action, and have support to envision how they would use Discussions in their class. Therefore, offer Late Majority individuals the opportunity to see some good examples in their field or a similar field, offer them the opportunity to have someone from your team (or you if you're a solo act) look at their course with them to brainstorm how and where Discussions could be used in their class.

Include Late Majority in your adoption milestone planning by inviting them to an institution-wide education technology conference where they will have the opportunity to see lots of examples in action, along with the data behind the example on student outcomes. Target communications to users who don't use Discussions that aggregates data across your institution on the number of courses that use Discussions and student satisfaction with courses that use Discussions, for example.

Adoption Strategic Goal	Tactic	Timeline	Milestones/KPI	Next Action Triggered
Achieve high rates of Discussion adoption	Using data stories & breadth of examples to give the impression that Late Majority individuals should be considering Discussions.	3-4 Months	Late Majority individuals will seek out opportunities to come to Discussions training sessions or have a 1-1 conversation with you or someone on your team about how Discussions fits into their class.	Identify the remaining non-users.

Laggards: What's an LMS?

Laggards are the last to adopt any technology and may be a couple of "waves" behind. They often adopt only because there is no remaining means of sticking with what they had been doing. This can be achieved with a mandate, but mandates are an adoption power-tool to be used very sparingly. Laggards may not be clear on exactly what an LMS is, much less be using it for any part of their student experience. They also have the fewest resources to absorb the investment required for making any change.

Include Laggards in your adoption milestone planning by continuing to offer "Brightspace 101" sessions, so they can get the basics of how to use the LMS. This group will need repeated communications, and they will often need a personal appeal from you, someone on your team or someone in their department before they will respond. Make time in your plan to identify and seek out non-users of the LMS and Discussions. Often, a friendly personal conversation to uncover hidden sources of resistance can help a Laggard move forward.

Adoption Strategic Goal	Tactic	Timeline	Milestones/KPI	Next Action Triggered
Achieve 99-100% adoption of Discussion	Identifying Laggards & making time for personal conversations	2 Months	Laggards will reveal the sources of resistance to you, and you'll address those. They will develop an interest in using the LMS and Discussions in their classes.	Celebrate everyone's success.

Final Thoughts

You can't wait around for laggards to comply before rolling out something else new to your Innovators & Early Adopters. Ultimately, you wind up having overlapping Rogers curves & working toward different goals with different groups on different tools. Using a high-level strategy document can help guide your actions and achieve all of your milestones.

Finally, if 75% adoption is a reasonable goal for your situation, you might not want to worry about Laggards at all and focus your energy on the other Adopter Categories. Of course, not all tools like Discussions are suitable for 100% of classes - this is just an example of what your strategy could entail if you took all of the Adopter Categories into consideration while using a single tool as an example.

Check out the rest of the Change Management Basics articles: