Instead of training folks on all the “it depends” cases of a new tool, you point them to one page that has all they need
You’ve just finished the onboarding for a new tool, and now the fun part: getting your team to use it. As you pitch it, the team is rushed with excitement- and dread- about this snazzy new service; one that could be both a possible game changer, and yet another thing to learn.
For every tool, there are your core users- folks who will be in the tool day to day. They’re easy to find since they were probably leading the charge in the first place. Then there’s your secondary users- colleagues who need to do one or two things but will realistically only sign in a couple of times a month, if at all.
The core users are the ones that get the ball rolling since, after all, if there aren't clear people to spam with questions on Slack, the tool won’t do much good. But it's the second group- folks on other teams (and let's be real, they probably just skimmed your kickoff email) that make or break success long term.
Put yourself in their shoes: it’s hard to find time to learn a new tool when it’s only going to come up a few times a month. Think about a content editor who needs to make branded links for new posts: t's not really core to their work, and even if the platform you're using is quicker than TikTok, setting time aside still gets in the way of that afternoon kombucha run. This is where a side route, or an internal tools, can come in.
Internal tools are homegrown sites designed to give a slimmed-down version of various tools, and have one place that any member of your team can access. Instead of training folks on all the “it depends” cases of a new tool, you point them to one page that has all they need. Big businesses have been using them for years by way of internal invoicing systems, custom CMS's, and others. They have a bad rap for being clunky and outdated (rightfully so- off the shelf is almost always easier these days), but modern versions can be huge in getting over that 50ft training wall. Example use cases could be:
Notice that these are all relatively simple actions, ie things that your team would normally need to log into and learn how to access. In other words, it cuts down the training dramatically. This isn't meant to be for more passive things like getting reports and seeing metrics- I recommend a dedicated dashboarding tool for that.
The downside is that this route can have a lift to get it up and running- this is custom work, after all. For my clients, I note a couple of things to think about before you get started:
Once setup, you're only limited by your imagination- and the platform's API.
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