Of the points of resistance, I’ll point out just one: 1) Our finance team wanted a product that had more project costing features. They wanted Innotas. They didn’t get Innotas; 2) The finance team insisted that if the product can’t do this or the product couldn’t do that, it wasn’t worth using and so they started using Excel for most things; 3) How did I approach it? I looked at the spreadsheets they had and started a conversation about how we can feed data from WorkFront directly to their spreadsheet. I talked about how we can get this data or that data and they can use it in their spreadsheets; 4) In the end, WorkFront does have poor Project Costing features, but we found a way to use what WorkFront does have and combine that with a few Excel spreadsheets and we’re doing business. 5) The finance team still wants Innotas, but we can close the month and close the year and get our job done just fine with WorkFront. Here is my suggested recipe for success: 1) Find out what their objections are - regardless of whether they are logical and sensible or emotional and irrational; 2) Do not push back, do not tell them they are unreasonable, do not oppose them; 3) Suggest that you can help optimize what they are doing, join with them in finding ways to reduce their workload, reduce the time it takes to do something, add value; 4) Recognize you may never convince them to leave the Dark Side, but you cannot create a chasm of opposition and back off chattering that undermine everything you try to do; 5) Find a common ground where you can make progress, you can leverage WorkFront in what it does well, and you can realistically work with them to find solutions for the few things WorkFront does not do well. Just my thoughts… Eric
