I remember back in one of my undergraduate psychology class we had an assignment that required us to observe something in our daily lives and then write a paper that explained it based on an appropriate psychology theory.  Now, some 15+ years later, I still try to practice the assignment by observing things in my daily life and trying to understand it based on my knowledge of psychology, organization development, and information systems.   Yesterday I was riding the subway and observed a subtle effort by management to change riders’ behavior.  The lessons from this observation are very applicable to our efforts to change IT users’ behavior.

I was standing on the platform, waiting for a much delayed Yellow line train, when I heard a soothing voice on the loudspeaker ask, “Excuse me, is that your bag?”.  The announcement then went on to request that all riders take responsibility for asking this question of the people around them whenever they notice an unattended bag.  The announcement further explained that this increases safety for everyone and helps put others at ease since they are also concerned by unattended bags.

So, what does this mean for information systems?  This simple little announcement incorporates several ideas for changing behavior that can help us when trying to improve user adoption of IT systems.  After all, driving adoption of IT systems requires changing behavior – just like on the subway.

Here are a few things we can learn from this simple little announcement:

•    Ask for desired user behavior! 

 Many times when deploying systems we don’t actually spend much time asking people to use the system.  This subway announcement is repeated at regular intervals at all stations.  How often do organizational managers and executives actually ask for desired user behavior?  Is this part of their regular behavior?  Do they do they use all available opportunities (status meetings, emails, newsletters, and other internal communications) to ask people to use the system?

• Don’t assume people know how to behave in all situations

 By encouraging people to ask the question, “Excuse me, is that your bag?” the Metro leaders are actually teaching people specific actions they can take.  This simple statement demonstrates exactly what people can do, and makes it easy for them to take desired action.  Many times when we implement IT systems we don’t teach people the actions we would like them to take to address the behavior of others.  For example, what do you ask each system user to do when they find other people are not using the system?  Do you ask them to talk to the person directly? Do you ask them to tell their manager?  Have you taught them specific things to say to encourage others to improve their use of the system? 

• Give people permission to act

 The metro announcement encourages people to take action and, in effect, makes it everyone’s responsibility to create a safe environment.  It also makes people feel more comfortable in asking questions, since the message has indicated this is desired.  This begs the question, who is responsible for making sure everyone is using your systems?  Are there things you can do to help share responsibility for driving user adoption to everyone in your organization?  Even little things, like encouraging all employees to regularly ask their coworkers, “Have you updated the system?” can have a big impact.  What have you done to give permission to encourage all employees to get others to use the system?

• Remind people

Unless something is a habit, people tend to forget things over time.  By repeating the announcement on a regular basis, Metro keeps riders’ attention focused on watching for unattended bags and creating a safe environment.   Many times when implementing systems we create communication plans that are executed prior to and at the time of go-live.  But what happens after deployment?  What do you do six months, a year, or 3 years later to remind people to use the system?  We need to remember that levels of user adoption are not static and we need to keep a regular focus on system use.  We also need to regularly remind all employees that they should continuously take action to encourage others to use the system too.

These are just a few simple ideas that occurred to me all because of a simple announcement on the subway.  What can you learn from observing the events in your daily life?