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Timothy C. Lethbridge SITE, University. of Ottawa tcl@site.uottawa

Value Assessment by Potential Tool Adopters: Towards a Model that Considers Costs, Benefits and Risks of Adoption. Timothy C. Lethbridge SITE, University. of Ottawa tcl@site.uottawa.ca. Technical proposals to encourage software tool adoption. Make tools understandable, robust and complete

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Timothy C. Lethbridge SITE, University. of Ottawa tcl@site.uottawa

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  1. Value Assessment by Potential Tool Adopters:Towards a Model that Considers Costs, Benefits and Risks of Adoption Timothy C. Lethbridge SITE, University. of Ottawa tcl@site.uottawa.ca

  2. Technical proposals to encourage software tool adoption • Make tools understandable, robust and complete • [Tilley] • Make tools integrated, responsive and flexible • [Martin] • Build on top of tools that provide cognitive support • [Müller] Timothy C. Lethbridge

  3. Key weakness with technical solutions: • Excellent technical solutions are often not adopted • E.g. Lots of people don’t adopt styles in word processors • E.g. Many features of spreadsheets go unused • In both these cases • There is lots of cognitive support • The features are usable • Those who do adopt the features love them Timothy C. Lethbridge

  4. Others have proposed looking at social solutions • E.g., Favre suggests to focus on • Administration • Training • Vendor dependence Timothy C. Lethbridge

  5. However … • Maybe we need to look more broadly at the vast literature on adoption of technology in general … Timothy C. Lethbridge

  6. E.T. Rogers reviews what is known about adoption • In his book “Diffusion of Innovation” • Now in fifth edition • Dicusses the vast literature on adoption in all technolgical domains Timothy C. Lethbridge

  7. Rogers’ stages of adoption • Knowledge stage • Aware of existence of innovation • Persuasion stage • Form favorable or unfavorable attitude • Decision stage • Consciously or subconsciously consider factors • May lead to trial use or more intense use • This is the focus of this talk • An adopter’s perception is key at all stages Timothy C. Lethbridge

  8. We will divide decision factors into three categories • Perceived Costs of Use (pCu) • What they adopter perceives will be negative effects of adoption • Perceived Benefits of Use (pBu) • Perceptions of positive effects • You would expect adoption if pBu > pCu • But: • Risks of Use (Ru) hold back the adopter Timothy C. Lethbridge

  9. Costs of Use - Up Front • - Up-front financial cost • One of the biggest obstacles against exploration • Research shows that innovations are more adoptable if they can be • Divided • Partially adopted • - Cost of hardware, support etc • - Time to install, configure, convert, etc. • - Time to learn Timothy C. Lethbridge

  10. Costs of Use - Ongoing • - Incremental extra time to use the technology • - Cost of being different from others • - Cost to maintain, update, etc. Timothy C. Lethbridge

  11. Benefits of Use • - Incremental time saved when doing the immediate task • - Time saved in the long run • E.g. ability to find information faster later • - Value of increased work quality Timothy C. Lethbridge

  12. Risks of Use • - Risk that cost will be greater than expected • - Risk that benefit will be less than expected • - Risk of negative unexpected side effects • - Risk if inability to revert on failure • - Risk that support will be poor or dropped • - Risk of encountering defects • - Risk that the tool will not allow the user to do the task the way they want • - Risk that the adopter will not be able to tell whether there were any benefits Timothy C. Lethbridge

  13. The value proposition • Users subconsciously evaluate factors such as those discussed • They must come to believe roughly and subconsciously that: • pBu > (pCu * (1 + pROI) • Where pROI is the perceived return on investment required to account for the risks Timothy C. Lethbridge

  14. Places where we have seen this model in operation • Adoption is easier for new hires • In our Mitel studies, it was almost always new hires who adopted our tools • They have to adopt some tool • There is much less risk involved in adopting a technology • They do not risk throwing away their expertise for something unknown Timothy C. Lethbridge

  15. The model in action … • Reluctance to adopt certain CASE tools • Initial costs were too high • Conversion costs high • Risk of being unable to transition to another tool • Users feared specific risks • Usability: Initial experiments were not promising • Ability to do the task as they wanted: Tool appeared inflexible Timothy C. Lethbridge

  16. The model in action … • Adoption of tools in office products • Perceived benefits • Low learning time • Lower cost • Perceived risks • Updates to office products might orphan the tool • Becoming trapped in a certain data format Timothy C. Lethbridge

  17. What can we learn from this? • Adoption is a multi-faceted problem • There is much research on technology adoption in general • Can be applied to software • Some points in this paper extend Roger’s points • We should consider trying to increase benefits and counteract all classes of costs and risks Timothy C. Lethbridge

  18. Thank -you • QUESTIONS? Timothy C. Lethbridge

  19. Timothy C. Lethbridge

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