How do you come up with best ideas? If one were to ask IDEO – the award-winning global design firm – they would argue that you create the best solutions by actually experiencing the problem firsthand and getting people from different backgrounds and ideas on the table to solve a problem. That is how they create designs and solve problems. 

To get the best solutions for a problem statement, it is important to get people from different backgrounds together on a table to work on challenges. Connecting to one’s “outer circle” (who are not from your own fraternity) has an underlying impact on the bottom line. Research suggests that employees who talk to their outer circle are 3.4 times more likely to impact finances.

With an agenda to find solutions to pertinent problems associated with HR technology adoption and implementation, leaders from diverse backgrounds discussed in huddles the blue ocean strategies for various challenges. One of the first issues identified was, “How to beat the odds of failure in technology implementation?”

Below are the top challenges and solutions from the discussion explained:

1. Problem: The prevalent gap between management expectations and HR

Explanation: Management has different expectations than HR when it comes to the HR technology solutions that should be adopted.

Solution: When deciding on a HR tech solution, make it a data-driven decision. When the business case is data-driven, the probability of the solution being successful is much more than adopting an HR technology that is popular and adopted by multiple businesses – which might not always solve the business problem.

2. Problem: Low-user involvement at the procurement stage 

Explanation: Due to the minimum involvement of people at the procurement stage, there is a misconception that the technology being procured is solving the business problems on the ground.

Solution: Follow a bottom-up approach and document the business problem at the ground. Run open-ended surveys and understand the challenges employees are facing, cluster the business challenges, and then get a solution which is the best option to solve those problems.

3. Problem: Going for 100% at the start

Explanation: Organizations tend to expect a perfect solution that can answer all the problems, which in turn creates a gap between expectations and reality.

Solution: Get a minimum viable product. No product is tailor-made for a particular business challenge that organizations face. Go for the technology solution which comes closest to solving the business problems and then adopt it, incrementally. Configure the MVP rather than looking for a perfect solution or getting an imperfect solution and customizing it. 

4. Problem: Resistance to change 

Explanation: Employees show resistance to change for three reasons: lack of sponsorship from the top, job insecurity, and lack of change champions

Solution: Organizations can incentivize change champions, but only if the procurement process has involvement of people in the adoption process. 

This is a brief recap of the solutions to overcome hurdles in HR technology implementation. TechHR’16 will bring many more pragmatic actionable solutions in-depth.