TRIGGER: How can an IT leader improve project success when adopting a new IT idea, practice, or product?

SETTING: IT Operations (ITO) leaders often struggle to adopt innovations (ideas, practices or products) successfully, frequently failing to realize planned Return on Investment (ROI) and other benefits. This brief examines how to increase the probability of success when adopting IT innovations.

SUMMARY: If you choose to adopt an innovation too soon or do not follow a careful examination of critical adoption factors the chances are good that your Complex ITO Initiative (CII) or project will fail -- perhaps with disastrous consequences. Your firms market position relative to your competitor's signals when you should start the adoption process. Use adoption rate (others deciding to implement) and diffusion cycle (how adoption spreads by firm type) to drive the timing of your decision. Marquis Market Maps can help you know when to begin the adoption process. When timing is right for your firm, you should base your adoption decision upon five primary factors: the innovation 1) has economic and/or non-economic advantages over existing solutions, 2) is compatible with existing circumstances, 3) is not overly complex to learn or use, 4) can be trialed, and 5) produces results observable to others. All too often however, eager ITO leaders choose to skip or re-sequence the fundamental activities required for successful adoption of any innovation. It is often difficult to get any change implemented in ITOs, however, Marquis research shows that ITO leaders who focus on adoption of technology innovations based on proper timing of these five factors could be 68% on average -- and as much as 87% -- more successful than those who do not. For an IT leader to improve IT project success requires proper timing and focusing on just five factors.

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KEYWORDS: adoption decision, market maps, adoption rate, technology innovations, disastrous consequences, fundamental activities, existing solutions, economic advantages, project success, careful examination, market position, competitor, diffusion, signals, initiative, innovation