Forcing people to enter data

The problems deploying Obamacare which is all over the news, started me thinking about PLM systems and  deployments. In an article by Michelle Melkin on Electronic Medical Records, she points out that there is building resistance in forcing medical practitioners to enter data. They see the first two to five minutes that are required to enter data into electronic health records systems as a waste of time for themselves and their patients. How many people in engineering have the same view of PLM?

Forcing people to enter data when they see no value in what they are doing results in a failed technology implementation. If people do not get anything in return for entering data, they will find ways to avoid they system.

PLM systems have to deliver value to the people who have to use the system. Borrowing from software development Agile practices, people need to "opt-in "http://newtechusa.net/agile/the-agile-adoption-game/. They have to want to use the PLM system because they get value from using the system. The system must make their life easier, solve a problem, remove a barrier. Just as with electronic medical records,  requiring people to enter data because management wants the data, will not work very well.

One reason people will opt-in to a PLM system is that it enables them to find things that they need. When people can find things they need, it saves them time. They see value in entering the data needed to find things. If you are implementing a PLM system, upgrading or just trying to improve adoption, concentrate on making search great.

Great presentations in the Social Product Development and Collaboration track at the 2012 PI Congress / PLM Roadmap Conference

Great presentations in the Social Product Development and Collaboration track at the 2012 PI Congress / PLM Roadmap Conference last week. The attendees were really interested in how social is impacting product development and product lifecycle management (PLM). The presentations will be available for download shortly.

My presentation discussed how applying information theory concepts improves collaboration and resulting innovation. This concept is a little "out there" I know, but it does make a huge amount of sense. When an information channel is stable and low entropy, a huge amount of  information, new data can be put over the channel. Innovation requires newness, change and lots of information transfer. We also discussed how to create a stable information channel using social media concepts and capabilities. For more information, you can contact me.

John Mannisto from Whirlpool Corporation presented his teams collaboration techniques. He discussed The “Commons”. It's a place where  Social Layers can combine and cross over to maximize our cross-flow of knowledge. He wants to be able to “go viral” with good ideas. The “Commons” social layer is the “water cooler” where explicit and tacit knowledge can combine.

John also told us we need to adopt new tools and new behavior - we need to get our kids involved. We need to learn from outside of work, because social media is outpacing corporate collaboration. We need to combine the new-generation behavior with the old engineering. Most engineering is based on Newton, Euler, and a bunch of French Mathematicians. What continues to change is the way we execute.

Bruce Richardson from Salesforce.com gave a great presentation on the coming combination of customer relationship management (CRM), social and PLM. With 4.5 billion people connected to social networks today, social has become the new way for sharing what we are doing and what we care about in our personal lives.  And for businesses, there are over 150 million daily conversions happening that are related to products and companies.  People are talking about your products and your company.  This is how your brand is being created.  You need to be able to connect with these customers.