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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge2 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]

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge3 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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge4 Others have proposed looking at social solutions E.g., Favre suggests to focus on Administration Training Vendor dependence

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge5 However … Maybe we need to look more broadly at the vast literature on adoption of technology in general …

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge6 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 -

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge7 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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge8 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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge9 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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge10 Costs of Use - Ongoing - Incremental extra time to use the technology - Cost of being different from others - Cost to maintain, update, etc.

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge11 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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge12 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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge13 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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge14 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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge15 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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge16 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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge17 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

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge18 Thank -you QUESTIONS?

ACSE EdinburghTimothy C. Lethbridge19