Key Metrics for Software Adoption
There’s always a piece of change management to do when you deploy any new software. Whether that’s an enterprise installation of Primavera P6, Microsoft Project, Deltek Cobra or anything else, you need to make sure the right users are using it.
One way to do that is to look at some user adoption metrics and benchmark your organization against others in your industry, or of a similar size. We’ve listed below the common user adoption metrics that we take into consideration when assessing the success of software deployment.
1. Adoption rate
Adoption rate is the big one – how many users are logging into Primavera P6, for example. This will tell you whether you are reaching the right user population. Enterprise tools might have several user cohorts, from project managers to team leaders, schedulers and resource managers. It’s helpful to analyze your results by cohort to see if you can spot any trends.
Work it out: The percentage of users actively using the tool versus the total potential users.
Benchmarking tip: Compare how quickly other organizations achieve milestones such as 50% and 80% adoption. For example, industry benchmarks might indicate that successful adoption within six months ranges from 60%-80%, depending on the complexity of the tool.
2. User engagement
User engagement is different to adoption. You might have 90% of users who have logged in (adoption), but only 10% who are doing so regularly and for a period of more than 10 minutes a time. Tools like Microsoft Project are feature-rich; you can do a lot of things with them. However, most users don’t use all the features, and you might find that the majority stick to only using the software for a few things. Feature utilization shows you where you might want to train users on what else the tool can do.
Work it out: The ratio of active users (those logging in regularly) against the total user base. You don’t need a formula for feature utilization. Do some analysis of how deeply users are engaging with key features, based on audit trails or user surveys.
Benchmarking tip: Top performers typically aim for 80%-90% of users to be active within the first few months of implementation. A leading indicator is the percentage of users utilizing advanced features beyond just basic functionality, with top companies seeing about 60% of users engaged in key features after 6-12 months.
3. Training and onboarding completion rates
If you want users to actually use the tools you’ve provided, they have to be trained in how to use them. It sounds basic, but our project management software training classes often include people who have been asked to use a tool at work and haven’t previously had much, if any, support in how to use it.
Work it out: The percentage of users who have completed mandatory or recommended training.
Benchmarking tip: Compare the training completion rates and time to complete. For organizations with strong training programs, training completion rates may exceed 85%, with users completing onboarding in less than two weeks.
4. Churn rate
The last thing you want is for your enterprise project management software to be abandoned, and the teams going back to project scheduling on a spreadsheet. Churn rate is all about the number of users who give up, and we want to reduce that to the smallest possible number to ensure the return on investment from the software.
Work it out: The percentage of users who stop using the tool after initial onboarding or during early phases.
Benchmarking tip: Low churn rates (below 5%) are typical in high-adoption environments. Where the tool is a good fit for the tasks being done, and users like using it, they’ll stay with it as it makes their job easier.
5. Support requests or help desk tickets
If your users don’t know how to use the software, they’ll be raising tickets with the IT help desk. This can be a very useful source of information.
Work it out: The number of support requests or tickets filed by users struggling to use the tool. If your service desk can categorize incoming queries by software product, you can easily get a report to see how many tickets are raised. Analyze tickets by theme to spot trends.
Benchmarking tip: Compare the number of tickets per user or the average time it takes to resolve issues. Best-in-class organizations see decreasing ticket volumes and quicker resolution times as users become more proficient. A strong benchmark might be fewer than 2 tickets per user within 3 months post-adoption.
How to conduct benchmarking
But how do you know whether your organization is performing well, or well enough? Or whether your competitors are surging ahead?
Industry reports from organizations like Gartner, Forrester, or PMI contain industry-insights. You can also compare your user adoption or software implementation with your peers. Industry groups sometimes share anonymized user adoption data, or ask members for topics they would find interesting and then conduct surveys.
Often, software vendors provide benchmarks and metrics for software adoption from other organizations using their tools, so reach out to your implementation partner or the software company and see what resources they have. User group meetings can be another source of information and a way to make connections to have informal discussions with peers in other industries.
The metrics and the benchmarking are really just the start. What’s most important is how you act on that information. You might not need 100% of users to be logging in every day, so set meaningful targets for your own organization and track your performance against those.