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From Build to Buy-In: 4 Ways to Drive Digital Transformation Adoption

If you’ve built it and they still haven’t come, you’re not alone.

A construction worker standing in front of a large computer monitor and tablet device.

Adoption gaps happen when a digital solution goes live before the organization and the people in it are ready. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a new portal, a redesigned website, or a workflow tool. If people don’t understand it, trust it, or see how it helps them, they won’t use it.

That’s where human-centered design (HCD) and organizational change management (OCM) work together. One without the other almost always leads to low adoption.

In Anthro-Tech’s webinar, From Build to Buy-In, Founder and CEO, Suzanne Boyd joined industry leaders to talk about how combining HCD and OCM turns digital products into tools that are adopted and sustained.

Four Practical Moves that Help Close the Gap Between Building Something and Seeing Real iImpact

1. Start with a Clear Purpose Everyone Can Repeat

People don’t adopt new tools; they adopt better ways of working. A clear, human-centered purpose gives everyone — from executives to front-line staff — a shared point of reference when decisions get hard. 

Start by naming the user problem in plain language. Then be explicit about how life gets better for both users and staff. That might mean fewer steps, faster answers, less confusion, or more confidence doing the work.

A clear purpose makes decisions easier. When teams face competing priorities, the “why” helps leaders choose the option that reduces friction for users and makes work easier for staff. Keep that purpose visible in roadmaps, training, and communications and tie it to outcomes people can measure in their own work. Adoption grows when people understand the promise and can see how their work helps deliver it.

2. Organize Around User Tasks, Not Org Charts

People come to your website to get something done — apply, renew, pay, update, or solve a problem. When your website’s navigation reflects departments instead of tasks, people get frustrated. And frustrated people don’t adopt new tools, they abandon them.

Start by mapping your customer journey. What are your customers trying to do? What words do they use to describe their task? Where do they get stuck? Then organize content so they can complete that task from start to finish without guessing where to click next. 

Adoption improves when the experience matches how people think and when your teams can support it without unnecessary stress.

3. Roll It Out in Smaller Steps

It’s tempting to launch everything at once, but large launches can often hide problems. When everything goes live at once, it’s harder to see where people are confused or where the process breaks down until frustration has already set in. 

Instead, start with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that focuses on top customer tasks. Put it in front of users to see where they hesitate, notice what questions they ask, and where they create workarounds. Use those insights to make improvements, then communicate what has changed and why. By refining the tool through these smaller steps, you ensure the system works for the people using it before the full launch.

Adoption doesn’t happen because of one big launch; it happens when people see that the experience keeps getting better.

4. Build Champions at Every Level

Champions turn a digital transformation into lasting behavior change. They help new ways of working become a seamless part of how the organization operates.

Leaders show the new digital direction matters by allocating budget, asking about adoption in meetings, and holding teams accountable for using the new system. Managers reinforce these expectations when they update workflows, adjust timelines, and evaluate performance based on the updated process. And when staff use the new tool in their daily work, others follow.

Make it easy for staff to adopt these new habits by grounding them in the same clear purpose you defined at the start. Offer training so they know what to do differently and share progress so they can point to tangible results and see the progress.

Human-Centered Design and Organizational Change Management Must Work Together

To make digital transformations stick, you need both:

  • Human-centered design to build the right solution by solving for user needs
  • Organizational change management to ensure the solution sticks by aligning leaders, processes, and people

Without HCD you risk building the wrong solution and without OCM even a great solution won’t last. Together, they turn digital investments into tools people adopt and sustain.

Ready to move from build to buy-in?