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At the core of every successful adoption plan, there are three deliverables:

• Communication Plan – A set of communication methods derived to ensure all parties are aware and ready for a change.
• Adoption/Training Plan – A set of training and mentoring events designed to ensure all parties understand how the tools will influence their daily jobs.
• End-User Support Strategy – A strategy to take care of End Users in the days immediately following Creo Simulation Live's go-live.

Each of these deliverables plays an integral part in ensuring your company can fully adopt Creo Simulation Live and obtain the business goals you wish to achieve.

Before starting the creation of the above deliverables, begin by creating a list of personas affected by Creo Simulation Live's upcoming addition. Articulate each persona's role and how Creo Simulation Live will affect their day-to-day role.

Some examples of personas in your organization include:

• System Administrator
• Design Engineer
• Designers
• Analyst
• CAD Admin
• End-User Support

Each persona will need a varying degree of adoption planned for them. Having one adoption plan for all personas is not recommended, as it will confuse and overload your end-users.

At a high level, software adoption User types fall into four communication categories:

• Early Adopters are users who want to try the new tool and be a driving force in influencing others to adopt the new tool.
• Early Majority are users who are more practical to new tools and need others to vet it first before jumping in. They would need a little bit of encouragement to use the tool and are more concerned with "What's in it for me?" and will want to know how this new tool will improve their lives.
• Late Majority are users who need a big push to adopt a new tool. Typically, they will only adopt the new tools when it becomes a significant part of your business operations.
• Laggards are users who are opposed to change. They are often uncomfortable using new tools, and they are willing to use the old tools and process as long as possible.

When planning communication, you must first start by identifying the groups impacted by the upcoming change and bucketing them into the four categories above. Next, place the roles/personas inside one of those groups.

Use these questions to guide your communication plan:

• Who are your audiences?
• What methods of communication work best for each audience?
• What does each audience care about the most?
• What do they need to know to be successful?
• When do they need to know it?
• What are the existing or best channels to communicate?
• Who should deliver the message(s) for it to be effective?
• How frequently should communication be done with each audience?
• What do you need from your audiences at different points in time?
• How can your audiences communicate with you?

It is essential to consider leveraging a variety of communication methods when reaching out to your audience. Some examples of communication methods include:

• Project newsletter
• Podcast
• Wiki pages
• Intranet forums
• Sponsorship video
• Change agents
• Information sessions
• Emails

It is important to note that emails alone will not be enough when communicating an upcoming change. Ensure that your communication plan contains various communication methods to ensure maximizing the reach of the message.

In addition to having a communication plan, it is imperative to listen. Establish a process for your internal and external audiences to respond to you. They should provide feedback, voice concerns, and share opportunities.

When creating an adoption plan, it is best to start by defining the impacted roles. Role-based training plans are the best way to minimize the amount of time your users are in training and maximize their time doing their job. Creating a role-based training plan starts by identifying the curriculum. Introduction classes are fantastic for a broad audience but often lack details specific to a specific role. We recommend that you begin by identifying the curriculum applicable to all users and then identify role-specific training.

When composing a role-specific training plan, it is best to create a curriculum based on the new business processes. Linking the new process to the role's daily job and then training them on the new actions using the new tool is the most efficient way to train users.

After identifying your curriculum, the next step is to determine which roles require which curriculum. Associating the curriculum's length to its value is also beneficial. This way, you can understand the total time needed for each role to attend training. This information is valuable to share with both end-users and managers so that there is a clear expectation of the time it will take to learn the new tools processes before returning to work.

One other thing to consider is a timeline for training completion. Having clear expectations around the use of a tool post-training is very important. End-Users will need to be informed of these expectations to ensure that the new tool's improper use is prevented.

After laying out your curriculum plan, the next item to address is the delivery of that curriculum. Training the trainer approach is recommended, as it:

• Creates Subject Matter Experts within the organization
• Removes the need for outside instructors
• Enhances your Support Strategy
  • The instructors can be leveraged to address product usage issues.

To fully train your trainers, you will need to ensure they fully understand:

• How the tool can be used
• How the tool will be used
• How each role will leverage the tool
• How the tool will impact each role

You will then need to make sure that the instructors are comfortable with the content and then schedule their time to deliver end-user training leading up to and after the release of Creo Simulation Live.

The last item to consider when planning your adoption plan is localization and translation. Where are your teams located? Will English be the language of choice for the training material? These are things you will need to factor into your adoption plan to ensure equal adoption across geographies. Consider the effort needed to train the trainer and how localization could impact this. You will need to ensure you have trainers in each geography ready to lead in whatever the preferred language may be.