How to roll out through a community

A rollout going well, what a beautiful sight!

The success of a product or service is measured by its adoption: how many people used what we created compared to the number of people we’re targeting?

I learned everything about these approaches from Julie Liebert, who set up all these practices on a topic we worked on together. Big thanks to her again ;) Here’s a way to ease that adoption, based on UX and ambassadors, motivated people who’ll act as relays with users.

Rollout through ambassadors in 5 steps

Why

Ease user adoption of the product or service in question

How

Set up ambassadors (local relays) to ease the rollout of the product or service

Who

Product manager + ambassadors

What approach to follow?

Step 1: Understand the initial situation

“What’s happening on the ground today, without our wonderful new idea?”

That’s the question to answer. The point is to go meet (real) users and ask about their lived experiences on the topic you want to address.

IMPORTANT: at this step, we’re not looking for ideas, so we ban questions like: “if you had a magic wand, what would you change”, “what would the ideal situation be” or “any ideas to improve things”. I’m writing it in caps because it’s really important: WE ONLY ASK ABOUT THE LIVED EXPERIENCE! You can ask questions like: “the last time it happened, what went on?” “you say it happens all the time, can you describe what happened last week” or “do you have an example?”.

The goal is to interview between 5 and 15 people and synthesize the feedback to derive the most important problem statements.

Step 2: Define the pilot zone

You found THE problem statement. Bravo! You then dug into the topic with a method and started building your product or service. You know who your users are but let’s say you haven’t decided yet who your alpha testers will be. It’s time!

So define your future rollout pilot zone. It’s about 150-200 people max with many volunteers. It needs to be small enough that you can meet most users in 3 days max (often you have to travel to meet them). You’ll then learn alongside them and focus on their needs, even if your solution must be more global: adjustments for future zones come later.

If you’re in a large structure and your users are your colleagues, then you’ll also need to make sure the leader of that zone is just as motivated by your idea. And you’ll generally need to start at least 4 to 6 months ahead to explain, find volunteer(s), and convince.

Step 3: Build the ambassador group

Here we go, it’s the big day, you’ve planned everything to meet your pilot users. So your whole team goes on the ground for 3 days, to test your first slice of the solution. You run user tests to make sure it’s relevant. You take the opportunity to meet other people and to bond with them.

A moment comes when you decide to compose your ambassador group. Armed with your finest Google Form (or your finest shoes), you offer the users you keep meeting to become ambassadors. There’s one essential condition: is this user motivated by your solution? If yes, add them to a WhatsApp group that you’ll soberly name “MyProject Ambassadors” (any other idea welcome).

What to do with this group? You’ll inform them of your progress, ask them questions. In short, you’ll engage them. It’s up to you to set the relationship you want with them! (knowing they’re often volunteers who’ll invest themselves on top of everything else they have to do).

Your group is now sizeable (about ten people). You decide to gather them and address 3 topics:

• Explain the meaning to them. Your presentation is sublime and you want to show them! Talk about the meaning of your product or service before even showing them where it stands.
• Let them create their own communication, in view of the upcoming rollout. You need to support them on the type of medium: poster, video, event? Ask them, they’ll know how to answer because they know their context well. Your role is to make creating these materials easier for them, since communication is critical to launching your new idea effectively.
• Make them pitch. Train them to present your solution to their network, since these ambassadors will be your relays on the ground. They’ll communicate and they’ll need your help to do it well.

Step 4: Roll out and plan the next step right away!

It’s the big day, you decide to roll out your solution for your pilot zone. Your ambassadors are ready and you’re with them for this beautiful moment! You support them as users try the app, you spot the problems and explain when needed.

And right away, you plan the next zones to address. Since you’ve effectively covered your first audience’s needs, the next audience will already have a big share of its needs covered. You decide to define your second zone and plan the logistics to go test your solution there. You find ambassadors and you start over. You can also ask your ambassadors to recommend other ambassadors.

Don’t forget that it takes several months to make your solution land in the relevant zones if you work in large organizations.

Step 5: Measure and train

Once you’ve rolled out to your users, you measure. The main metric for rollout is acquisition: how many people did I reach compared to my market (= the number of targeted colleagues for B2E). So you identify zones with high or low acquisition. You correlate them to your ambassadors’ areas of action and you’ll get a few learnings.

The second important metric is revenue: did your users go all the way through what you offer? The point here is to provide some training materials for ambassadors (to co-build with them, why not in an ambassador workshop) so they can simply guide the relevant users.

In the case of solutions for colleagues, it’ll be interesting to grow your ambassador circle, still through volunteers, but who can have other roles (HR for example).

Your product or service keeps growing peacefully. You keep engaging your ambassador community while regularly testing with users. And you tell yourself: “Thank goodness my ambassadors are here! Speaking of which, isn’t it time I gave them a little gift?”

Going further

• User testing: to validate the solution before rollout
• Pitching: to train your ambassadors to present the solution
• OKRs: to measure adoption and track objectives