Article

Early planning is key to digital media project success

Don't fail to plan and plan to fail; here are three questions to help in planning for digital signage and digital media project success.

September 25, 2014

By Mike Tippets, Vice President, Media Solutions, Hughes Network Systems

The adage, "When you fail to plan, you should plan to fail," applies particularly well to digital media implementations. Whether deploying enterprise learning solutions, corporate communication solutions or customer-facing solutions, time should be taken to plan and prepare.

My 25 years of experience helping customers implement digital media projects have identified three important questions every organization should address to ensure smooth deployment and ongoing success for their projects.

What are the measurable objectives?

If not understood and documented at the outset, the project may not fail, but success cannot be declared either. Travelers would not leave on a journey without knowing the end destination and the stops along the way. Don't deploy digital media without knowing the definition of success. There are many goals that can be achieved, but define which ones are most important. The objective should define what will be done, why it is being done, and how success will be defined. If the organization is unsure about how to write clear objectives, consult with an experienced and trusted solution provider. The real solution providers will be willing and able to share experiences and help create the criteria to measure success.

What are the milestones and checkpoints?

Even the largest organizations do not start by implementing new systems universally. First determine the "rings of growth" and how to validate that it is time to move from one ring to the next. In most enterprise organizations, there are a handful of locations that are common "test beds" for new technology, based on proximity to the home office, the size of the location, and the local staff's willingness to be guinea pigs. Start with these locations and validate the assumptions and overall plans including installation, service, content delivery, etc. It is also reasonable to evaluate some early content acceptability, but this population is too small to make final content decisions. The next ring will be a population of 8-10 percent of your total locations. Base the selection on size or other internal criteria, but be certain to include the extremes of the geographical footprint and the extremes of location types. This second ring will be key to the assessment of the value and return that the digital media project is going to bring. Touch as many parts of the organization as possible. Whether internal or external facing, it is important to test against the widest possible range of potential audiences. Use the criteria established at the outset to determine when to expand past this ring.

Is the culture ready for increased use of media?

Finally, make sure that the organization is ready culturally. Whether deploying digital media for enterprise learning or corporate communications, be sure that people are ready to consume information from these new vehicles of communications. Even when deploying digital media for customer-facing communications, the culture needs to be ready too. Front line associates need to know that customer information is going to be available on the screen starting at a specific time and be ready to answer questions and respond to customer requests generated by this new communication tool. The internal staff needs to know what is going to be on the screen before the customer asks. This also implies that there is a vehicle for front line associates to know in advance what will be on the screens and how to respond to customers. There is a significant advantage when the two systems (customer facing and internal facing) are part of one system.

Further, employees need to be excited about the new digital media tool that is helping to serve the customer. If there are interactive kiosks, help the customer see the value in using the kiosk. Don't feel threatened by the kiosk. Mention the welcome board at the entrance as a great way to see additional savings that are available in the store. These cultural updates are very important to the overall success of the digital media implementation.

Summary

Get advice from multiple external sources when considering digital media solutions. Input from internal stakeholders is expected and essential. But external sources will provide a wider representation of the things to plan for and consider. The external resources may come from professional organizations such as the Communications Media Management Association (www.cmma.org) or they may come from peers in complementary market segments. The input may also come from a trusted solution provider or group of providers. Gather this information and see how it affects the objectives, the planning and the overall success.

Mike Tippets is vice president of media solutions for Hughes Network Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hughes Communications and a provider of broadband satellite network products for businesses and consumers.

Image courtesy of Hughes Network Systems.