64866 AUGUST 2011 ABOUT THE AUTHORS SHERYL SILVERMAN Implementing a Collaboration Platform: has been a member of the WSP Communications team since Making Behavior Change Part of the Plan 2008. During that time she has focused primarily on Web-based tools. For two global programs—a rural sanitation project and a hand-washing JACQUELINE DEVINE project with the goals of scaling up access to sanitation and increasing is the Senior Social Marketing hygiene behaviors—how can lessons be shared easily and efficiently with a Specialist for WSP. She provides technical guidance in behavior global team across six countries, including headquarters-based staff? That is change and sanitation marketing. what the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) sought to do in 2008 by creating a virtual collaborative workspace, www.learningtoscaleup.org. APPROVING MANAGER This SmartLesson documents the challenges of trying to create a cultural Jaehyang So, Global Program shift from communicating primarily via e-mail and phone calls to using a Manager, Water and Sanitation Program. virtual platform. Although the above platform is no longer used, the lessons learned from the experience might help inform other teams seeking to create a platform. Background Project Descriptions In 2007, WSP began working on two large- scale sanitation and hygiene projects: the Box 1. Team Charter Global Scaling Up Rural Sanitation Project and the Global Scaling Up Hand-Washing with The Global Scaling Up Rural Sanitation Soap Project. Because WSP is a decentralized Project team agrees to: program, staff working in six countries on » Commit to positively reinforce those who three continents plus Washington, D.C., were share information involved in these projects. And, because a key » See each other as a member of a learning objective of the projects was to test innovative team approaches at scale, the need to share and learn was critical for the projects’ success. » Take time to help colleagues learn » Commit to sharing information and tools Originally conceived as a project, Scaling Up and to positively reinforce those who Rural Sanitation is now a key business area for share WSP. It also aims to strengthen the supply of » Encourage open and continuous dialogue sanitation products and services at scale— with the goal of being productive leading to improved health for people in rural » Promote trust, respect, and friendship areas. Local and national governments are » Commit to personal learning to remain implementing the program with technical cutting edge support from WSP. The second initiative, the » Feel free to challenge assumptions Global Scaling Up Hand-Washing Project, tested whether innovative promotional » Learn from other, similar initiatives both approaches to behavior change could with our stakeholders and in other fields. generate widespread and sustained improvements in household hygiene and Source: Frischmuth, 2008. Global Learning sanitation practices in Peru, Senegal, Tanzania, Strategy and Vietnam. SMARTLESSONS — AUGUST 2011 1 Central to both projects was a learning strategy that Platform Objectives: outlined how the Scaling Up teams could generate, share, capture, and disseminate knowledge about scaling up and • Allow the team to share draft knowledge products and sustaining rural sanitation and hand-washing programs. discuss initial thoughts and project challenges. Because learning was such a central part of the projects, creating a learning culture was critical for success. A learning • Help ensure that knowledge-sharing and capturing take culture “must be built on trusting relationships, a continuous place across all countries, given the time and geographical practice of facilitated conversations, sharing of learning, challenges. and a chance to engage in action-learning1.� Given this need for the learning culture, the relevance of a By October 2008, the site, www.learningtoscaleup.org, was collaboration platform became an obvious choice for the launched. The strategy for engaging the team employed team. As part of the learning strategy, a team charter (see several different tactics, with varying degrees of success. Box 1) was drafted to guide learning and foster the learning These are described in detail below in the lessons section. environment. Although the site was never used at the scale set out by the objectives and has largely been phased out since, many The desired outcomes of this learning process were lessons emerged from the experience, which could be of knowledge products that promote advocacy and help value to teams setting out to create similar platforms. implement cost-effective approaches to scaling up sanitation access and hygiene2. Lessons Learned To answer the learning questions, relying solely on traditional communication (face-to-face, e-mail, and 1) A successful collaboration platform for phone) was challenging. The team communicated primarily communication requires a behavior change and needs using e-mails, phone calls, and audio/video conferences, to be planned accordingly. but the need for a virtual platform, where discussions would be better captured and files could be stored for Switching from a culture of e-mails and phone calls to one everyone, became apparent. where a collaboration platform is the place to go for learning, discussing new ideas, and documenting The Knowledge Products information is a cultural shift for any organization. It requires a considerable change of staff behavior. As such, In July 2008, two WSP staff members and a member of the implementation of a collaboration platform should be Information Technology (IT) team met to discuss possibilities treated as any other initiative or intervention geared for implementing a collaboration platform. The WSP team toward changing the target audience’s behavior. members identified the site’s objectives and its desired attributes with the project teams. Figure1: Example of “Virtual Hugs� on Platform 1 Frischmuth, Christiane (2008). “Global Learning Strategy,� Water and Sanitation Program: 6. 2 Ibid.: 13. 2 SMARTLESSONS — AUGUST 2011 Ability, Motivation, and Opportunity (AMO) To bolster team members’ ability, a PowerPoint presentation with site instructions, along with a welcome message, was People need to have the ability, motivation, and opportunity sent to all new registered users. For some of the team, this to perform the new behavior, which in this case is using the was a sufficient way of learning, but not for everyone. collaborative platform. This is consistent with behavior- Moreover, team members had busy schedules, and change frameworks used by WSP and other organizations, expecting such as Population Services International (PSI)3. The concept of AMO is used in marketing and social marketing to explain them to make time to teach themselves the site might not behaviors among target populations. Ability asks if the have been realistic for many members of the target individual is capable of performing the behavior. Motivation audience. is whether the individual wants to perform it, and opportunity is when the individual has the chance to perform it. After the site was launched, the Scaling Up project teams were consistently reminded that the site had a comparative Planning advantage over the “old way� of doing things. The messages included minimizing duplication of efforts, Before meeting with IT, the Scaling Up project teams were clearer organization of files for the team to share, and consulted. To increase motivation for the team to use the better capturing of knowledge and lessons. However, platform, the features they identified as critical were communicating the comparative advantage was not prioritized. Almost unanimously, staff members reported that enough to motivate enough people’s behavior to change discussions and sending documents created a duplication of the team norm. efforts, because the same documents were being requested repeatedly of multiple people. In addition, having to go back One tactic to increase motivation was to recognize team and track down e-mails was an inefficient use of time. Given members who were using the platform to share and learn the initial feedback from the team, we adjusted the learning with colleagues. Team members could send “virtual hugs.� platform to fulfill both of those needs—a document A virtual hug was an icon that showed up on the person’s repository and a space for discussions. Although the learning name when he or she was sent a hug by e-mail notification platform had additional features (news updates on the home (see Figure 1). This was meant to positively reinforce those page, event calendar, and profiles of users), the site’s main who shared information, which was a key part of the team’s features were demand-driven. learning charter. We found that another area to focus on in the pretesting To respond to the multiple ways people learn, a second stage is usability. Working with a global team means differing training strategy—orientation sessions—was added. Phone levels of familiarity among the countries and team members calls with team members, using a technology that allows with different technology. Some people felt more comfortable for screen sharing, was an effective way to walk users than others uploading and sharing files and using discussions. through the site. Unfortunately, in both countries where Figure 2: Second Design of www.learningtoscaleup.org 3 Devine, Jacqueline (2009). “Introducing SaniFOAM: A framework to ana- lyze sanitation behaviors to design effective sanitation programs,� Water and Sanitation Program.: 1. SMARTLESSONS — AUGUST 2011 3 Figure 3: Suggested Roles and Responsibilities for Collaborative Platform Team we tried this, the Internet connection wasn’t fast enough, 2) Plan and budget for dedicated resources to manage and we were constantly interrupted. and maintain the site. In 2008, the World Bank was not widely using Adobe The project team included a project manager, a member of Connect, which might have been a better option. By using the WSP communications team, and an ACS staff member. The Adobe Connect, everyone from the country team can train entire Scaling Up team provided comments and feedback on together, or a champion from each country can take the an ongoing basis. training and then train his or her colleagues. The project manager, who was on the Scaling Up team, kept If champions had been identified in each country and the platform moving ahead, solicited feedback from the assigned clear roles, team members might have felt more Scaling Up team, thought of new ways to motivate the team, supported. Because the project team for the site was based in trained staff when on mission, and provided critical user Washington, it’s possible the country staff did not have the feedback based on her own experience with the site. The Web support they needed because of the different time zones. editor, who was part of the WSP communications team, worked closely with the IT team to implement the functionality People’s decisions about how to behave and whether to the team identified as desired, to help prepare training change a behavior depend on the social norms around them. materials, to provide training via phone, and to answer the The www.learningtoscaleup.org site was launched far ahead team’s questions about the site. The same staff member of the World Bank’s implementation of Scoop and other worked with IT to troubleshoot and make site upgrades. The social collaboration platforms. Given the timing, the practice primary contribution from the Administration and Client of using such platforms was not the norm, and as a result, Support (ACS) staff member was to provide maintenance only early adopters were highly motivated users. after the site was launched. Design The ACS staff was responsible for: Another key lesson learned was from the actual look and • Updating the home page message with current events design of the site. The learningtoscaleup.org site had two iterations of design. The initial look was very basic, and many • Sending out a weekly newsletter with what’s new on the of the team’s initial comments were actually focused on the site design of the site and not on its functionality. The second version, which was implemented a few months later, had an • Approving new users and assigning usernames improved look and feel (see Figure 2). By the time the second iteration of the site’s design appeared, many of the users • Answering questions from the team about the site were unlikely to come back. Pretesting helps identify unforeseen barriers to use, such as dissatisfaction with Based on this experience, we found it important to lay out the design. A key lesson from that experience is to invest in an roles and responsibilities clearly for each team member and to appealing design up front. make sure each person had sufficient time to accomplish them (see Figure 3). 4 SMARTLESSONS — AUGUST 2011 3) Endorsement by management can increase use. The endorsement of the new behavior by management helps drive use. By modeling the desired behavior, management sets expectations and can help create a new social norm. Social norms are the unofficial rules and behaviors of a group or society. Research into how social norms change has shown the powerful potential that community leaders have to change norms, particularly when the behavior is something that can be openly modeled.4 Management can also help drive usage by reinforcing the benefits of the platform when the “old� (e-mail) ways are still being used by team members. Also, management can motivate staff to use the platform or perform some of the duties listed in Figure 3 by including these in their results agreements and performance appraisals. Conclusion Even though the www.learningtoscaleup.org site is not really used anymore except for document retrieval, valuable lessons have emerged from this project. This SmartLesson combines the lessons learned from design, implementation, and maintenance of the site. It also highlights behavior change approaches from the actual projects being implemented by the team. When implementing any new system or process for a team, keep in mind how difficult it is to change behavior, and make sure you have planned accordingly. As part of that planning, make sure you have allocated the proper resources and support. DISCLAIMER SmartLessons is an awards program to share lessons learned in development-oriented advisory services and investment operations. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions Acknowledgments expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not The authors would like to thank Paz Ovidi, necessarily reflect the views of IFC or its partner organizations, the Lakech Tsegaye, and Erica Daniel for all of their Executive Directors of The World help in maintaining the site, Ritesh Sanan for all Bank or the governments they of his work programming and continuing to represent. IFC does not assume update the site, and the entire Global Scaling any responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of the Up teams for their contributions and feedback information contained in this to www.learningtoscaleup.org. document. Please see the terms and conditions at www.ifc.org/ 4 smartlessons or contact the Rimal, R., and Real, K. (2005). “How behaviors are influenced program at smartlessons@ifc.org. by perceived norms.� Communication Research, 32: 389–414. SMARTLESSONS — AUGUST 2011 5