Preparing for Opposition

[Ashanti1922]

What types of pushback did you experience/aware of when Airtable was first rolled out.

I am ready for AT vs. Excel and "why now, if what we are doing works" any other hints and tips?

[Jason_Hill · Accepted solution]

I am a K-12 School District that experienced pushback from Excel and Sheets. It took me one training session and sometimes two for people to see the differences and sometimes the advantages. 

• Flexible database structure: Airtable allows you to create a custom database structure that fits your needs. You can create multiple tables, link them together, and define their relationships. This flexibility allows you to manage complex data sets with ease. There are hurdles to getting people to think differently, but with a few examples, the inner "relational" thinker emerges.

• Visual design: Airtable's interface is designed to be intuitive and visually appealing. It makes it easy to navigate and organize your data, and it's also easy to share and collaborate with others. The use of Grouping sets it so far apart from any spreadsheet. Also, Views are a game changer. They allow everyone to work on the same data from a different perspective. Anyone who has shared a spreadsheet will understand this.

• Real-time collaboration: Airtable allows you to collaborate with others in real time, which means you can work together on the same data set simultaneously. This is particularly useful for teams working together on a project or data set. This can be done in O365 with Excel and in Sheets, but the Views set Airtable apart from the other two.

• Automation: Airtable offers automation features that allow you to streamline your workflow. You can set up workflows that automate repetitive tasks, such as sending emails or creating records, which saves you time and reduces errors. Unless your users understand programming, this is hard in Excel and Sheets. There are some paid plugins in Sheets, but why when it's built into Airtable?

• Third-party integrations: Airtable integrates with various third-party tools, including Zapier, Slack, and Google Drive. This makes it easy to connect Airtable with your other favorite tools and streamline your workflow.

[Ashanti1922]

Thank you!

[kuovonne · Accepted solution]

I find that a working demo that addresses issues the people actually have (but didn’t know they have) does wonders. Without that working demo applied to their own use case, it is hard for the opposition to actually picture the benefits. 

The other thing to keep in mind is sometimes the spreadsheet they already have actually is sufficient. And sometimes the pushback is due to valid concerns that the user just doesn’t know how to express. So it is important to hear the opposition’s concerns and work to understand them, both so that the opposition feels validated/heard and also to come up with better counter arguments. 

[Ashanti1922]

Thank you I wholeheartedly agree.

[J_M · Accepted solution]

The feedback given above by @kuovonne and @Jason_Hill is great so I won't repeat anything there, but I will add something on about your approach.

I think the biggest thing is making users' concerns feel heard. Make them a part of the process and talk about how using Airtable will address their pain points. When you make people a part of the process and feel heard, they are less likely to feel like you're forcing something down their throats and much more willing to give the new tool a try. I've also taken the "let's just try it" which can have some pitfalls but when you know using Airtable is going to make everyone's lives easier and that they will like it if they try it, asking someone to try something feels less threatening than making a permanent change. 

[Ashanti1922]

I love this approach, thank you so much for the sound advice.

[pantostada]

I'm not sure if you've already rolled this out to your team, but I'll just share that I think showing an example of the end product and what the system can do is a huge help. Our team had a ton of pushback because it was a lot of up-front work without any clear indication around why this benefitted anyone other than the "big boss" above us all.

I now use AT with my team, which is smaller, and I started with showing them what data we can all slice and dice, how easy it is to filter data based on what you need in that moment, the live updating across the base, and how we can link entries and tables to each other. This helped everyone see why it should matter to them and how it makes all of their jobs easier, not just mine. It resulted in the team being more excited about the program and a little less intimidating...

Now that I'll be onboarding a few more folks, I'm going to start by showing them how we use the data stored on our base but limit them to interfaces and only show them what they need to work on. As they become more familiar with the system, I will unhide more areas in the interface I built out for their role or team and slowly let them familiarize themselves with AT.

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