Adoption Checklist

Creative tools > Adoption Checklist

When to use it | How to use it | Example | How it works | See also

When to use it

Use it when you are exploring how an idea can be put into practice.

Use it to test the viability of an idea, perhaps earlier in the process, before you start making prototypes.

Quick

Long

Logical

Psychological

Individual

Group

How to use it

To maximise the speed at which information about something you have created is spread through a society and is broadly adopted, consider the following checklist.

+/-	Purpose	Description
	Clear benefit	Benefits conferred are clear
	Understandable	Easy to to understand how it works
	Observable	Can be observed in action
	Trialable	Easy to try out
	Economic benefit	Has a high relative economic value
	Social benefit	Has a significant social advantage
	Satisfies needs	Satisfies an unsatisfied need
	Values alignment	Does not transgress core values
	Compatibility	Works with current technology
	Individual	Can be adopted by individual rather than needing whole-group adoption
	Social proof	Already adopted by social leaders
	Discussable	Can be discussed in existing social environment
	Better	Improvement in sufficient of above categories over current solution

Example

I have an idea for a new demountable building structure, so test it out with the table as above. Note how not all criteria fit (industrial and personal situations are not always similar), so I make sense of them as I can.

+/-	Purpose	Alignment
++	Clear benefit	Large, weatherproof temporary building
+++	Understandable	Very simple concept
++	Observable	Video made of it being used
-	Trialable	Only one prototype - build quality not that good
--	Economic benefit	Is very expensive
0	Social benefit	Irrelevant - industrial application
++	Satisfies needs
++	Values alignment	Usable in disaster situations
+	Compatibility	Standard footprint
++	Individual	Can be used by one organization.
--	Social proof	No other users at the moment
++	Discussable	Simple to discuss.
+	Better	A bit bigger than existing solutions

How it works

This checklist is based on a landmark study by Everett Rogers of how ideas spread ('diffuse') through societies.