Why Did We Shift to the User Technology Adoption Readiness Index From the Digital Dexterity Index?

With the 2021 User Technology Adoption Readiness Index published (both the re-usable questionnaire with calculations as well as the 5,000 user worldwide benchmark) I have received questions about its relation to the Digital Dexterity Index that we published in 2018 and 2020.  Have we moved away from caring about digital dexterity?

In a word: no. Digital dexterity is a competency required for any organization undergoing digital transformation. Without it change will be adopted too slowly and with too much friction to stay on top of the changing needs of customers and constituents.

The change in naming reflects that recognition that low digital dexterity results in a lack of adoption readiness. You’ll note the name of the index is “adoption readiness”, not just adoption.  So this rewords the index in terms of the meaningful output (that workers will adopt changes to technology and processes that you are trying to make) rather than the input (digital dexterity).  

The new index is more than just a naming change though. The old approach (the DDI) is still valid and was found useful by many organizations.  I tried to take what I learned from the DDI in revamping it and think the UTA readiness index does an even better job.  The improvements include:

1. It asks 4 questions per topic instead of 1 in order to validate the response via different angles on the topic.  
2. It adds a higher level categorization of 4 topics: technology, collaboration, work, and mobility
3. It divides the questions into ability vs desire, which reveals gaps between tech user attitudes and the barriers they perceive
4. Simplified calculations.  Sometimes it took a while to explain the DDI’s calculation method.  This one is easier to explain and we now provide a supplementary toolkit with the calculations.

I hope you find the new index useful (or even the old one if you prefer).  I like to get feedback on how it worked and what you found, so please stay in touch.  Just let our client services team know if you have any questions or would like to talk.  I can also help give my interpretation of the results when you have them.

Gartner clients can find the complete description of the UTA readiness index here (for users) and here (for vendors and service providers).