You invested in the software. You paid for the implementation. You ran the kickoff meeting. And then, six months later, half of your engineers are still saving files to their desktop, sharing drawings over email, and working around the system instead of through it.

Sound familiar? You're not alone — and the problem almost certainly isn't your software.

Research from McKinsey finds that roughly 70% of transformation projects fail to meet their goals — and the culprit is rarely software alone. It's people. Poor user adoption is consistently identified as the dominant reason why initiatives like Product Data Management (PDM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) fall short of their promised ROI. The good news: people problems are solvable, if you approach them the right way.

Why Engineers Resist PDM/PLM Systems

Before you can fix adoption, you need to understand why it breaks down in the first place. The root causes tend to fall into a few predictable patterns.

The system wasn't built around how engineers actually work.

Engineers have deeply ingrained habits — folder structures that make sense to them, file naming conventions they've used for years, workflows they've built muscle memory around. When a new PDM/PLM system is dropped in without accounting for those existing patterns, it feels like friction, not progress. The system may be objectively better, but it doesn't feel better on day one.

Training happened once, then stopped.

The classic "train and pray" approach delivers a day or two of instruction timed to the launch, then leaves users on their own. The problem is that people retain skills when they apply them repeatedly, with support, in real-world contexts — not in a one-time classroom setting followed by weeks of uncertainty. When users get stuck and there's no one to call, they revert to what they know.

There's no accountability for using the system correctly.

If saving files outside the vault or skipping lifecycle state changes carries no consequence, many users will take the path of least resistance. Without clear expectations, defined workflows, and leadership reinforcement, adoption becomes optional.

The "what's in it for me?" question was never answered.

Engineers are pragmatic. If they don't understand how the system makes their job easier — fewer revision conflicts, faster approvals, less time hunting for the right drawing version — they're going to see it as overhead, not a tool. The business case that got the project funded was written for the C-suite. Nobody translated it for the shop floor.

What a Real Adoption Program Looks Like

Solving PDM and PLM adoption isn't about sending a reminder email or scheduling a refresher course. A structured adoption program addresses the full range of factors that influence whether people change their behavior and sustains that change over time.

Role-Based Training

Effective training is tailored to specific user roles: engineers, operations, manufacturing, and beyond. It should also be built around real scenarios each user encounters every day. It's not a generic product walkthrough. It's "here's how you check in a file, manage a revision, and submit a change order in this system, configured for your company."

Workflow Alignment and Optimization

Before users can follow a process, the process needs to exist on paper. Adoption programs include workflow documentation that defines how tasks move through the system, including who does what, in what order, and what the system state should be at each step. When the process is clear and written down, it becomes enforceable and trainable. This is especially important when PDM and PLM work together across departments with different tools and expectations.

Internal Champions Who Sustain Momentum.

One of the highest-leverage investments in any adoption initiative is identifying and developing power users within your own organization. These champions become the first line of support for their peers, keep the team accountable to correct usage, and serve as a bridge between end users and administrators.

Ongoing Support and Reinforcement

Adoption doesn’t happen overnight. Structured programs include post-launch support windows where users can get answers quickly, along with check-ins to identify where people are struggling and course-correct before bad habits become the norm. This is especially important after integrations like BOM-to-ERP or Vault-to-Forma connections go live and add new steps to existing workflows.

Leadership Visibility and Accountability

Adoption ultimately requires organizational will. When managers and department heads actively reinforce correct system usage, track compliance and metrics, and model the behavior themselves, adoption rates climb. When leadership is indifferent, adoption stalls — regardless of how good the training was. Autodesk's 2025 State of Design & Make found that digitally mature organizations — those where leadership actively drives adoption — report more than 50% higher productivity than their less mature peers. Leadership alignment isn't a soft benefit. It's a measurable driver of ROI.

Why One-Off Training Isn’t Enough

Here's the core issue with the "schedule a training day and call it done" approach: it treats adoption as an event rather than a process. A single training session can introduce the system and its features. It cannot build habits, establish accountability, solve role-specific confusion, or prepare your organization.

One-off training tends to be generic. It covers what the software can do, not what your organization needs to do with it. That gap is where adoption falls apart. When engineers encounter a situation that doesn't match what they were taught, and there's no one to ask, they improvise.

A structured adoption program, by contrast, is scoped to your specific implementation, your workflows, your user roles, and your organizational culture. It's designed to be iterative, with touchpoints that reinforce learning over time and mechanisms to catch and address problems before they become entrenched.

How Hagerman & Company Can Help

At Hagerman & Company, we've seen what happens when organizations treat adoption as an afterthought — and we've built our approach specifically to prevent it. Our PDM/PLM Adoption services is an ongoing journey, not a one-time event. That means:

• Aligning technology with real-world workflows
• Supporting users beyond initial rollout
• Building internal ownership and accountability
• Continuously refining processes as needs evolve

This approach helps organizations move beyond basic usage and start realizing the full value of their PDM and PLM systems. Contact us to talk through where your adoption gaps are and what a structured program could look like for your team.