Muscle Memory & Feature Ignorance
It is a perpetual problem at most organizations I speak to: folks are going outside of IT to purchase software to solve business problems despite the fact that existing software is capable of achieving the goal they sought.
My rule-of-thumb is this: if a software package has been around for more than ten years, it is quite likely that over that timeframe, most common features have been added into it. So before you look for a new tool, ask your local, friendly, neighborhood CTO to see if the functionality you are looking for is in something you already have!
Part of this problem stems from the human condition; we are not built to think of tools in the real world as changing, without our knowledge, from year-to-year, let alone month-to-month. If I pick up a hammer, it acts the same way it always does. Screwdrivers are mostly the same, despite the years. Other things *do* change over time: skis have gotten much shorter and wider and curvier than they were thirty years ago. But that kind of change isn't jarring - it's an expected evolution.
Software, by its nature, is far different. And for most of us, the ignorance of capabilities is to be expected. Imagine if one had been using a ratcheting screwdriver but unaware that the toggle needed to be pushed in one direction or another to engage the ratchet mechanism. In this example, you'd be capable of having a much better experience, but simply using the tool the way you were used to. Perhaps you might even purchase a different screwdriver to accomplish your goal, because you were unaware the existing one was capable of ratcheting!
Once you've learned of a new feature, the expectation is that you'll use it extensively to be better at solving your problem. But back to our screwdriver example: the second, or third time you pick up a ratchet screwdriver, if you fail to flip the toggle switch, you may continue, simply because of muscle memory, using it the way you're used to.
Let's highlight one of the simplest examples out there on a modern Windows 10 machine: cut-and-paste. For years, most folks have become quite used to using "control + c" as a key combination to cut text and "control + v" to paste. Since many of us cut and paste text and images throughout the day, these key combinations are baked into our fingers muscle memory. Microsoft introduced a new "cloud clipboard" over a year ago that solved some of the most challenging moments with its regular keyboard: you could now cut and paste multiple items in a row, have version history of those items, and even sync your clipboard across multiple devices.
Sounds like a killer feature, right?
And yet: this amazing functionality is mapped to a new keyboard combination, the "Windows + V" buttons. Retraining your fingers to adjust the paste combo sounds easy, but muscle memory is hard to retrain. Especially for a feature that has only been out since 2017.
Let's go back in time, though, except with the popular "alt-tab" task switcher: Microsoft introduced a new task view back in 2014 that combined both task switching, with virtual desktops and timeline history. A huge set of capabilities - tied to both a small button in the task bar, as well as another keyboard combination: using "Windows + Tab" instead of "Alt + Tab". Muscle memory strikes again: even years and years after this feature, I find it difficult to hit "win+tab" intead of "alt+tab".
The buttons are right next to each other. I'm a very progressive CTO. So if I'm having trouble adapting to a new, much better model, chances are lots of folks aren't taking advantage of these capabilities. Instead of maligning them for a failure to keep up with capabilities, we need to treat them as well-meaning humans, and as opportunities to save them huge amounts of time. That's what every conversation with someone using an older, slower system is: a golden opportunity to make their life better.