The mistakes you are likely making
when launching Office 365
Through our work, organisations across Australia and New Zealand, in the context of their introduction to Office 365 there is one common launching mistake we see time and again. That launching mistake is this.
Too much focus on the product being deployed. Focus on Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Yammer, SharePoint, OneDrive, Sway, Flow or Project Online etc. Therefore, there is not enough focus on your people or empowering them to use technology to unlock value for your business.
Our Team Week
Recently at Adopt & Embrace team week, one of our Adoption Consultants – Jeff Bell – facilitated a workshop on Adoption and Change Management strategies for Office 365. To set the scene for the session, he played a video which made the impact of this launching mistake (focusing on the product, vs the people) clear.
#Office365 Adoption - what we learned from the stone age Click To Tweet
The clip is from BBC sketch comedy show That Mitchell and Westarring, staring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. In Series Two, Episode One, Mitchell and Webb played Redbeard and Bigfoot, two workers from the stone-age who are about to attend the bronze orientation day (*cough* Introducing Office 365 training *cough*… sound familiar?)
Packed into just 2 minutes and 55 seconds, this video demonstrates a number of the common communication, training and change management challenges we come across when working with organisations planning to launch or launching Office 365.
We love this clip so much, we thought we would break it down, comparing and contrasting the Bronze Age Orientation to your Office 365 launch. Let’s take a closer look.
Stuck in the stone age? What we learned about Office 365 adoption from the Bronze Age Orientation workshops Click To TweetBronze Age Orientation:
I am so sick of hearing about Bronze… bronze, bronze, bronze, bronze. What’s wrong with stone? Does stone not work all of a sudden?
Your Office 365 Launch:
I am so sick of hearing about Office 365… Office 365, Office 365, Office 365, Office 365. What’s wrong with what I do on my computer? Does Word, Excel and Outlook not work all of a sudden?
The classic IT team approach to technology adoption is to try and sell the new, the wizz bang, the bright, shiny and sparkly new things. More sparkly things = we are delivering more! And everyone wants more right?
Well… not really. Talking about all the new stuff outside of the context of how people work usually misses the mark. Generally, your people just want to do their work. They are doing their work today. The ‘noise’ from IT is just distracting me from what can be done today.
Instead of focusing on the new thing, focus on how you can help people better achieve their personal and professional goals (which conveniently is powered by the new shiny things).
Bronze Age Orientation:
They say that bronze will revolutionise the way we hunt/gather.
Your Office 365 Launch:
They say that Office 365 will revolutionise the way we work.
It absolutely can! The problem is, technology is just one small part of that equation.
If your adoption and change management plans are making a clear statement regarding improving work, changing the way we work, being more flexible in the way we work, getting closer to customers etc – this is especially true.
No matter what technology you put in place to create a more flexible workplace, (for example, a new Surface running Windows 10 and access to Office 365 services) … if your manager expects their team to be in the office from 8:00 am until 4:36 pm in the afternoon… well… they will be in the office from 8:00 am until 4:36 pm.
Generally, IT teams don’t have much influence over workplace policy. If realising the benefits of your business case for the purchase of your Microsoft 365 Enterprise Agreement, and your Office 365 rollout project relies on people changing the way they work – an early discussion with your HR and leadership teams is important.
Changes in management practice take a lot longer than you may think – and the rate of individual change across your management team will be vastly different. Don’t focus on the resistors, instead work with those managers who want to embrace new ways of working with their teams. They will be worth their weight in gold to help you explore specific use cases and scenarios, pilot or test new technologies in the context of work, and ultimately (if you are successful with them) your biggest advocates are inside your business.
Bronze Age Orientation:
Well, you are exactly the kind of people I need to get through to. And my message for you two is this. Don’t be afraid of bronze”
Your Office 365 Launch:
We need to get through to all of you that you need to store your files in the cloud. And our message for you is this. Don’t be afraid of the cloud.
One of the easiest mistakes you can make up front is to take a “us vs them” approach. Using language like the Bronze Age Orientation facilitator users can very quickly put your audience on the back foot. In fact, we have seen people walk out of a meeting before because a facilitator created this combative divide (not one of our team, fortunately, although we did have to try to pick up the pieces).
Making sure the language you use is appropriate and inclusive is a key factor in ensuring that participants feel that they are being heard and part of the process. Other tactics organisations use is to develop ‘personas’. The role of persona work is usually to “better understand” the workforce and segment the audience for your project into manageable groups.
Whilst you may have conducted some high-level persona work to understand the different styles of work across your organisation, very rarely do we see those personas put into action. Many organisations still deliver a one size fits all approach to communication and training, despite what the personas say. And even then, the ‘one size fits all’ doesn’t’ actually fit any of the personas.
Speaking of persona’s – our experience is that most personas created by organisations are not useful or actionable personas at all. More just informed guesses, full of educated assumptions, focused on activities (how people work) vs what they want to achieve.
There are some interesting articles re the role of personas and how to document personas – we personally like the User Centred Design view of Alan Cooper (summarised well in a medium post by Antoine Valot) which prioritises
- observing, not asking;
- goals, not tasks; and
- focusing on a primary persona
Bronze Age Orientation:
Bronze is Brilliant!
Your Office 365 Launch:
Yammer is Coming!
Grand statements might help you grab attention… but unless they are backed up with a substance that supports the expectation you are setting, they can actually work against you.
Get into the habit of ensuring that in every communication, or every interaction there is something valuable for your audience. Something that helps create a shared understanding of what is possible. Something that helps me, as an individual or team in your organisation, understand why this is relevant to me. Something that helps me understand how this isn’t going to completely get in the way of me doing my job!
Bronze Age Orientation:
Meet Bronze. Bronze is your friend, user-friendly, multipurpose, exciting, zeitgeist-y, and most importantly of all, slightly shiny
Your Office 365 Launch:
Meet Microsoft Teams. Teams are your place to do work. User-Friendly. On any device. Creating new ways for us to collaborate. And most importantly, GIFS!
It is easy to fall into the trap of repeating “what is in the brochure.” But be careful not to use buzzwords or other terms that just don’t mean anything. “Microsoft Teams is your place to do work” – what does that mean? “SharePoint creates new ways for us to collaborate” – why do we need new ways to collaborate, I thought we worked together already?
When you come across loaded terminology like this, make sure you take the time to ‘peel the onion a layer or two’ to get to the heart of why this is relevant for your organisation. Position the capability in terms the business already understands, and in contexts that make sense for your people
“Our branch teams will be empowered to share their expertise and solve customer challenges faster than our current support model” is a far more compelling statement than “Yammer will enable us to collaborate more. It is our Enterprise social network”
Finally – a quick comment on GIFs. Whilst on the surface they may look like a gimmick, they certainly help communicate non-text-based emotion in your conversations. We are a big fan! If your organisation is clamping down on using GIFs in Yammer or Teams, try hard to fight it. We know that navigating policy, governance and practice in large organisations can be difficult. If only there was a way for us to express how difficult?
(seriously… GIFs are good).
Bronze Age Orientation:
Every day we are finding new uses for bronze. Bronze plates. Bronze Cup. Bronze Hat. Bronze Shoes… even Bronze windows
Your Office 365 Launch:
Every day we are finding new uses for SharePoint. SharePoint sites. SharePoint lists. SharePoint libraries. SharePoint search… even SharePoint workflows
SharePoint and the rest of Office 365 can really do everything (well almost). In fact, many of the processes you do manually today, or notebooks you carry to meetings, or flights you make to visit customers could all be replaced by the better use of Office 365.
Which can make it challenging if you focus on all the things Office 365 could do (because they are many and vast).
Instead, spend some time to understand what the most time consuming, or frustrating work your people do today. Starting with challenges that are grounded in ‘pain’ can make it easy to get the attention of your organisation when there is a simpler, cheaper or more effective way to do that work.
The bonus? Starting with a business challenge or opportunity usually means it is much easier to measure the outcome in terms the business understands.
“New document library” – not exciting
“Having to head down to storage B to file those papers when we finish a project is a pain in the butt. Being able to archive them from my desk (using a document library) gives me back at least 30 minutes a week” – more exciting
Bronze Age Orientation:
Stone is dead… prepare for the age of Bronze
Your Office 365 Launch:
The S:\ Drive is dead… prepare for OneDrive
Sometimes your plans may include turning things off. It is a natural part of moving some of your core services like file storage to the cloud. But don’t just make statements like “we are moving off the S:\ Drive and putting everything in SharePoint” without a clear explanation of how it will happen.
We are going to assume that you have done a great job of creating demand for cloud-based file storage in OneDrive, SharePoint etc. So, the next level of detail we need as individuals or teams, is how do we actually get there, and when do we need to do it by?
To ensure people don’t have any surprises, make sure you also make it clear as to the dates that the file shares they work with will become read-only… and when they will be turned off for good.
Bronze Age Orientation:
I just say… as a tribe… why don’t we leave the Bronze to the smart alecs and the wiz kids… and we will keep carrying on using stone axes like we always do?
Your Office 365 Launch:
I just say… as a team… why don’t we leave the cloud to the smart alecs and the wiz kids… and we will keep carrying on using our existing processes like we always do?
This is a natural response from many who may have worked for your organisation for a significant part of their career. It is to be expected. Sometimes this has nothing to do with your new Office 365 project though. It may just be that your organisation hasn’t invested in raising the tide of digital literacy across your workforce.
Bronze Age Orientation:
When you say bronze doesn’t need to be chipped right? My question is… doesn’t it? No, with modern smelting old fashioned chipping is a thing of the past.
Your Office 365 Launch:
When you say we don’t need newsletter/team meeting anymore. My question is… don’t we? No, with modern technology like Yammer, Skype for Business and Microsoft teams… old-fashioned newsletters and face to face team meetings are a thing of the past.
Your identity at work is something that you might not think about every day. There are certain things that we get a reputation for. Things we do well. For many, that identity may boil down to just one thing.
Recently we worked with a customer where we had a 1:1 conversation with an Executive Assistant. Whilst she was a very capable EA that anyone would benefit from, from her point of view, the key value she delivered to her team was the daily newsletter she carefully curated and produced every week.
When the change team came rolling in and saying that we no longer needed to send out internal newsletters… she was a little taken aback. “My team rely on my newsletter every week”, “they want all the information in one place, so they don’t need to go looking for it”, “they have told me how valuable it is many times.”
Taking away someone’s identity at work is a quick way to make them feel like a victim of your project. When scenarios like this come up, work with the individual to give them a voice in the process. In this example, don’t tell them “use Yammer now”, instead give them an overview of what is possible, and then ask them as to how they could achieve the goals of the newsletter? Put them in the driver’s seat so they can own their identity moving forward.
Bronze age orientation:
Have you thought about retraining as a smelter?
Your Office 365 Launch:
Have you registered for our “What’s new in Office 365” training?
If individuals or teams in your organisation are not interested in changing the way they work… ‘retraining’ them for Office 365 won’t be much help.
Whilst the default for many organisations when introducing Office 365 is to focus on “training people to use Office 365”, or “what’s new in Office 2016”, if as a participant I don’t understand the reasons why I need to change, nor personally committed to the change – training won’t do much good for me.
The other challenge with just focusing on training is that there are over 3500 different buttons we could talk about when it comes to Office 365. So how deep should we go to “retrain” people to use them? The answer is… not that deep at all… and in fact, the focus shouldn’t be on the technology… but the context, the use cases, and the scenarios where we can genuinely improve the way we do things (that just happen to be powered by technology from Office 365)
Bronze Age Orientation:
Will the bronze still need tying to sticks? Oh Yes! Cracking!
Your Office 365 Launch:
Can I still do my Pivot Table reports in Excel? Oh Yes! Cracking
Whilst in the background the technology may be changing… generally, your people don’t care too much about the technology itself. They just want to be able to do their work. If you can paint a clear picture to demonstrate that individuals and teams can still complete the work they are paid to deliver, you are already on the front foot (“Cracking!”).
If you can successfully paint that picture, you can use this as an opportunity to create awareness of how you can help that individual or team stretch their current work – making the output more valuable for the business. Examples could be including more visually appealing charts to help with the interpretation of data, or using other capabilities added to the product (like Flash Fill) to streamline report generation. Or explore how you can take the standard report that they will still be able to create and levelling it up to an interactive dashboard in PowerBI instead.
But don’t tell them what to do. You want to include them in the discussion and ultimately lead them to a point where they are bringing ideas to the table. A manager wanting to push the boundaries is a powerful thing – especially if you can quickly and easily demonstrate how they can do so with the technology you have at hand.
Despite technology rapidly changing, some challenges are timeless. Whether you are just about to embark on your Office 365 journey or seeking to understand how you can unlock more value from, or increase the adoption or usage of your Office 365 investment, take a step back and learn the lessons from our friends back in the stone age!
