At Kloud we get incredible opportunities to partner with global organisations.
Listening to and observing one of our established clients has inspired me to write about the change programme around Office 365 and how we can expand the approach.
The change management programme, in terms of adoption, is based on a user’s journey through the office 365 toolset. A sort of step by step approach incorporating exchange online and SharePoint online – building a workspace for each department which effectively will become the reference point in which you work from. In short, targeting adoption champions throughout particular business units and keeping them abreast of the Office 365 updates.
We have seen results through this approach but it’s here I want to drop a different thought into the equation.
It’s natural tendency to develop a well-trodden path, but what happens when you have a disparate group of individuals who don’t take this route?
Taking people on a well thought out journey could almost take the excitement out of the trip. Why not foster an environment that will allow individuals to explore the Office 365 toolset?
What do I mean? Office 365 is continuously evolving its services. Just look at the roadmap and you will see what I mean.
Think about the last trip you took. Did you perhaps decide to stop the car and explore the countryside? You could well have stepped off the beaten track and explored the unknown finding that place that no one told you about.
Rigorous change control programmes that try and control how people ,within the organisation , adopt the services could well stifle the opportunity that the Cloud is creating.
Here are some key thoughts when considering an explorative approach to adoption.
Pop-up Adoption
The pop-up store is a remarkable concept in today’s society. It is a fantastic way to introduce a new thought, concept or idea down the well-trodden route with an ability to create a short term experience that could prompt exploring. There is fantastic opportunity to create these pop-up adoption initiatives throughout the organisation to inspire alternate ways to being productive.
Your posture on Change Management
In cloud computing, we find that cloud suppliers have a wave of new features designed to change and enhance the productivity of the consumer. The consumer loves all the additional functionality that will come with the solution, however at most times does not understand what the full extent of the changes. Herein lies the challenge, how does the conventional IT department communicate the change, train up end users and ultimately manage change? We get ready to run all our time intensive checks so that people know exactly what is about to change, when and how it will change. Challenging, to say the least, but when you ramp this up, well to be specific multiply by a factor of a hundred.
It’s time-consuming and nearly impossible to manage in the current cloud climate.
Here is a thought that will take you to the extreme opposite.
Enable everything. Yes, that’s right, let the full power of Cloud permeate through your organisation. The more time you spend trying to control what gets released as opposed to what doesn’t, the more time you waste which can be better used to create more value. Enable it and let your early adopters benefit, explore, they could even coach the late bloomers, then let the remaining people go on a journey.
Expose
‘Use what you got to expose people to what they could adopt‘
Yammer is a great tool in the Office 365 toolset that will expose people to different opportunities in being productive. Exposing different toolsets to people causes them to explore what they don’t know.
The mobile phone will help
People have started to explore technology. The mobile age has stimulated this approach. The slogan “There is an app for that” could well be the tag line that has encouraged end users to explore the tools that are available to them.
The Adoption Map
Whenever one is navigating areas unknown we tend to develop visuals that will help us make sense of the space. The Adoption Map could be a great tool to visually show your people what is actually out there. Instead of being a mere passenger on the journey, they could help plot out their own coordinates. When people start learning for themselves it’s potentially the most powerful recipe for success.
This approach could alter the role of change managers to become change enablers. Instead of controlling change you are learning and innovating from it.
Adoption simple means to choose. We have a great opportunity to present them with as many services as possible from which to choose, you can potentially foster an environment that creates exploration. The ability to learn for themselves and ultimately to explore in the confounds of a boundary that is ever expanding.
Category:
Managed Services