Recent consulting engagements have found me helping customers define what Office365 means to them & what value they see in its use. They are lucky to have licenses and are seeking help to understand how they drive value from the investment.
You’ve heard the sales pitches: Office365 – The platform to solve ALL your needs! From meetings, to document management, working with people outside your organisation, social networking, custom applications, business process automation, forms & workflow, analytics, security & compliance, device management…the list goes on and is only getting bigger!
When I hear Office365 described – I often hear attributes religious people give to God.
- It’s everywhere you go – Omnipresent
- It knows everything you do – Omniscient
- It’s so powerful it can do everything you want – Omnipotent
- It’s unified despite having multiple components – Oneness
- It can punish you for doing with the wrong thing – Wrathful
It’s taking on a persona – how long before it becomes self-aware!?
If it can really meet ALL your needs, how do we define its use, do we just use it for everything? Where do we start? How do we define what it means if it can do everything?
Enter limitation. Limitation is a powerful idea that brings clarity through constraint. It’s the foundation on which definition is built. Can you really define something that can do anything?
The other side would suggest limiting technology constrains thinking and prevents creativity. I don’t agree. Limitation begets creativity. It helps zero-in thinking and helps create practical, creative solutions with what you have. Moreover, having modern technology doesn’t make you a creative & innovative organisation. It’s about culture, people & process. As always, technology is a mere enabler.
What can’t we use Office365 for?
Sometimes its easier to start here. Working with Architecture teams to draw boundaries around the system helps provide guidance for appropriate use. They have a good grasp on enterprise architecture and reasons why things are the way they are. It helps clearly narrow use cases & provides a definition that makes sense to people.
- We don’t use it to share content externally because of..
- We can’t use it for customer facing staff because of…
- We don’t use it for Forms & Workflow because we have <insert app name here>
- We can’t don’t use it as a records management system because we have …
Office365 Use cases – The basis of meaning
Microsoft provide some great material on generic use cases. Document collaboration, secure external sharing, workflow, managing content on-the-go, making meetings more efficient etc. These represent ideals and are sometimes too far removed from the reality of your organisation. Use them as a basis and further develop them with relevance to your business unit or organisation.
Group ideation workshops, discussions & brainstorming sessions are a great way to help draw out use cases. Make sure you have the right level of people, not too high & not too low. You can then follow-up with each and drill in to the detail and see the value the use case provides.
Get some runs on the board
Once you’ve defined a few use cases, work with the business to start piloting. Prove the use case with real-life scenarios. Build the network of people around the use cases and start to draw out and refine how it solves pain, for here is where true value appears. This can be a good news story that can be told to other parts of the business to build excitement.
Plan for supply & demand
Once you some have runs on the board, if successful, word will quickly get out. People will want it. Learn to harness this excitement and build off the energy created. Be ready to deal with sudden increase in supply.
On the demand side, plan for service management. How do people get support? Who support it? How do we customise it? What the back-out plan? How do we manage updates? All the typical ITIL components you’d expect should be planned for during your pilots.
Office365 Roadmap to remove limitations & create new use cases
They are a meaningful way to communicate when value will be unlocked. IT should have a clear picture of business value is and how it will work to unlock the capabilities the business needs in order for it to be successful.
Roadmaps do a good at communicating this. Though typically, they are technology focused. This might be a great way to help unify the IT team, but people on the receiving end wont quiet understand. Communicate using their language in ways they understand i.e. what value it will provide them, when & how it will help them be successful.