communication and collaboration technology architecture
In this blog post I outline what you should not do and instead what options you have got to succeed with your Teams rollout to our business (end) users.
“OMG there’ll be a new chat software on my device? When? Today? What? Why? Another one? Do we not have enough? Why can I not stick with the old … it worked somehow …” Well, if you’ll hear these question from your end users something went wrong! You might missed a proper change management execution in regards of user adoption and training! The bad approach to roll out a new tool on device/s to end users is to
Ouch!
In my experience, based on my consulting projects, I’m glad to notice (and tell you) that more and more companies from small to large focus also on user experience as critical success factor. So, to get users to adopt new technology and make them to leave a comfort zone you must help them to get them aboard the Teams client. That’s exactly what these companies do: They start to develop a user adoption and training strategy and initiate its execution. Mostly the user adoption and training does not end when the rollout ends. An user adoption program remains but the intensity and frequency of actions to drive adoption decrease but does not vanish. Office 365, Teams and the ecosystem is dynamic and someone needs to keep that in mind to keep users informed on minor and major changes as well as to help and find ways for the business to innovate and drive the company’s digital transformation. #livelonglearning #learningftw #adoptionftw
To reach excellent user experience you must execute a suited change management. What this looks like depends on your employees and users. There is no one-size-fits-all approach in my opinion. There are some common things to keep in mind, plan and execute but usually this is different from company-to-company.
It may help to involve someone from the marketing team because they can be supportive for internal project marketing to make users demanding Teams before it is even ready in your company.
Get in touch with your business stakeholders, demonstrate Teams, evangelize Teams and sell the added value which it brings to each user (group). Assuming that you consider to replace your existing telephony system (private branch exchange, pbx) and go from a legacy phone system to Teams direct routing you must plan a longer period for the change management! Migrating common information worker workloads to Teams plus telephony is a much bigger change (organizational / cultural change) for users. You will have discussions if you just want to quickly replace a legacy desk phone with a new fancy headset and soft client … you need to address this early enough and offer solutions on which users agree(ed) on. Just imagine you go to one employee and take away the phone from his/her desk which he/she used for maybe the last 20 years … and why do you still go in the office? Using Teams enables you for working from every spot around the globe where you have a sophisticated internet connection, e.g. home office, in the park, on the train, … where ever you like with many devices…
This culture is not yet common practice in many companies. There are still many companies tying information worker employees to their office desks. The final questions are why and is your corporate culture striving for this change?
Since May 25th, 2018 companies/organisations need to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (de: DSGVO, Datenschutz-Grundverordnung) if they don’t massive penalties can be the consequence. During a project I was asked regarding Skype for Business (Server) GDPR-compliance. I assume that many SFB admins or service owners were also asked this?
Therefore I’d like to note that Microsoft provides a page on docs.microsoft.com explaining the key aspects for GDPR/DSGVO regarding Skype for Business (Server).
The parent page refers to other Office Server on premise server products and GDPR/DSGVO related information.
Are you already familiar with Microsoft Teams? I hope so. Teams is an impressiv communication and collaboration platform enabling your workforce to cope with different kind of workloads within a single pane of glass. P2P chat, team chat, presence, audio calling, video calling, app sharing, meetings, (third-party) app integration, (soon) PSTN telephony, bot integration … just to name a few features. Pretty amazing, isn’t it!?! Let’s have a quick look including the latest updates on Teams features:
I have been using Microsoft Teams since released. To me, it helps reduce mails, structure projects and its belonging communication and collaboration workloads. It really eases the work I have to deal with as a virtual project team member. It allows me to stay more easily in touch with project members and keep track of all the relevant information I need to complete projects successfully.
To start with Microsoft Teams: analyse your business requirements, create personas, create site profiles, assess features to cover these requirements with teams, calculate costs (business case), check feasibility, check gaps, check migration paths, always keep your users in mind (change management for user adoption & training) …
Teams can be seen as one enabling platform for a modern and digital workplace. One part within the complete enterprise and IT architecture landscape. One part to evolve the company towards a digital enterprise.
For more information on Microsoft Teams you can visit www.SuccessWithTeams.com.
