Courtesy of the great folks at Office365 Adoption

Leadership Buy-In: It’s paramount that business leadership understands that Office 365 is a productivity platform, and not just email. Office 365 is a powerful tool that will provide a competitive advantage and ensure that the next generation of employees have the tools it takes to succeed.

Office 365 Power Users/ Champions: Our most successful Office 365 clients have someone internally who has taken on the role of an Office 365 Power User or Champion. Someone who is not satisfied with the status quo. The Office 365 Champion is willing to be the “go to” person for questions and answers as well as helpful tips. This Champion meets with other Office 365 Business Unit Champions to discuss what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to be done. They socialize success and are willing to embrace change and learn new things.

Office 365 Business Success Manager: This person is the “main” person to project manage the successful training, consumption and adoption of Office 365. They take the lead and work with IT and other business units to help coordinate training and communicate success stories based on key goals that have been set. The Office 365 Business Success Manager measures the success of their Office 365 adoption and consumption strategy.

Corporate Communication Plan: From stirring excitement before the roll out, during the installation and long after the migration to the Office 365 cloud, we have seen companies that implement our life long corporate communication plan, see a tremendous increase in the utilization of the services that Office 365 has to offer. Plus realize more of the benefits of the services they have purchased.

Central Office 365 Support Portal: Out experience shows us that companies that have ONE place to share education, knowledge, how-to’s, quick start guides and learning videos are tremendously more successful then those clients that have information scattered in different folders haphazardly. People get used to having a “GO TO” location to get answers and advice. Humans in general are creatures of habit, and if we can get people in the groove of going to one place for success, they latch on to it.

Make it Fun: We have worked with clients and created fun, but very effective, events like an “Office 365 Expo”. This is similar to a vendor expo where employees and business units come together in a central location, i.e. cafeteria, meeting room, lobby etc. We set up different stations where the Office 365 Champion from each department demonstrates a different feature and value of Office 365. Each person gets a card when they enter and as they visit each station, their card gets marked. At the end, everyone that completes all the stations hands in the card and gets some super cool swag! We make if fun complete with balloons, posters, competitions and food of course.

Office 365 Business Gamification: When clients use Gamification it leads to an increase in Office 365 adoption and consumption. Teammates earn badges for each Office 365 mission they complete and when all of the missions are completed they earn a prize. Not only is the gamification of Office 365 fun, but it drives real world usage.

Office 365 Self-Service Help Desk: Clients that implement our Office 365 Self-Service Help Desk not only see a tremendous reduction in help desk calls, but more importantly they see their user base increase their confidence to try new things and be more self-sufficient in their journey.

8 Office 365 Education and Training: Clients that invest in Office 365 training for their Office 365 administrators and departmental power users see a much higher adoption rate than those clients that choose not to train. It’s important to note that effective training not be a “one and done”. Office 365 adoption and consumption is an ongoing journey, not just a destination. With this in mind, it’s critical that a video library of “snackable” 1-2 minute learning videos are available to provide continuous Office 365 Education and Training.

Quick Wins: Everyone loves to win, especially your Office 365 Power Users. We can help Identify business unit scenarios that Office 365 can address giving your champions some quick wins that leave them wanting for more. Maybe it’s using Skype to run better meetings, or perhaps using OneNote to improve meeting minutes and distributing them. It could be using OneDrive to securely share information with other teammates or enabling people to work from anywhere on any device. The list is long on how Office 365 Adoption can improve productivity and make work life easier. It’s important to show quick, yet long lasting, wins to gain the trust of each of your business units.