Courtesy of Luise Freese [MVP]FollowJul 30

Note: I did a session with Michael Roth on based on this blog post at #Office365UGHH — please connect with and follow him as well.

If you want to run your Office 365 project like an usual IT project we just wanted to send you a non misunderstandable message:

ARE YOU NUTS?

We know, we know, you ran a lot of projects, new Office Versions and operating systems, you migrated data and perhaps not everything went as planned, but work is what happens to you, while you are busy making other plans, right?

So what could possibly go wrong if you just tried to continue how you treat your projects? As we have SOME experiences with projects, we collected some bad causes for you.

CONFLICT OF OBJECTIVES

If we treated our Office365 project like an IT only project we for sure create some conflicts of objectives between IT department and business departments.

IT department one the one hand needs to ensure a stable, smooth operation. All key figures (KPIs) and processes are geared to this and favor an attitude and habits that permit as few errors as possible by not experimenting and not experiencing something new. We are sure you are super familiar to that quote “ Never change a running system. “
Business departments on the other hand do not only need a running system but also freedom and room to ideate, innovate and create new business opportunities and even change the way they do business. Without this change, business was stuck in operations but desperately needs ability to do some strategic work as well. This is only possible, if trying out, making errors, not running smooth is an option, too.

→This conflict leads to false assumptions in IT what business could need and we don’t take business needs into account.