Microsoft Teams has become the most–sold Microsoft product of all time. Teamwork can move things forward and bring opportunities and successes that no one person can achieve alone. Teams brings five key attributes into your teamwork to achieve success: shared purpose, collective identity, self-awareness and inclusion, trust and vulnerability and constructive tension.
Implementing Teams can pay off in the modern workplace. However, in order to discover the value of Teams, it needs to be properly adopted by the employees.
In this four-part blog series on how to have a successful adoption of Teams, I will best try to answer if and how you can have 100% Teams adoption. And in 90 days? Yes, it’s possible. However, there are a couple of things that need to come together in order to have successful adoption in that timeframe. There are some critical considerations that can make or break your Teams adoption success.
Teams as a Central Hub of O365
An organization’s journey with Office 365 (O365) usually starts from the need to move to Exchange Online first and sometimes OneDrive and SharePoint. Teams is usually deployed organically (the “if you build it, they will come” motto), or later on. The reason for which method is implemented lies within the company’s timelines and priorities. There is no golden rule in which the deployment timeframe of Teams will be more or less successful. However, if you don’t have an organizational O365 strategic roadmap in place before you deploy Teams, success will not be as high as it could have been. Moreover, you will see decline in adoption after a couple of months.
What is an O365 strategic roadmap?
When new technology is brought into an organization and deployed, people go through three states: existing, transition and future state. Without understanding:
- what the existing state looks like
- what challenges there are
- who your end users are (employees, clients, vendors, etc.)
- why this technology is an important addition at this point in the roadmap, and
- how it will help solve the challenges or impact the end users, you are not prepared to deploy Teams.
Every organization is unique. I am not talking about the type of business or industry—that’s a given—but the culture and people within each organization are unique, along with overall business goals and objectives. A strategic roadmap creates alignment between all of these pieces.
At this point you must be thinking what all of this has to do with Teams and Teams adoption. Everything. Teams is the central tool and hub of O365. It helps and supports your employees by improving productivity, communicating more proactively, increasing engagement in their workplace, and having better work–life balance. And in return? You get higher ROI and meet or exceed your business goals and objectives.
Having an O365 strategic roadmap in place is a great first step. Now is a perfect time to start working on your adoption and change management strategy. For adoption to be successful, there needs to be a Project Sponsor and Sponsorship Coalition in place. In order words, the leadership of your organization must support deployment of new technology and be prepared to transparently support and drive adoption through the organization. It’s also important to address organizational readiness and risk assessment at the beginning.
Adoption and change management strategy is a blueprint that drives adoption and helps employees use Teams successfully, a way that will support your business and growth.
So, let’s go back to original question–can you have 100% adoption of Teams in 90 days? The answer lies in the world of ADKAR (Prosci) and the 21/90 rule.
Stay tuned for the next post in this series where I will journey to and through the magical land of ADKAR (Prosci), where we will slay dragons of Resistance, fight through the forest of Awareness, cross the river of Desire to reach the kingdom of Knowledge and race to the peak of the mountain of Ability and Adoption.
About the Author
Olya Bogoyevich leads the Digital Business Solutions practice where she guides clients to get the best value for their business objectives with cloud technology. She is passionate about supporting clients through the Business Change journey and application of appropriate Change Management Programs. When not working and solving business puzzles, she helps her kids with homework, sings with her two budgies, or goes for a run with her Frenchie bulldog.
