Changing How We Work with M365 – Where to Start

Changing the way we work – where to start? 
 
For colleagues looking to increase adoption of M365 capabilities within their team here are some initial tips.  
 
1 – Everyone has a different way of working so you need to find the ‘what’s in it for me?’ factor for the individual / group 
 
2 – There are hundreds of capabilities within M365. Don’t ‘sheep-dip’ colleagues in every feature (most they will never need) ‘Nudge’ them towards some features – they discover the rest.  
 
3 – Never show more than 3 new features at once. When they see the value, they will come back for more.  
 
4 – This is evergreen – things are constantly added. Shell has not switched everything on yet, so some features are limited (for now) until other elements of M365 are available 
 
5 – Constant change – appreciate colleagues concerns (fear factor around new ways of working, lack of support, bandwidth etc) 
 
With so many new capabilities it can be overwhelming, and you may not be sure where to start. Do you talk about the co-authoring and sharing features of OneDrive for Business, or the networking power of Yammer or the note taking features of OneNote? 
 
Here is a simple way to get started. 
 
Ask your team to estimate the % of time they spend on certain tasks (you could use Forms to conduct the survey). It doesn’t need to be scientific but what they perceive is the % of time spent on a task – understanding someone’s perception is more valuable than the reality when you are looking to help change habits and behaviours.  

The task list should include items such as: 
 
• Core activities 
• Email related to core activities 
• Meetings related to core activities 
• Ad hoc emails 
• Other meetings 
• Working on and sharing documents 
• Searching for information and expertise 
• Communications 
 
This also doesn’t need to be scientific and you will know the type of activities that should be listed.  
 
Once you have the results you will get a better picture of what to address first. I would leave the ‘core activities’ alone (always hardest to change) and address one of the other issues such as ‘ad hoc emails’, assuming this takes up an unjustifiable amount of time compare to the value it brings.  
 
Once you know the tasks you wish to address, return to the Cappuccino Club and we can create an exercise sheet for your team to work through and help to start reducing the time spent on the task.