Well-conducted research helps identify gaps in Microsoft 365 deployment

Being a leader requires a modern technology stack

Our client is an international telecommunications company with operations spanning North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

Their plans for further expansion and rapid offer development required a well-designed and secure modern workplace to meet their business needs.

For that reason, the organization provided its employees with a full Microsoft 365 suite, hoping it would solve all the challenges they had faced during the pandemic and beyond.

Struggling with low technology adoption and unmet expectations

Project stakeholders knew technology adoption was almost as significant as the deployment itself.

They decided to support the process and introduce their employees to the new solutions with a digital workplace campaign that included a communication plan and self-paced training modules.

A few months into the deployment, the company did not notice any significant changes in employees’ workstyles and habits. The adoption of Microsoft 365 services was low, there was no visible return on investment, and expectations remained unmet.

To improve the situation, the client asked Predica for help finding the recipe for a successful and tailored adoption plan.

Increasing the chances for success with the right approach

Our consultants focused on discovering the current work styles and identifying the challenges to support employees in embracing the new solutions.

Keeping the main objective in mind, we developed a unique approach that combined the adoption and change management best practices with thorough user research.

The scope covered Predica’s main adoption tenets, such as Business Scenarios, Training, and Communication, enhanced with in-depth interviews with business representatives.

Overview of Predica’s Adoption Tenets

They aimed to reveal their current working habits with a set of questions, including:

• What tools and Office 365 applications do you use, and how often?
• What do you like and dislike about them? Why?
• How do you communicate and collaborate with other team members?
• What do you remember from the Digital Workplace awareness campaign run by the company?

The answers helped our consultants gain valuable insights, understand the root cause, and lay a solid foundation for the next steps. Although initially underestimated by the client, the interviews turned out to be the game-changer.

Ultimately, the research convinced project stakeholders that a successful technology deployment must start with a careful implementation plan and be monitored and assessed at all stages.

If you are unsure where to start – do the research

Interviews with key employees from different departments revealed how they had been using the services so far and exposed a series of mistakes made when introducing the solutions in the first place.

Without conducting the research, the project team would have spent much more time finding the source of the issues. Luckily, once the obstacles were identified, we could move on to the next phase of the project.

As we aimed to make the adoption process intuitive and smooth for the employees, we decided to follow the ADKAR Model for handling change management.

ADKAR model by Prosci

Also, thanks to gaining better visibility into employees’ perspectives, we could analyze the gathered information using the Atomic UX Research framework, which gave us a deeper understanding of the user experience and helped us make more informed decisions.

An overview of the Atomic UX Research Model

A solution that addresses the real needs

With the expert insights in hand, the company received an action plan backed by hard facts and practical recommendations on what and how to tackle the current adoption state.

By breaking it down into categories representing Predica’s tenets and best practices, our client could seamlessly integrate our suggestions into their existing processes. This allowed immediate action toward improving communication and launching effective training programs, setting the initiative up for success from the get-go.

On top of that, we prepared a custom-made list of adoption KPIs aligned with the organization’s goals and identified business scenarios, making the entire process practical and straightforward.

The list included metrics such as the number of active departmental teams, files shared through Microsoft Teams, and emails sent, which will help the company gauge the process outcomes, make sure they stay on the right track and take advantage of modern workplace capabilities.

Summary

By understanding the employees’ perspectives, our client was able to fully optimize the potential of its organization with a set of change management best practices and methods.

As a result, the company is now taking full advantage of the new solution. At the same time, its people can feel confident that future technology adoptions will be just as successful thanks to the proven tools and procedures they now have in place.

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