Complete Guide to

Office 365 Adoption

Top 10 mistakes and how to get it right
How do we get employees to adopt
Office 365?
The great thing about Office 365 is it includes a lot of tools you can use to be more
productive, but just like having a tool box with everything you need and more.
However, in many instances such a move could just go down as “yet another failed IT
project”, if change activities are not planned for.

Many organisations still struggle to get their employees to make good use of new technologies
available to them. This guide will explore the top 10 mistakes that are commonly seen
throughout an Office 365 roll-out and provide some simple measures that can be put in place
to dramatically increase Office 365 adoption and usage rates.

When compiling this guide, we drew on our experience of hundreds of successful

Office 365 migration and adoption projects with businesses across the UK and internationally.
Our approach tailors the Prosci ADKAR® model for change management to Office 365
deployment.

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 Mistake 1: Underestimating employee
resistance to change
Benchmarking studies have repeatedly
identified that the number one obstacle to
success for major change management
projects is employee resistance.
It’s not all doom and gloom through, as a dip
in productivity and an increase in resistance
is normal and expected in any change
project.
Think of it this way, getting a change project
wrong can be an expensive process.
How to overcome the resistance to
change:
There needs to be emphasis placed on
recognising that resistance is the natural
reaction to change.
You also must consider the people impact
of the change activities that are being
planned. If you find that a whole department
is resistant don’t be afraid to work around
them.

Here are some likely sources of Create a sponsor network and push all
resistance for Office 365 change: communications top down throughout your
organisation.
1. Employees who are highly invested in
their current ways of working – namely Once a clear and concise message is in
via convoluted workarounds. Ultimately, place, resistance should start to subside.
they have found a way to work and
want to stick with it. They collaborate,
and share using other technologies and
invested their time in doing this with no
“Getting a Change
support from the organisation.
Project wrong can be an
2. In many cases of failed Office 365
expensive process.” change and adoption projects is
employees who expect more work as
a result of the change. The logic is, ‘it’s
going to be more difficult’, ‘it’s going
to make my job harder’ and ‘I’ll have
to migrate my documents to the new
system’.

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 Mistake 2: Not understanding the root
causes for employee resistance
In many instances an inherent lack of
awareness as to why the change is being
made is often a major downfall within
any failed change project – particularly
within Office 365 projects. There is no
understanding of “what’s in it for me” as
a result of this change. With a lack of
understanding there can be instances of
employees asking, “what’s wrong with the
way I work now”.
There could also be issues with
understanding who is taking charge
of certain aspects of the migration
project. For example, if you were as an
organisation moving from GSuite to Office
365, employees may need more help in
identifying which Google Docs to migrate to
PowerPoint.
Another key reason for a failed change
“A lack of project is the perception of an organisation’s
understanding of the past performance with change – we have
never done change right; communications,
reasons for change can sponsorship, training have all been lacking.
create a culture of fear
Demonstrating the logical reason for the
within an organisation” change is crucial, otherwise it could risk
looking like another bureaucratic mishap –
change for changes sake.
Lack of visible support and commitment
from managers:
Here’s the big one that crops up time and
time again - fear of job loss. This issue will
arise part in parcel with a lack of awareness
and understanding - if you are going from
paper based (yes it still exists) to digital –
Office 365 - this might cross the minds of
your employees.
Face the issues:
It is possible that someone within your
organisation has identified a real issue
within the change project that hasn’t been
captured and this is being surfaced as
resistance. It could be something as simple
as not being able to use Custom Fonts when
co-authoring online as opposed to the native
Office Desktop Apps.
This can be overcome quite simply by
conducting user research at the start of your
project. This will assist you in identifying any
day-to-day processes that may be affected
as a result of the change.
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 Ultimately, managing resistance means being
prepared to listen first and understand the
pain points of the people who will actually be
using the technologies day-in day-out.

People want to be heard:

For many people, even if they know that

the change is going to happen, they simply
want to be genuinely heard. If you can
demonstrate that you have listened, then
often they will then decide to participate in
the change.

Embrace resistance, it’s not all bad:

Recognise that resistance can be an

extremely positive sign that the person really
is passionate about getting this right and that
should be celebrated too.

Takeaway:

Listen, really listen and then clarify.

Sometimes in the listening process,
it becomes clear that there is a
misunderstanding with what is trying to be
achieved. Once this is clarified the resistance
might disappear.

“Takle resistance issues

head on with user
research and interviews”

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 Mistake 3: Switching it on is not
enough
Realising the benefits of Office 365
depends on people changing how they
work. Because Office 365 impacts how
people do their jobs, there are human
factors that directly contribute to, or
constrain the ROI of Office 365.
There are three human factors that
define the people side of ROI:
1. Speed of adoption (how quickly people
make the change)
2. Ultimate utilisation (how many of them
make the change)
3. Proficiency (how effective they are after
making the change)
In addition, by understanding the Office 365
technology roadmap, you can successfully
account for Microsoft’s evergreen updates
and new feature rollouts to ensure minimal
impact to BAU activities.
Takeaways:
When the people side of change is not
managed effectively, projects and initiatives
experience higher costs and greater risks
than when change management is done
well.
Applying a holistic, structured approach
to change management is both a cost
avoidance and risk mitigation technique.

Simply put, in order to overcome these

issues, you must undertake employee
“By not having a research. By understanding the pain points
of your end users, you can help to identify
structured process for the gaps in their knowledge bases and help
change, you run the risk to align certain technologies within the Office
365 stack to their requirements – meaning
of not maximising ROI on they will use and adopt the technologies.
your investment”

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 Mistake 4: Waiting too long to start
your change activities
The reality is that you will inevitably start Takeaways:
to see some loss in productivity and
increase in resistance from the very first Don’t wait. Apply best practice change
rumour of an Office 365 rollout. management techniques at the onset of
every project and do it effectively.
Corridor conversations can occur, and
frankly these will always happen. Anticipate and identify likely resistance at the
earliest opportunity so that it can be planned
What can you do to minimise this? It is for, addressed or eliminated upfront. There is
essential to sufficiently prepare you executive no reason to wait.
sponsors. Prepare their networks, the
managers and the Office 365 champions you
have selected so they can communicate the
messages you want them too throughout the
project.

As a rule of thumb, you should anticipate up

to 50% of the total resistance from the very
beginning of the project. If you expect it, you
can do something to mitigate it.

“Put stop to the the

rumour-mill by starting
change activities as early
as possible”

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 Mistake 5: Lack of support from
Leadership teams
Why are sponsors so important?
According to Prosci’s Best Practices in
Change Management research report,
20 years of industry leading research
from change managers, project leaders
and executives from 6,298 participants
from across the globe concluded that
the role of the sponsor was the #1
contributor to success.
Office 365 impacts all of your employees,
to varying degrees. Different job roles may
need different levels of access and different
technologies to complete their day-to-day
tasks successfully and efficiently.
Effective sponsorship of a change
means:
1. Participating actively and visibly
throughout the project
2. Building a coalition of sponsorship and
“The correct sponsor
managing resistance
is the #1 contributor to
3. Communicating directly with employees
project success”
Sponsors are the ones who should
be launching change efforts and their
involvement sends a strong signal to the rest
of the organisation.
If the sponsor is active and visible in their
support, the organisation notices. Likewise,
if the sponsor announces the change
and then disappears, individuals in the
organisation see this equally strong signal.
The effectiveness of the sponsor is one of
the strongest predictors of project success
or project failure. It is important to effectively
define roles, responsibilities and relationships
for your project management resources.
Regardless of team structure, it is critical
to have adequate sponsorship to provide
credibility and support for the change to
Office 365.
Research has shown that employees
have a strong preference to hear business
led messages from very senior staff, and
personal messages from their own line-
manager or department head.
Key messages must be communicated over
and over throughout your project - in fact,
five to seven times to be effective.
Communication should be viewed as
process and not an event. Effective
communication is not simply a single email
or a single kick-off meeting or a single video
message by the CEO broadcast on the
intranet. Communication is a process - it
must utilise multiple mediums and channels
to repeat and reinforce key messages
throughout your Office 365 adoption project.
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 Mistake 6: Not communicating the
reason and need for change
Office 365 adoption projects can often
fail when the reasons and need for
change have not been communicated to
employees and managers multiple times
via a range of different channels. The
bottom line is, people learn in different
ways.
Some are visual – hence a need for
visual content such as infographics and
video content, and some are audible
learners – hence a requirement for
classroom-based learning and training
guides.
An organisation has successfully built
awareness when employees are able to
confirm that they understand the nature of
the change and why the change is needed.
This requires:
1. The business drivers or opportunities
that have resulted in the need for change
2. Why a change is needed now
3. The risk involved in not implementing the
change

Here it is important to distinguish between

‘awareness of the need for change’ versus
‘awareness that a change is happening’.

Within the ADKAR model building awareness

is defined as sharing both the nature of the
“People learn in change and answering why this change is
different ways. Make needed.

sure you utilise mutiple

channels to facilitate
this.”

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 Using video to communicate the
message effectively:

• Grab attention: If a video is available,

60% of employees will opt to watch it
before reading any text.

• Speed of comprehension: Our brains

process imagery 60,000 times faster
than text.

• Recall: Visual imagery can be recalled

easier, with studies showing that users
recall 6 times more information from
video than from text.

• Measurement: Offers potential to view

engagement analytics.

• Be concise, engaging, with no

unnecessary words: Optimal length is
90 seconds. The longer your video, the
lower the engagement.

Takeaway:

Take time to ensure your employees believe

“Using video can in the rationale behind the required change
be a great way to and trust and agree with the messages they
are provided with.
communicate your
message effectively Utilise multiple channels and digital media
types to get your message across.
throughout your
organisation”

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 Mistake 7: Not communicating the
future state
For employees, moving to new ways of working can be like driving down a foggy
road; another common failure that is seen time and time again is the poor delivery and
communication of what’s coming down the road. Let your employees know about the
future state well in advance.

As with any technology rollout, there will undoubtedly be a significant amount of change that
will have to occur in day-to-day BAU activities. An Office 365 rollout is no different.

“By providing a best-

practice scenario, your
employees will have
an end-goal to work Takeaway:

towards” You need to provide a best-practice scenario of how things will work and look in the post-
change world. This will provide employees with a reference point and end-goal to work
towards. Equipping them with these fog lights will also help them understand why certain
activities need to be undertaken to get to the end goal, instead of seeming jumping out of
nowhere.

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 Mistake 8: Providing one size fits all
training, or no training at all
It is important to note at this point
that you don’t have to leverage every
capability right out of the gate.
Good Office 365 training should be ongoing
rather than flooding employees with oceans
of information at the start. Use employee
research to identify high value activities that
need specific support and share them to
provide value and context for training.
Who doesn’t like praise? By sharing
success stories as part of the training you
will reinforce the message that this change
is right for the organisation. It can be fairly
easily adopted, with minimal impact to BAU
activities. By praising and promoting success
stories throughout the project, you will
ultimately see a decrease in any resistance
from across the organisation as a result.
Takeaways:
Identify specific scenarios appropriate
to different teams and different areas of
opportunity and leverage those to increase
user adoption.
Focus training on individual teams desired
outcomes and tailor these sessions to their
requirements. There is no point training a
field team in the wonders of Power BI Data
Analysis, when they won’t use it. Train them
in something like Microsoft Teams, a tool
they can actually use to collaborate quickly
and effectively through instant messaging
and within specific channels.

“Focus and tailor

training sessions
to individual team
requirements”

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 Mistake 9: Failing to achieve buy-in
within certain departments and teams
Gaining buy-in from every user across
an organisation is always going to be
a challenge. By creating a network of
individuals from a cross-section of the
organisation who will specialise in and
champion Office 365 capabilities is the
key to success. Champions help people
in their team understand what is in it for
them.
Creating and leveraging Office 365
Champions within your organisation is
another important stakeholder group in
driving Office 365 adoption.
Takeaways:
• Build awareness of Office 365 through
informal communication channels
• Assist in welcoming new users,
providing guidance and sharing best
practices
• Provide feedback to project team
regarding user engagement and
adoption
• Celebrate and rewards successes

Champions play an important role in the • Talk to an organisation that can help
adoption of Office 365 by helping to translate train your Champions
Office 365 into the reality of their department
or team.

They are knowledgeable, committed to

furthering their expertise and are willing to
“By creating a network provide peer coaching and assistance.
of champions people can
How to you get these individuals from
start to understand what’s users to Office 365 Champs? Many
in it for them” organisations offer training to ensure Office
365 Champions are up to scratch. This is a
worth-while investment means you have a
league of super users who will preach only
best practice, and zero bad habits.

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 Mistake 10: Not measuring to see what
is or isn’t working
Office 365 change and adoption projects
often fail when organisations to do
not track and measure what is and
isn’t working. In the world of Big Data
Analytics and vast amounts of data at
our fingertips, it’s often one of the main
(and simplest things when you think
about it) that often gets overlooked.
What can you do?
Choose criteria and set KPIs that will help
you showcase the impact Office 365 is
having on your organisation to leadership
teams.
By looking at usage statistics within
Office 365 gaps in user knowledge can
be identified. Business scenarios can be
created, and certain cross-sections of the
organisation can be targeted with specific
“By not having a training to help drive usage and consumption
structured process for of unused applications within Office 365.
change, you run the risk In March of 2016 Microsoft announced the
of not maximising ROI on release of the Office 365 Adoption Content
Pack in Power BI in response to demand
your investment” from customers to know more about how
users are adopting and consuming the Office
365 platform and associated tools.
Essentially, the Adoption Content Pack is a
method to publish standardised dashboards,
reports and data across your business.
Power Bi then allows teams within your
organisation to receive a standard source of
key business data for analysis, though easy
to visualise dashboards, without necessarily
having direct access to the source data.
Takeaways:
FastTrack indicates “driving adoption is a
continuous cycle that doesn’t end after
launch or measuring impact.” Essentially,
don’t stop your change and Office 365
adoption activities after launch. Look to
review in 30 days, 60 days and 90 days.
It’s important to remember that key metrics
should be tracked over time to ensure
continuous use and added value to the
business.
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Planning for change will give you the
tools to ensure Office 365 adoption
Office 365 provides your organisation with
a hugely powerful platform for productivity,
communication and collaboration. It can, in
theory, help businesses dramatically improve
the flow of information and ideas, facilitate
new styles of working and encourage a more
engaging environment for the business.
What’s more, as your employees make
greater use of the platform, you also get
significantly higher rates of ROI.
However, for many businesses, Office 365
does not deliver such dramatic benefits –
instead offering little more value than on-
premises technologies – just slightly cheaper,
cloud-based email and more storage. That’s
good, but is certainly not a major turnaround.
Ultimately, success with Office 365 boils
down to good adoption practices. The steps
outlined in this guide, when carried out
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correctly, offer a blueprint for any business
who wants to achieve high rates of Office
365 adoption.
Content and Code are a Microsoft Gold
Partner with over 20 years’ experience
in the world of enterprise IT. We have led
hundreds of deployments of Microsoft
technology at organisations across the UK
and internationally, and have huge success
by consistently replicating the four steps
outlined in this guide at organisations of
different sizes.
For more guidance tailored to your
business’s adoption of Office 365, speak to
one of our adoption specialists today.
LEARN MORE
020 7101 0930
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