Boost Office 365 adoption rates with active leadership team engagement
It’s a common cry among IT managers that technology projects are hindered by oblivious senior leaders. But, is this really true?
At GreenDot, we believe that the first step in any technology adoption and change management process is having the right conversations with the right people. Office 365 success starts with leader engagement.
Office 365 success starts with your business goals
Yes, the technology is new and great and fabulous. Guess what? Senior executives don’t care. But what they DO care about is what that technology can allow their team to ACHIEVE. And what those senior executives are interested in achieving are business goals.
So, step one is to know where your organisation is heading, what the priorities are, and the reasons for those priorities.
Step two is to build Office 365 leader engagement by demonstrating how the technology and tools can help your organisation to achieve those business goals faster and more efficiently.
Remember, a technology implementation might be your goal, but it’s not going to be the thing to convince business leaders and end users to change. Well-defined targets, with clearly identified business scenarios for Office 365 that map to broader organisational initiatives, have a higher chance of success.
An active executive sponsor is a top driver of project success
Once you’ve found the right person in your organisation who can see and understand the benefits of Office 365, you’re on track for success. Research by McKinsey (“Creating organizational transformations”, July 2008) found that transformation projects are most successful when there is visible support from the CEO or business unit leader.
The right sponsorship from a senior leadership person can help your Office 365 adoption project to get support both from higher up and lower down the organisation. The support and participation of top-level management is critical for driving broader employee adoption, as they can directly relate how Office 365 use aligns to organisational goals and model the desired behaviour through their own use of the tools.
How to choose an executive sponsor for Office 365 and what they should do
The most important thing for your executive sponsor is that they need to be influential within the organisation and that they can actively communicate the benefits of working in a more collaborative way. They should be reasonably tech and social media savvy, and be willing to dive in to experiment with the tools to act as a role model for other employees.
Your executive sponsor should help the project team to identify which business scenarios and use cases are to be prioritised; help communicate the vision to other leaders; and actively use Office 365 capabilities to help drive adoption and reinforce the desired behaviours.
Do you need help engaging your leaders for Office 365 adoption?
Green Dot is working with some of Australia’s largest organisations to deploy Office 365 and other Microsoft technologies. With our proven methodology, we can work with your leadership team to understand their business goals and demonstrate how Office 365 can help achieve those goals. To find out how we can help you, call us today on 1300 80 11 88.
