Driving User Adoption: The Key to Successfully Implementing Copilot for Microsoft 365
Implementing a new technology can feel daunting for an organization, but a thoughtful approach to user adoption can help you put a plan together that combines hands-on training and ongoing support.
I think of it this way: I once received a sewing machine. I was around 15 and my family was so excited for me to receive it! The machine looked fancy with buttons and cool features, but it came with no instructions (this was before the era of YouTube!).
I spent hours trying to figure out how to use it, feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. Then my mom intervened. She sat down with me, patiently explaining each feature and demonstrating how to use them. The lightbulbs turned on, transforming confusion into confidence and turning a daunting task into an enjoyable process. I even made 5 aprons for my Aunt that year for Christmas!
I'd love to say that I became the best version of a sewer one could be, but today I leave the sewing to my Mom. I'll never forget how much easier sewing was after watching and learning from her!
In this blog, I will outline what Copilot for Microsoft 365 is and how you can successfully implement it in your organization.
Boost Copilot Adoption with Strategic Planning, User Training, and Proactive Support
Implementing Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 can look a lot like my sewing machine if we aren't careful to plan and demonstrate! Generative AI can significantly enhance productivity and streamline workflows within your organization and the success of this new tool hinges on a strong focus on user adoption and change management. Here are the best steps to align your business with practical user adoption strategies:
1. Audit Readiness
Before diving into the adoption process, it's crucial to assess your organization's AI readiness level. This involves understanding any prerequisites needed before purchasing and deploying Copilot for Microsoft 365 licenses. A thorough security assessment ensures your data is secure. It involves reviewing your current security posture, identifying potential risks, and implementing data classification and governance policies.
2. Identify Wins
Collaborate with your team to identify high-value scenarios across your organization. By prioritizing these scenarios, you can build a plan for rapid adoption and demonstrate the value of Copilot to your teams. This first step will identify success metrics (cost savings, time savings, pain points resolved, etc) and keep your team laser-focused on the same goals.
3. Provide User Training
Share resources like Microsoft's Copilot Lab and offer training programs designed to accelerate AI learning. Create an AI hub through Viva Engage, SharePoint, and other internal tools.
4. Check in Regularly
By monitoring usage and addressing challenges quickly, we can ensure continuous improvement in the use of Copilot across user groups. Check-ins help user engagement and make users feel supported throughout the process.
5. Quantify the Impact
Microsoft provides real-time data on how Copilot is being utilized across the organization. Quantifying usage, tracking progress, and monitoring ROI are keys to making data-driven decisions and optimizing your AI investment.
By following these steps and leveraging expert guidance, your organization can achieve high user adoption and maximize the benefits of Microsoft Copilot for M365. Remember, the key to success lies in thorough preparation, continuous engagement, and ongoing support throughout the adoption process.
Copilot for Microsoft 365: Enhance Everyday Productivity and Streamline Workflows
Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is an advanced AI tool designed to enhance productivity and creativity across Microsoft’s suite of applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and more.
This AI-powered support helps users achieve more in less time, allowing them to focus on higher-level tasks that add strategic value to their work. Some common use cases include:
- Document drafting and summarization: Useful for creating meeting notes, reports, proposals, and summaries from scratch based on a few initial prompts.
- Data analysis and visualization: Users can ask Copilot to help analyze large data sets, spot trends, and create complex visualizations to enhance data analysis and support data-driven decision-making.
- Email summarization and drafting: Copilot can summarize long email threads, clean up your inbox, draft replies, and highlight action items for you and your team.
- PowerPoint slide or presentation creation: Copilot will pull relevant content and data from your systems and automate the design of PowerPoint slides.
- Meeting summaries and task generation: In Teams, you can record meetings and ask Copilot to provide summaries and identify key takeaways. This helps you generate a task list without having to go back through the whole meeting.
- Knowledge retrieval and insights: Copilot can search your database and documents to give you information relevant to what you are working on, making research, project planning, and decision-making easier.
- Training and onboarding assistance: Copilot can also serve as a virtual coach to enhance training and answer questions about company processes and tools.
By integrating seamlessly with Microsoft 365, Copilot enables users to access relevant data, insights, and resources directly within the apps they use daily. It also provides real-time analytics, allowing organizations to track adoption rates and measure the return on their AI investment.
Licensing
It's important to note that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is an add-on SKU and does require users to have specific licenses. You can find more information on Copilot licensing here.
Get in touch with Stoneridge to Successfully Implement Copilot for Microsoft 365
In the current digital era, my mom still sews while I show her all the new features on her phone and computer! Although software and sewing machines aren't alike, the principles and methodology used in educating people about them are very similar.
Reach out to Stoneridge today to ensure your organization has a solid strategy to implement Copilot and empower your users to work more efficiently.
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