Forum Discussion
MicrosoftOffice 365 Deployment Approach - Big Bang vs. Serialized Deployment
We've deployed big bang - as being a large organisation it takes us quite a while to mobilise for change so multiple change / deployment events just wouldn't work for us.
So currently if you drop onto our pilot you move fully into 365 world running all workloads, EXO, SPO, SFB and also cloud migrated mail. The only future difference will be you'll also get a new Win10 device at the same time.
Adoption has been smooth but we've had dedicated resource providing a hand over experience to each user - they get about 30 minutes to bring them up to speed with the new features but we're finding now we have plenty of people on the platform that users are learning by osmosis.
Any issues we've had have been entirely related to co-existence with legacy systems rather than any issues with 365 itself!
We've deployed big bang - as being a large organisation it takes us quite a while to mobilise for change so multiple change / deployment events just wouldn't work for us.
So currently if you drop onto our pilot you move fully into 365 world running all workloads, EXO, SPO, SFB and also cloud migrated mail. The only future difference will be you'll also get a new Win10 device at the same time.
Adoption has been smooth but we've had dedicated resource providing a hand over experience to each user - they get about 30 minutes to bring them up to speed with the new features but we're finding now we have plenty of people on the platform that users are learning by osmosis.
Any issues we've had have been entirely related to co-existence with legacy systems rather than any issues with 365 itself!
MicrosoftHi Mike - I've heard the same from other customers in terms of wanting to limit the # of touches to the end user as part of the Office 365 rollout. In some cases, that can end up being more disruptive.
In terms of your efforts to support end users with the change, in addition to training, one of the strategies we've seen work effectively is building a champions program whereby more advanced users help evangelize and support their co-workers with the change. You can learn more from the Office 365 Champions Guide we developed here - https://aka.ms/championsguide.
Where there any other strategies you found effective at helping make your big bang rollout successful?