Forum Discussion
Should we introduce Yammer first when starting Office 365 adoption?
Thanks Daniel, I think that that is one of the important questions. And I would like to add 'with the least amount of resources.' Because some values will take a lot of time / costs to implement while others are easily implemented. In my post above I argue that Yammer, for me, has been a relatively smooth implementation and might enhance other O365 implementations. However, I agree that this does depend on the goals of the organization and perceived added value of users.
Thanks Juan Carlos, Groups and teams can also reduce email and give end users a better collaboration experience for sure.
Maybe I've to put it this way, if we have all control about which Office 365 app to introduce to the organization first, which want would you go for? In my opinion and according to McKinseys article, breaking organizational silos might be a good start, because siloes state to be a barrier for digital culture. Therefore I think Yammer can be a good option to introduce first.
Hello Marlon Hartskeerl,
In our organization, we chose to first introduce OneDrive and then Office 365 Groups (+ Sharepoint Online communication sites as a self-service tool for Product / Service portal) for 2 main reasons:
- The use cases driven by those tools (document storage and sharing) are already well-established and their need is already perceived by the end-users, whereas Yammer use cases (find / share expertise, create communities of interests) have first to be advocated to them before we introduce the underlying tool.
- These tools make a gentle push towards a more digital culture (introducing users with the Office online portal, storing files in the cloud, accessing their environment through the browser) without challenging the organizational status-quo, whereas Yammer can impact the management (by shortening the barrier to speak with hierarchy, by giving everyone a voice) and human resources (by giving the ability to everyone to market their skills internally).
Having introduced social networks in multiple companies, the onboarding of management and HR is a must-have, but it can take significant amount of efforts and time. Whereas introducing a more simple collaboration solution such as Groups can act as a quick win and simplify further discussion with the management on next initiatives (such as Teams or Yammer).
Hope that helps !
Thanks for your reply Pierrick,
Interesting and completely true when you mention that document storage and filesharing are often well established use-cases.
The company I now work for, and I saw it in other companies as well, wanted more focus on easier sharing of knowledge, connection across silos and often wanted a new intranet as their first priority.
We introduced a new intranet and Yammer and, although management hasn't completely embraced the social network yet, most of the organization activated Yammer in the first three months and it is now a active social network. Some of them are now asking for step 2, digital collaboration in teams and projects with OneDrive and SharePoint/Teams etc. We are now engaging with management to show them how it fits in their organizational goals and how it can help them to communicate / discuss with middle management.
At another customer they first introduced OneDrive / OneNote and wanted to introduce SharePoint as a next step. Unfortunately the fileshare migration to SharePoint project was delayed and had the side effect that end-users started using OneDrive as their project management tool, by sharing team / projectdocuments.
I guess the best app to introduce an Office 365 adoption project depends on the wishes of the customer(organization) and quick wins you can implement easily with certain personas.
