Adoption and shadow IT

[pdestefanis]

We have successfully rolled out Teams, both for chat, voice and PSTN. There were no issues, had training, a few champions and everybody is using it, but... Adoption does not occur on a vacuum, and we are constantly having to field questions (and the odd request for licenses) for products that will allow for more faces in a video-conference, allow people to virtually raise a hand, or any other features-other-have-and-Teams-not-yet.

What are you doing to work around this? We talk about integration with other tools, licensing costs, single account management, the benefit of all being in the same tool, etc, etc, but I'm curious what else you do to *sustain* adoption, and avoid the danger of a fragmented landscape.

On some very limited areas, we had to abdicate. I hope once Teams catches up we will be able to revert some users, but that will be yet another battle.

Looking forward to hear your challenges and share my experience,

Pablo

[#2]

@pdestefanis this is a very valid problem many companies have! We all know those rebels that they want to use the XYZ tool because they feel more comfortable with that tool.

And to a certain degree you don’t want to limit that completely. By providing really strict rules you limit also the innovation that comes from those rebels!

I suggest an alternative approach.
-Protect your Data and your core infra with only official tools
-Use Azure Blueprints or Intune or any other mechanism to control what your users can install
-Have an Executive as the driver of your Teams adoption and redirect all your major meetings in Teams
-Training... Training... Training...

-Make the rebels responsible for their selection... That mean lifecycle management, automation, licences and proving the added benefit. If they manage to do so adopt that tool as an official one ;)

[#3]

Dear Pablo, I have no answer, only a tip: manage expectations. Begin at the start with the (businesses ) reason that triggered to move onto/into the M365 platform. Teams allows for many (unique) benefits, safe and cooperative video meetings is one of them. You always have to deal with questions ‘why can I not...’. Treat those as a sign of commitment, make sure to communicate the updates on roadmap developments (as you do, I think) and continue to drive the anticipated goals for your adoption plan to perfection. I believe that this is the best you can do.
Greetings, Bernd