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Behavior design for reaching adoption objectives

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Hallo.

 

I'm interested to know if someone else is also helping end users design their behavior for the Office 365 services?

 

Last year there were some interesting discussions on how Microsoft are approaching its mission on reinventing productivity, and in that context Professor BJ Fogg's method Tiny Habits was mentioned.

 

From talking to several Microsoft staff members at the Copenhagen Tech Summit (thanks @Lana OBrien for motivating me to post in here) I understand that MS is using the principles of Tiny Habits for its design process for O365. That's good to know. But what about also using Tiny Habits in the adoption work, on the end user side?

 

My own vision is to do be able to do that, and that's why I wonder is someone else is doing similar work?

 

In sum, it boils down to the challenge of how to best help people shift their habits and mindsets, and become productive in Office 365. I have a sense that the current adoption approach, with campaigns and training, is not quite enough for a lot of end users. They seem to need some more hands on approach, simple but powerful. And that's where I see Tiny Habits fit in.

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Ok, here's an update on this topic. I've now decided to develop the method "Tiny Habits for Office 365" for within my company Learn & Adopt and you're welcome to reach out to me if you're interested in knowing more. Cheers Magnus

Magnus,

 

I would be interested in hearing how this is going for you. A small team of us was introduced to Tiny Habits a year ago and we started off with great enthusiasm but after a few minor wins we started having difficulty coming up with Tiny Habits that could be promoted generically.  Here are a couple that worked:

 

1) Trigger:  Create Meeting invite.  Habbit: Write purpose statement for meeting.  Celebrate.

This is to ensure that all meetings have a stated purpose in the invite so people can judge relevance, need to participate and preparation needed.

 

2) Trigger:  Sitting down in your office chair.  Habbit: State out loud your most important taks for now.  Celebrate.  This is to ensure focus on the most important task as it is easy to get distracted by email or other things when you get to your office.

 

I would be interested to hear of other habbits people have come up with for work.

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Hi Phil.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience with Tiny Habits. Indeed, I think many of us find that it is difficult to come up with generic Tiny Habits for Office 365 and the digital workplace. Together we might break the barrier and come up with some good tools, though. :)

 

Did you have the chance to join BJ Fogg's free 5 day program (http://tinyhabits.com/join), by the way? That's a very good way for learning about the method. On my side, I have been doing quite a number of these free programs since I first came in contact with Tiny Habits method. I find that it is an excellent way to keep the skill fresh and uncover more aspects on the method.

 

And I like the 2 tiny habits you share, and they show that productivity is much more than just knowing how to use the technology. Which is maybe why it is difficult to make them generic in the first place. But it ought to be possible to make the method generic, at least. I'll try to work on such a method over the coming weeks, and I will be happy to share my results with you.

 

For example, there's a method taught at the Tiny Habits Academy (where I'm in the process of getting certified in the Tiny Habits method) for coming up with the tiny habits that will make you succeed with a specific desired outcome, called Focus Mapping. I think through the use of Focus Mapping, it is easier to make sure that one does not get stuck.

 

Another aspect that I think of is the importance of mapping out the potential anchors/triggers. What behaviors do you already do in your digital workplace? With that awareness it gets easier to come up with potential good behaviors during the day.

 

One tiny habit for Office 365 that I am performing myself the past months is to create a notes page for the meeting in OneNote each time I create a  meeting invite in Outlook. I think that is a good generic one (that is similar to your own meeting habit).

 

I will keep on designing more tiny habits for Office 365, and I'm planning to launch a weekly  newsletter focusing on one habit per week. I think organizations would need help to keep up the work of adopting Office 365, and why not as a weekly challenge ("Will you be able to perform this tiny habit for a week?").

 

Cheers, Magnus

Hi Magnus, Yes! You are right and there were a few of the original CSMs at the time who were driving this and looking at the habits that could be developed. Unfortunately I've since left Microsoft and don't have access to the list of habits we made for O365. The trick is to have the anchor moment, identifying the trailing edge (the last tiny part of the existing behaviour), then define and add the tiny habit behaviour to that trailing edge, and celebrate to re-inforce. It's a really fun way to think about driving adoption and although you can't identify the steps for everyone, you can encourage your colleagues to think like this and structure your hints and tips in a way that encourages this.

Hi Magnus! Great to see people noticed our previous work in this area. I was one of the original Microsoft Customer Success Managers that worked on this with BJ Fogg. We were excited about where this was headed. Happy to connect with you to share what we did, what we learned, and where it could go.  By chance will you be at Ignite?

I think you have hit on a great idea here to encourage adoption and change user behavior that traditional training and champion networks may not be fulfilling.
Do you think we could extend this out to a community driven/crowd sourced Tiny Habit list that organizations can pick and choose from to achieve particular goals for their usage and current focus, this could also include guidance on using the framework and ideas on how to promote the Tiny Habits both digital and physical.
Technically I could probably come up with solution for contributions and maybe some form of validation by a community leading group.

Magnus

 

Whilst I truly support the idea of Tiny Habit methods of change I wonder if the fundamental issue is around the vast potential of Office 365 and its flexibility for the end user.  With this amount of flexibility then trying to find a common set of habits becomes the problem.

 

I am currently looking at how enough information can be collected from a sizable portion of the business (and not just a few stakeholders) so that a campaign can be created around users selecting from a list of habits.

 

For example, changing the method of communications with externals to say Microsoft Teams rather than emailing document might be a great Tiny Habit for Sales and Marketing department but not for Research and Development department because of a compliance policy where their management has restricted any external sharing for that department.  So, the habit for the sales team is about placement of the shared content whilst for the R&D department it is probably around the classification of the data.

 

My thought is to develop a 'group of habits' campaign so that users can select which best works for them, and then working with their managers to track the specific change.  I realise that this is a bigger piece of work, but everyone works different so a sweet shop approach needs to be taken so they take a ‘Tiny Habit‘ that works for them but allow the change team to focus on a number of changes across the business.

 

All this depends upon collection information from the business, but then the more information collected the better decisions on how Office 365 can be applied and governed for the business.

 

Steve Dalby

Hello Magnus!

It seems like a very interesting concept for user adoption!

I'd be interested to learn more about Tiny Habits interests for Office 365 adoption.

 

We are currently working with our business and departments to identify interesting use cases that are relevant for their specific jobs. I agree that it is difficult to find use cases relevant for everyone in the organization, but it is much easier to find "Tiny Habits" for HR, Finance or Industrial activities.

 

Glad to discuss that with you!

Hello @Steve Dalby,

 

Definitely agree with you on the need to target the "Tiny Habits" or use cases per department.

And definitely agree on the challenges to get enough feedback from different parties across the organization.

 

One question we asked ourselves a while back is : Do we need to address all departments at the same time? Depending on your company culture and operating countries, the answer might be no.

 

If this is the case, you can consider a program phased per department (1 department / month for example). We are currently doing the following:

  • Individual interviews of people in the department to get their personal feedback on collaboration needs;
  • Followed by group workshops to prioritize/brainstorm on the most critical and urgent use cases via a gamified approach;
  • We then select a group of ambassadors in the department and are in the process of coaching them on the basic functionalities of Office 365 to produce quick wins (where the Tiny Habits could be really interesting!);
  • We hope to turn these experimentations into success stories and share them in an internal productivity library (a bit like the one of FastTrack which is a good start but not relevant enough for our environment);
  • We will then communicate throughout the department on the success stories and start some more coachings based on the incoming leads generated.
  • And then iterate the process with another department (duplicating the generated quick wins from previous departments if applicable in the context of the function).

If anyone went through a similar process, I am more than happy to share experiences!

Hope that is of any interest!

Hello Steve. Yes, I remember reading your introduction to tiny habits and it got me very interested. So thanks for having pointed me in this direction. I would love to connect with you (I did not have the chance to attend Ignite this year), and I will be focusing on advancing tiny habits for Office 365 in the coming weeks. How about a Skype meeting next week? I'll contact you on LinkedIn to arrange. ~Magnus

Hello Emma.

 

Thanks for your input.  Indeed, that would be one way to help employees get into Office 365, by teaching them about the  anatomy of a tiny habit and let them use the method to get new behaviours. A certain kind of people are able to do this, in my experience the ones who are more inclined towards personal development and are already open to change in this way. How to get all people to get an interest in using the methodology of tiny habits, that's something I have been pondering on for the past months.

 

Lately I have been giving introductions to Office 365 to large audiences, and in relation to the fast changing work life (with the factors of mobility, globalization, etc.) I mention that the skill to create new habits for yourself is very valuable today and will be even more valuable in the future. After I have introduced Office 365, I run scenarios in Office 365 based on a persona (Adam). Adam has made it a habit to create his daily planning in OneNote after he gets back to his computer after having fetched his first coffee for the day. And after he has taken the time to map out his day's activities and set the day's objectives, he makes sure to celebrate himself (a normal fist pump). In this way he makes sure that his body and brain will steer him towards repeating the daily planning in OneNote tomorrow as well.

 

Normally this opens the eyes for a lot of people, and they start to get a grip of WHY they should learn the skill to create new habits. And in relation to their new digital workplace. So the training on Office 365 will be a chance for them to learn this skill (that they haven't had a chance to learn before).

 

I'll write more below on this topic. I feel that I have found a good way forward for developing the idea of tiny habits for Office 365. /Magnus :)

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Hi Phil.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience with Tiny Habits. Indeed, I think many of us find that it is difficult to come up with generic Tiny Habits for Office 365 and the digital workplace. Together we might break the barrier and come up with some good tools, though. :)

 

Did you have the chance to join BJ Fogg's free 5 day program (http://tinyhabits.com/join), by the way? That's a very good way for learning about the method. On my side, I have been doing quite a number of these free programs since I first came in contact with Tiny Habits method. I find that it is an excellent way to keep the skill fresh and uncover more aspects on the method.

 

And I like the 2 tiny habits you share, and they show that productivity is much more than just knowing how to use the technology. Which is maybe why it is difficult to make them generic in the first place. But it ought to be possible to make the method generic, at least. I'll try to work on such a method over the coming weeks, and I will be happy to share my results with you.

 

For example, there's a method taught at the Tiny Habits Academy (where I'm in the process of getting certified in the Tiny Habits method) for coming up with the tiny habits that will make you succeed with a specific desired outcome, called Focus Mapping. I think through the use of Focus Mapping, it is easier to make sure that one does not get stuck.

 

Another aspect that I think of is the importance of mapping out the potential anchors/triggers. What behaviors do you already do in your digital workplace? With that awareness it gets easier to come up with potential good behaviors during the day.

 

One tiny habit for Office 365 that I am performing myself the past months is to create a notes page for the meeting in OneNote each time I create a  meeting invite in Outlook. I think that is a good generic one (that is similar to your own meeting habit).

 

I will keep on designing more tiny habits for Office 365, and I'm planning to launch a weekly  newsletter focusing on one habit per week. I think organizations would need help to keep up the work of adopting Office 365, and why not as a weekly challenge ("Will you be able to perform this tiny habit for a week?").

 

Cheers, Magnus

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