Episode Transcript
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0:00
Over the last year, we've
0:00
seen huge anticipation for Microsoft
0:04
365 Copilot, and it's finally here.
0:08
For most organizations, the question isn't
0:08
whether to adopt, but how and how fast.
0:13
Early adopters stand to gain the
0:13
most, but moving ahead without
0:17
a plan comes at its own risks. You're listening to The Catalyst Gets
0:19
Clear on Copilot Adoption, a miniseries
0:23
hosted by Softchoice's Brayden Banks.
0:26
From building a business case, to
0:26
getting security, rollout, and adoption
0:29
right, we're going to help leaders
0:29
like you chart your best path forward.
0:34
It starts right here. On today's episode, we ask how do you
0:40
drive and sustain co pilot adoption?
0:47
If you build it, they will come. It's a great way to look at building
0:49
a baseball diamond for ghosts.
0:52
It's not so great for leaders on
0:52
the path to co pilot adoption.
0:55
The important question here
0:55
isn't just whether they'll
0:57
come, but whether they'll stay. In our journey together, we've
0:59
navigated the planning and building
1:01
stages of a co pilot program. And now we're touching down
1:03
in the crucial adoption. So what does it take to
1:06
get people to use this? How do you handle setbacks and how
1:09
do you set yourself up for steady,
1:12
sustainable, and successful adoption? To unlock the answers to these
1:14
questions, we're speaking to Kayla
1:17
Thorpe, senior manager for workplace
1:17
AI consulting at Softchoice.
1:21
Okayla leads initiatives focused on
1:21
integrating artificial intelligence into
1:24
workplace environments and not only will
1:24
she share some best practices, she'll
1:27
also walk us through our own experience
1:27
adopting Copilot and SoftChoice as part
1:31
of Microsoft's Early Access program. Okayla, thank you for joining us.
1:35
Given our recent experience, what
1:35
makes Copilot different from any other
1:38
technology adoption like say, uh,
1:38
Teams replacing Skype for Business?
1:42
Yeah, well, first and foremost,
1:42
Copilot for Microsoft 365 isn't
1:47
just another tool that we can use
1:47
for, like, a specific function.
1:52
It's really like having an AI assistant.
1:55
So, I like to use the analogy of,
1:55
imagine if you were actually hiring
2:00
a new assistant to come alongside
2:00
you in your actual role, and you
2:05
are hiring an assistant to take
2:05
over some of these daily tasks.
2:08
You'd first have to teach
2:08
that assistant how you work.
2:12
You'd need to teach the assistant
2:12
what things you do on a day to day
2:15
basis, what you need support with. And then you have to teach that assistant
2:17
how you like to have things done.
2:21
And Copilot is designed to learn
2:21
from your preferences, from your
2:26
feedback, from your behaviors,
2:26
and kind of adapt to your needs.
2:29
So, Because of all of that, we're finding
2:29
and we know that Copilot requires quite
2:35
a bit more personalization and also a
2:35
more proactive approach to how we're
2:41
learning and using it in our organization. So we're finding that a unique
2:43
approach to user adoption and user
2:46
enablement is is really important. We're having the most success with.
2:50
That makes sense. Kind of teased up the next question
2:51
I was like, why can't people just
2:53
learn how to use Copilot say on
2:53
YouTube or ask Copilot itself?
2:57
Great question and there are a
2:57
ton of great videos online YouTube and
3:02
otherwise about Copilot There's a lot
3:02
of micro learning or short learning
3:06
opportunities out there But again,
3:06
they aren't tailored to your specific
3:10
needs or preferences And they're not
3:10
tailored to a specific user persona.
3:15
So they're kind of generalized. You can sure go learn how to use
3:16
Copilot and Outlook, for example, with
3:21
email drafting and things like that. But most of the content you're going
3:23
to find online are those general tips
3:27
that a lot of people are getting benefit
3:27
from, and they're not tailored to your
3:31
specific needs or your specific persona.
3:35
And using Copilot is an ideal because.
3:38
Copilot isn't designed to
3:38
teach you how to do something.
3:41
If we use coding, for example, Copilot
3:41
isn't there to teach you how to code,
3:46
but rather to assist you with coding
3:46
tasks or generate some code for
3:51
you based on the criteria you sent.
3:53
So it's not a great tool to use itself
3:53
if you really want to learn and get
3:57
really great with using Copilot. And what we found both in our own
3:59
internal user study and with, with
4:03
a lot of our early customers is.
4:06
That in order to truly adopt Copilot
4:06
as a user or within our organization,
4:12
we want to drive people to this
4:12
Copilot first mentality, and that
4:15
really comes when you have learning
4:15
opportunities that are really
4:19
tailored to your specific use cases.
4:21
I think we're also finding that
4:21
really great learning for Copilot,
4:26
great enablement, really takes into
4:26
account a specific user's individual
4:31
needs, but also their level of
4:31
expertise, how they work day to day.
4:36
Do they have previous experience
4:36
with maybe GPT tools out there?
4:39
So finding out kind of where a user is.
4:42
today and making sure that the learning
4:42
opportunities are tailored to those users
4:45
needs are one of the more effective ways
4:45
to get some of that learning to happen.
4:50
Right. And as that learning is taking
4:50
place, what are the biggest obstacles
4:54
we've seen to co pilot adoption
4:54
from that people standpoint?
4:58
Another great question. So when we think about obstacles to
4:59
any change initiative and Copilot
5:04
for M365 is no exception, there's
5:04
always some resistance to change
5:10
that we need to take into account. And we need to consider with any change
5:11
initiative, no matter how positive we
5:16
see this, if we're rolling something
5:16
out to the whole organization, no
5:19
matter how positive I personally think
5:19
it is, or how positive the change is.
5:25
Like any new piece of technology, some
5:25
people are going to be reluctant to that.
5:29
You know, humans are humans. We crave and often thrive in routine.
5:34
And any change can be
5:34
a disruption to that.
5:37
Some people might even see Copilot as
5:37
a threat to their autonomy or the way
5:42
that they're currently working today. So we always want to take
5:44
that resistance into account.
5:47
There's also, and it's kind of a human
5:47
tendency, that there can be this lack
5:51
of trust that can creep up with any new
5:51
change, especially technology changes.
5:57
And Copilot's no exception to that either.
5:59
So we've got some kind of trust concerns
5:59
or is what we're doing accurate?
6:04
Is it reliable? Can I rely on the outputs as
6:05
Copilot is generating things for me?
6:09
Can I rely on that? Generative AI responses.
6:13
And then we do see some doubts
6:13
around security and privacy.
6:18
And the third thing I'll say
6:18
here is there's often a skill
6:22
gap with a lot of folks, and this
6:22
is with any technology change.
6:25
Um, I read an article
6:25
not too long ago about.
6:29
A theory that the people who are going
6:29
to be most successful in using things
6:34
like Copilot for M365 are writers
6:34
or journalists or other people in
6:39
that industry because they already
6:39
understand the power of language
6:44
and they understand what language
6:44
can do and kind of language models.
6:48
And I don't know that we have any
6:48
data to support that, but you think
6:52
Copilot is a new skill that requires
6:52
some writing skills to really get.
6:57
Good at and work with Co Pilot
6:57
alongside you day in and day out.
7:00
And so a lot of people might
7:00
have gaps in those areas.
7:03
And so some of the things we're
7:03
doing is teaching people how to
7:05
prompt and how to write great
7:05
sentences so that they're getting
7:09
the best output back from Co Pilot.
7:11
It reminds me of our colleague,
7:11
Angela Cope from the Demand Generation
7:14
team kind of put it like, yeah, it's
7:14
almost like a new skill in terms of,
7:18
it's not quite coding, but it's kind
7:18
of like blending writing with code.
7:21
It's brand new to about everybody. And it kind of tees up the next question I
7:23
had here, which was when Organizations are
7:27
running up against fears or doubts about
7:27
things like job displacement, irrelevance,
7:31
or disruption in an AI assisted workplace.
7:34
How do we recommend approaching helping
7:34
those people over the obstacles there?
7:38
Yeah, great question. And this is one that we hear and see
7:39
a lot about in news and social media
7:43
and all of those places right now, too. And it's a question that I get on a
7:46
regular basis, and I think for any
7:50
organization, large or small, who's
7:50
rolling out Copilot to their users, I
7:54
think the most important thing that we
7:54
can always do is communicate clearly,
7:59
communicate often, and communicate
7:59
honestly about what they're doing.
8:03
The purpose and the intent of why we're
8:03
implementing Copilot and what we hope
8:08
to achieve with that implementation, but
8:08
also the benefits and to remind people
8:13
that Copilot is a phenomenal tool.
8:16
Here's what we hope to achieve out of it. But also it's not a replacement for things
8:19
like creativity and human intellect.
8:25
It certainly isn't going to replace our
8:25
empathetic approach to certain things.
8:30
So it's not a replacement
8:30
for those things.
8:32
very human capabilities of being
8:32
creative and innovative, but it's really
8:37
rather a tool that can help augment
8:37
their capabilities or augment some of
8:41
the work that they're already doing. So communicate often, communicate
8:43
honestly, and communicate
8:47
clearly to all of the users at
8:47
any level in the organization.
8:50
So you alluded to this a
8:50
little bit before, but we were at
8:54
Softchoice, one of the first companies
8:54
in the world to So we're going to
8:57
talk about how to apply Copilot in an
8:57
actual real working environment, and
8:59
you had a lot to do with that as part
8:59
of Microsoft's early access program.
9:02
Can you tell us a little bit about
9:02
how that went and anything surprising
9:06
that came out of it, or that we've
9:06
learned that listeners can apply
9:08
to their own Copilot adoption?
9:10
Yeah, we learned a lot.
9:12
Oh my gosh, we learned so much. So a couple of different big areas here,
9:13
but first understanding our own user
9:18
experience and how our own internal
9:18
Softchoice users were interacting
9:23
with Copilot, what they were finding
9:23
and learning has really shaped Our
9:28
recommendations on how we're enabling
9:28
our customers, users with Copilot.
9:33
So we've been able to take all of
9:33
our own learnings, all of our own
9:35
findings and very quickly apply them
9:35
to our approach with our customers.
9:41
And again, that kind of lends itself
9:41
to some of that innovation and change
9:44
and how we're delivering change
9:44
management projects to our customers.
9:48
So it's actually really revolutionized
9:48
our overall approach to change management.
9:54
And so we ourselves have
9:54
innovated and evolved as a result
9:58
of our early access program. One huge takeaway that I can't say
10:00
that I was surprised by, but one huge
10:06
takeaway that we learned that we've
10:06
been able to take forward with our
10:09
customers is that viral adoption happens
10:09
so rapidly with Copilot for Microsoft
10:17
365 because of the user collaboration.
10:20
So we found a lot of success. in getting other users to adopt
10:22
Copilot and really develop that
10:26
Copilot first mentality because of user
10:26
collaboration and peer to peer learning.
10:31
So one person in our Center of Excellence
10:31
sharing a, look what I did with Copilot,
10:36
is really encouraging other people
10:36
to go out and try the same thing.
10:41
So there's lots of really
10:41
creative ideas coming out.
10:43
And I can even share personally that
10:43
I feel a little bit of, I'll call it
10:48
exciting peer pressure because when I
10:48
see somebody, another internal person
10:52
posting a look what I did with co pilot
10:52
in our center of excellence and our
10:56
success stories, I immediately think,
10:56
Oh my gosh, I should be doing that too.
10:59
Or it's a little reminder of,
10:59
Hey, I still have co pilot.
11:03
I should be using that more in my day to day. So that was one huge takeaway.
11:08
We also learned a lot about how
11:08
important it is to leverage our existing
11:13
collaboration tools to foster learning
11:13
and user enablement for Copilot.
11:18
So what I mean, there is we at
11:18
Softchoice are using Microsoft Teams.
11:22
For our center of excellence,
11:22
and that has been wildly helpful.
11:26
It's one central place. We don't have to use an intranet or
11:28
build out creative SharePoint sites.
11:33
You sure can, but we
11:33
certainly don't have to.
11:35
And so we're really leveraging our
11:35
existing collaboration tools of teams
11:40
and our intranet and things like that
11:40
to get messaging out there and to foster
11:45
a really great culture of learning.
11:47
And we're advising many
11:47
of our customers and other
11:50
organizations to do the same thing. We're seeing a lot of that adoption just
11:51
happening faster and more easier because
11:56
of the excitement, but also because
11:56
of just user to user interaction and
12:01
sharing with each other of, Something
12:01
cool that, that I discovered or something
12:05
cool you discovered any of that stuff. Yeah.
12:07
Yeah. So, I mean, my next question here, how do
12:08
you know your adoption plan is working?
12:12
And it sounds like that's, that's almost it, right? It's like you see the evidence of that
12:14
viral adoption happening live in your,
12:18
your office hours or as people are using
12:18
the tool and sharing what they've learned.
12:21
Right. Um, are there any other signs?
12:23
Yeah, absolutely. So we can certainly see that Copilot is
12:24
being adopted at Softchoice, for example,
12:28
because people are talking about it and
12:28
they're energized and it's all over our
12:32
intranet and we're talking about all of
12:32
our great customer successes with Copilot.
12:37
But there are a couple of key ways in
12:37
adoption and change management that we
12:40
always want to try to determine whether
12:40
or not our adoption efforts are working.
12:45
And first and foremost, if we
12:45
can get data, we'd love the data.
12:48
If we have access to
12:48
data, I want to use it.
12:51
I want to take a peek at it and analyze
12:51
it and see what's actually happening.
12:56
So tracking adoption metrics for
12:56
Copilot utilization is one key
13:01
thing that we absolutely want to do. We're advising all of our
13:02
customers to do the same.
13:05
That will tell us about our active users.
13:08
Now, If we have 100 percent utilization
13:08
in the co pilot adoption metrics or
13:13
utilization metrics, we can probably
13:13
assume our adoption is going well
13:17
and we've been effective, but it's
13:17
pretty unlikely that we actually
13:21
achieve 100 percent adoption rates. And so then what I love to
13:23
do is take a look at the data
13:27
and identify if there are. user groups or specific users
13:29
who do have lower utilization.
13:34
And then let's go talk to those
13:34
users and find out why, find out
13:37
why maybe Copilot isn't something
13:37
they're using day in and day out.
13:41
If they're having issues, it might
13:41
even be a technical issue that they're
13:45
having that we want to try to address. And then we also know with user adoption
13:47
trends typically in the past that
13:53
we might see, let's say 60 percent
13:53
adoption monthly, One month, two, we
13:58
jump up to 80 percent adoption rate,
13:58
and then over time, we can expect
14:03
that adoption rate to taper off.
14:06
Maybe there's a lot of excitement
14:06
right now, but three to six months
14:09
from now, we see that our utilization
14:09
of Copilot licenses has declined down
14:14
to maybe the 40 or 50 percent range.
14:16
I want to go find out why,
14:16
and one of the best ways to do
14:19
that is to talk to our users. So we're going to look at the data,
14:20
but then we need to dig a little bit
14:24
deeper and see if we can determine
14:24
why a particular adoption effort might
14:28
not be as effective as another effort.
14:31
Was that group of people
14:31
properly communicated to?
14:35
Did they, did they even know
14:35
that they got co pilot license?
14:38
Did they get access to
14:38
learning opportunities?
14:41
Did they attend self led
14:41
learning opportunities?
14:44
Or were they able to attend something
14:44
like Office Hours or Champions?
14:48
And if they only got one
14:48
approach to learning, let's try
14:51
the other approach with them. Let's also go capture some of their
14:53
feedback and find out maybe why Copilot
14:56
isn't something they're using every day. I'm not sure if I mentioned this
14:59
earlier, but adoption with Copilot
15:02
feels a lot more agile than our
15:02
traditional approach to adoption and
15:07
change management methodologies in the
15:07
past that I do feel like we're being
15:11
more agile with our adoption approach
15:11
and maybe pivoting when certain things
15:14
aren't working for one group or another. We may need to tailor it to a
15:16
specific group of users and then
15:20
throughout the project, but especially
15:20
in the early stages, we really
15:25
need to rely on user feedback. So we need to set up mechanisms
15:26
to capture the feedback.
15:30
We need to analyze that feedback and then
15:30
define if there are gaps or remediation.
15:34
So surveys. focus groups, feedback
15:35
out of champion sessions.
15:38
If there is even something like a
15:38
sentiment analysis during a training
15:43
or during a facilitated learning
15:43
session that will help us understand
15:47
if our adoption plan is working and
15:47
we can take all of that feedback.
15:51
Determine where we maybe need
15:51
to put in some new effort or
15:54
revisit some efforts we've done
15:54
before to remediate some of that.
15:57
Yeah, no, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. You've covered quite a bit of this, I
15:59
think already, but as we know, you know,
16:02
our sort of recommended flight path for
16:02
co pilot, the final step we call sustain.
16:06
And it's all about how do you
16:06
build and keep that momentum going
16:09
after six months, after 12 months
16:09
and so on, because co pilot is.
16:13
Nobody has really had that full experience. So we're kind of learning as we go.
16:16
Right. In your experience so far,
16:17
is there a secret sauce?
16:19
Is there some tips or tricks keeping
16:19
up with the feedback and revisiting
16:23
those users who don't necessarily
16:23
show the adoption you're looking for?
16:27
Absolutely. And the question here is how
16:27
do we maintain the momentum?
16:30
So if we've had a successful pilot or
16:30
we've had a successful wave one rollout
16:35
of maybe a hundred licenses, How do
16:35
we keep that momentum going and make
16:39
sure that we're realizing the full
16:39
benefit of our co pilot implementation.
16:43
And one key way that I think we,
16:43
we all, and I I'd recommend this
16:48
to all of our customers as well,
16:48
is to make sure that we continue.
16:53
With user feedback and success stories.
16:56
So at Softchoice, we have a channel in
16:56
our center of excellence called success
17:00
stories, and I actually heard an idea
17:00
from someone else for a prompt fail
17:03
channel, which sounds really fun as well,
17:03
but our channel of success stories does
17:08
really keep people engaged having those
17:08
ongoing office hours sessions where
17:14
you're rotating in new champions as you
17:14
continue to roll out waves of licenses.
17:19
Maybe we have 20 champions. on board.
17:23
They're doing great. They're leading champions sessions.
17:25
They're leading facilitated learning sessions. They're getting feedback.
17:28
They're helping people when they can. And then as we roll out the next wave,
17:31
we want to sort of filter in some of
17:34
those new people because it's sort of
17:34
that networking map of, you know, Braden,
17:39
you and I might know each other, but
17:39
if you happen to deliver a facilitated
17:43
learning session as a champion down the
17:43
road, you're reaching a bunch of people
17:48
that I would maybe never even have
17:48
contact with in my day So Rotating in
17:53
new folks into our champions initiatives.
17:56
continuing to monitor and
17:56
get that user feedback.
17:59
We can't just ask for feedback at the
17:59
beginning and never again down the road.
18:03
We want to check in 12 months.
18:06
And of course, if we're rolling
18:06
out more waves of licenses, we want
18:10
to always continue with ongoing
18:10
training or learning opportunities.
18:13
Doing a big splash of learning engagement
18:13
in the beginning of a project or
18:18
change initiative is always great.
18:21
But what we have a tendency to do is
18:21
three, six, nine, 12 months from now,
18:25
the training is no longer a hot topic.
18:27
We're not talking about it in our team
18:27
meetings, and maybe we're not even
18:31
posting updated or relevant content.
18:33
So we can't let that
18:33
learning opportunities slide.
18:35
We want to maintain those. I also think that we can relaunch
18:37
our champions for second or
18:42
third or fourth wave rollouts. And again, I think that's been wildly
18:44
successful because we're reinforcing
18:48
learning then with all of those
18:48
folks over and over and over again.
18:51
Even if you're a power user, you've
18:51
signed up to be a champion every
18:57
time you attend an office hour or you
18:57
attend a facilitated learning session.
19:01
You're also relearning, getting ideas from
19:01
other folks, and it reinforces or just
19:06
reinvigorates your excitement and your
19:06
general kind of engagement with Copilot.
19:11
Continuing some of the momentum that
19:11
we've already started with great user
19:15
feedback, great success stories, keep
19:15
the learning opportunities going,
19:19
rotate in champions, make stakeholder
19:19
sponsor engagement and executive
19:24
engagement and buy in and all of that. But we can also keep it really simple.
19:29
And that is just to keep talking about
19:29
co pilot, keep the opportunities going,
19:33
bring it up in leadership calls, maybe
19:33
do some later stage communication,
19:37
trickle down messaging, just keep
19:37
the engagement going and make sure
19:41
that we continue with that peer to
19:41
peer or viral adoption opportunity.
19:46
Excellent. Just want to, uh, you know, thank
19:47
you for this great conversation.
19:50
We hope to have another
19:50
conversation again soon.
19:53
Yeah, thanks for having me. It's a lot of fun.
19:55
I will happily talk about Copilot for
19:55
M365 any day, but I'll also talk about
19:59
adoption and change management anytime.
20:02
So happy to be here and thanks for having me.
20:04
Thank you so much. Kayla reminds us that adopting Copilot
20:06
is not a one off event, but an ongoing
20:09
journey of discovery and improvement. It requires a clear vision,
20:11
decisive leadership, and most
20:14
crucially, the collective effort
20:14
of everyone in the organization.
20:17
From the champions and super users
20:17
to executive leaders, this is a team
20:21
sport where every player's input
20:21
and active participation drive the
20:25
organization toward achieving its goals. This collaborative approach ensures
20:27
that Copilot doesn't just fit seamlessly
20:31
into your daily workflows but also
20:31
grows and adapts in tandem with your
20:34
evolving business needs and challenges. Thank you for listening to The Catalyst
20:36
Gets Clear on Copilot Adoption, a mini
20:40
series brought to you by Softchoice. If you're wondering where to start
20:42
with Copilot for Microsoft 365, don't
20:45
hesitate to reach out for guidance
20:45
on planning your own flight path.
20:48
Until we meet again, I'm Braden Banks,
20:48
wishing you all the best on your journey
20:52
to generative AI in the workplace.
21:07
We help our customers navigate
21:07
the whole Copilot journey with a
21:11
proven consulting framework, secure
21:11
implementation experience, and deep
21:15
certification in Microsoft technology. We know Microsoft better than anyone.
21:20
Every Copilot needs a navigator. Softchoice is yours.
21:24
Visit softchoice. com slash Microsoft dash Copilot
21:25
to learn how we can help you
21:29
unleash the potential in your
21:29
people and technology with Copilot.
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