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.