Microsoft Loop is making waves about improving collaboration in Teams and Office 365. But how does it do this and what things do you need to think about to make it effective?

Change is one of the few constants dictating that whatever we know today will be different in the future. But there appears to be little acknowledgement that we can never know what will happen next in the ever-shifting landscape of technology.

 

So, in this week's episode James and I consider how organisations can manage the uncertainty and volatility of the constantly moving, adapting and developing platform that is Microsoft 365.

When you think about security it's tempting to consider locking down as much of your environment as possible to mitigate against perceived or potential threats. And when you're discussing how to get the most out of your Microsoft 365 licences, the conversation tends to centre on the 4 Cs:

Content management

Communication

Collaboration

Community

Yet each of these priorities demands an approach that enables staff to do what they need to do without being so restrictive as to make it difficult. At the end of the day, which takes precedence can be summed up by 'it's whoever shouts loudest!'

What's the right level of knowledge in Microsoft 365 and does everybody really need to know everything? And, how do you go about making sure people get the right knowledge and learning that will support them as they do their job and innovate at the same time?

Microsoft Viva is a suite of four capabilities that enhance the user experience by drawing in knowledge and information from across the platform and making it easily accessible. Whilst it's very easy to turn on, with the right licencing, there are some cultural pre-requisites that are essential to its success. In this podcast, we take a look at what these pre-requisites are, and what you need to plan and prepare for, beyond the technical implementation.

The maturity of an organisation is a significant factor in how well Microsoft 365 is both implemented and adopted. When we talk about maturity we're not referring to age, but the ability of an organisation to achieve a desired state from the place they are starting from. An example might be a desire to move all content to the cloud with full data loss prevention, classification and labelling implemented, but where classification has never been part of the document management process before.

When a digital way of working is first adopted what tends to happen is that people simply carry on doing what they've always done, just in a different environment; this is known as channel shift. However, true transformation happens when people start to do something different instead because they now have the tools to do so.

What does the term 'digital skills' really mean?  Is it just about technology or is it something more?  Linda and James delve deeper to see if they can come to a helpful conclusion.

Microsoft 365 may start out as a solution delivered by IT, but it's real value is in the business transformation potential. Who should take responsibility for Microsoft 365 and is it IT's responsibility to make sure it delivers strategic business benefit?

Linda & James discuss the relevance and importance of update notifications in the world of Microsoft 365 and ask whether users pay attention to them.