Office 365 Distilled

Marijn Confirms that he can read!!  OK, I could not resist that, the power of being the Office365Distilled producer and being able to publish the content that we both produce.

Never having enough information is bad... but unlike Whisky sometimes too much information can be just as stressful and causes problems of a different kind.... thinking about it,  too much Whisky might also cause problems of a different kind.  Anyhow...

Check out Marijn’s view on Information Overload from the recent Harvard Review paper.

The first of 3 podcasts sponsored by CloudAlly and provided 3 great whiskies to taste on the next 3 Episodes.  On Episode 113 we will be speaking to Murrey Moceri, the Partner Account Director from CloudAlly, who will be talking about content protection through their platform.

Information from www.cloudally.com    Follow up use [email protected]  

The subject of today is ‘Human in IT’ and we start by considering the workload growth and the average number of change programs that people are involved in has increased by 400%.  Cynically Steve of course is wondering if that is true but that companies are now taking more care about change and formalising the programs of change.

We can only assume but we do agree that the number of changes is increasing, but not everyone gets phased by application changes as often it is not a core process.

We identify that the big 3 are changing, Outlook, MS Teams and SharePoint will all look and feel differently over the coming 3-4 months.

Co-Pilot is a new attribute where AI gets integrated into the normal applications within the Office application set.  This change will affect everyone as those that use it can gain real value within the company and for themselves.  This is a change that is worth and change program as the payback will be worth the effort.

The Boys get hot under the collar about the concept of collaboration and communication protocols and whether these are good or bad.  The lesson here is that Humans in IT mean that there are many ways of working.  Humans are fickle people... but they are inquisitive by nature... So we get involved with defining what normal means but take some extreme examples like is Climbing Mount Everest now Normal?

We have to shout out to Dylan Hayes because we wanted to talk about his great runs, but we could not remember his handle...

We hit on AI, and the changes it brings and how Humans in IT can benefit from it and get value from one of the most significant IT changes in recent times.

We conclude that Change is a Drip-Drip-Drip means that as Humans, we do need to expect change, which of course, can increase stress levels or not.

Finally, we remember that tech can make people lazy... so accepting what Co-Pilot gives you may not get tested/assessed/changed before being published.

Taking the first module and outlining how Process, Governance and Policies, when brought together, ensure we present a practical approach to providing a well-governed M365 environment.  This podcast looks at some of the first module content from their latest training workshop, 'Practical Microsoft 365 Baseline Governance' First presentation is at...

Techorama Belgium on May 15th https://techorama.be/workshops/practical-microsoft-365-baseline-governance/ 

The podcast explains all this and more,and this might be the funniest start yet...

Steve and Marijn wonder if the Double Entendre is evident to the listener, and Steve struggles to say penis because it feels wrong to say it on the podcast.  The boys present the open content from their new governance course to be launched at 

As always, Steve’s brain refuses to bring in names, so we want to say Sigourney Weaver, because he could not remember Dian Fossey, who worked with Gorilla until poachers killed her.  And then he forgot the name of the Guy who invented the WWW... whom we will call James from the Internet.

Eventually, they get serious and explain how Microsoft, Harvard and Office365Distilled define governance... so GPT is to the rescue.

Steve reads through the Office365Distilled definition of Governance and identifies the core model from this definition.

Governance Office365Distilled style, covering 4 core areas as a DRDR  Defined, Resources, Drivers, Results...

Defined by Policies, Procedures and Practices.

Resources that are used, Managed and Protected.

Drives the behaviour, Administrators, content and compliance.

Results are to maximise the benefits whilst minimising the risks.

We break down each of these areas and explain how, practically, these decisions and consequential definitions all bring a practical approach to Governance.  And if you want to hear more, join us on May 15th in Antwerp, Belgium. 

Marijn moves from Inspiration and Design to Empowering your organisation for Digital transformation.  Following the Microsoft IDEA framework for digital transformation.  E is for Empower and Marijn looks at how you can empower your audience through the development of a model either digital or Paper-based plan for awareness of your new digitally transformed organisation.

This very much supports the idea of ensuring your organization sees the value in your business transformation story by viewing visual assets and immersive experiences—promoting buy-in and getting alignment on commitments.

Steve and Marijn are joined today by a Guest who brings many questions about UK financial compliance.  In this episode, we wanted Laura Madden to tell us what her customers need from their content management.  We investigate solutions for typical problems the UK small business financial industry needs from a cloud service.

Marijn dives in immediately, talking about some cool solutions, but soon understands that small business needs their cloud solution to deliver good value... maybe best describe them as cheap... So, we work on solutions for auditing, controlling, and tracking content and information that are all out of the box.

We take questions from Laura about distributing and managing compliance contact, mainly completed through emails to external parties for a small business.  So, the first question was about maintaining control of the document when it is moving around so many people, many of whom are outside your control.

We then consider the ability to maintain the immunity of that content when agreements or decisions are made against the content.

Audit soon raises its head and needs to ensure that evidence exists to confirm decisions made with compliance officers and regulators with minimal effort.  

We touch on feedback loops, why external survey tools might not be the best solution, and where M365 forms could provide a safe way to collect feedback or decide on specific questions. 

Eventually, we get to taste 2 whiskies from the same distillery with 7 years of difference to understand if the extra time in the barrel adds tasty value when it adds so much cost.

Steve announces a new Sponsorship with Cloudally, a company supporting businesses with Cloud backup solutions, more on that in future episodes and Marijn finishes off with a great ending and a request to complete Spotify comments as a Lady’s Understanding or a Gentlemen’s Agreement. 

Marijn and Steve lose about 20 minutes of this podcast covering search and how AI might help.  We accept that we can’t help ourselves... We eventually started on document library Governance... but it took some time to pull away from the AI conversation.

Steve is not sure how AI can add value to documents and other content, but we will wait patiently to find out.  The original subject is around document governance and, specifically, content architecture and the value it brings.

To get started, we look at the components that make content architecture possible, like content types, metadata and taxonomy and the governance that will ensure it stays contextual.

The discussion turns to who can make the decisions around creating libraries, columns etc. We move to cover the security model that makes it all possible.  Then Templates come forward, and a deep dive around DLP and Sensitivity Labels.

Before drinking a completely new Whisky from Italy, yes, I said Italian we finish off with a quick insight into view formatting and migration...

This is an extraordinary look at Innovation based on criteria around: Creativity, Vision, Risk-taking and Collaboration.  But maybe Governance has a place... or half a place in the definition.

The Boys are back after the great episode 107, and this time they are talking about innovation with a quote that Innovation is in the Delta between your known limit and the place you push to.

As we take some time to break down the pillars of Creativity, Vision, Risk and Collaboration, we identify that governance has a role in the innovation process. Still, we need to agree if this is something that restricts innovations or merely controls the scope of invention.  Let us know how YOU feel about it.

We conclude by taking a Harvard quadrant with Innovation on the left and best practice on the right.  We put High Risk at the top and No risk at the bottom.  So Innovative High-risk items are in the top left quadrant... so where you would put OneDrive or MS teams etc.  Check out what Steve and Marijn did.

The Whisky is very unusual and no. 870 from the first bottlings from the Maradsous Abbey in Belgium is a very interesting dram to taste if you can find a bottle outside of Belgium.

We finish by referring to a few Wee Drams around Innovations, and these can be found here to support the content of this podcast:

https://www.office365distilled.com/508 Innovate Everywhere

Are SLAs just Secrets, Lies and Assumptions?  Do we fudge the KPIs to show we have excellent delivery?  It’s possible, but XLA’s are more difficult to fool.  The boys are talking about experience and happiness on this podcast that defines and describes XLA’s, eXperience Levels Agreements and how they fit into the picture of SLA and OLA.

Valentine’s day caused some delays as it fell on a regular recording night, so Steve and Marijn had to delay swapping Vantine gifts, but we did that on this podcast.  But the delay revives some magic, and the Boys dig deep into some great tools to improve the end user experiences for delivering your Cloud and Microsoft 365 services to your users.

We know what SLA OLA supports eXperience Level Agreements, and if you don’t, you can learn something from Steve and Marijn as they talk about how this can improve the delivery, the change process and improve the tracking of Ability in the ADKAR process.

All this and a Very different WHISKY FROM Finland as we return to the KYRO distillery for this episode’s wee dram, maybe, just maybe, we have found a distillery that is just NOT to the taste of Marijn.

This year we take on the road our Governance workshop and the key to that is understanding XLA’s and much of today’s learning you can drill down and catch in our Governance workshops through 2023.  https://techorama.be/workshops/practical-microsoft-365-baseline-governance/ 

2023 is the year of governance with Marijn and Steve. To get started, we asked ChatGPT for 3 paragraphs describing Governance for M365, which we used to dig deep into the practical aspects of setting up Governance in M365.

We conclude that there are practical links between getting governance right that drives the success of a Good Adoption and Change program.

Here is what GPT told us about M365 Governance

Microsoft 365 Governance refers to the management of policies, procedures, and standards for the use of Microsoft 365 services. It involves defining rules and guidelines for access, use, storage, and dissemination of data and information within an organization using Microsoft 365 services. This helps to ensure the security, compliance, and privacy of sensitive data and information, as well as promote collaboration and productivity.

Effective M365 Governance also involves the use of tools and features provided by Microsoft 365, such as Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Intune, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Microsoft Teams, and others, to enforce policies, monitor usage, and provide reporting and auditing capabilities. It is critical to have a well-defined M365 Governance plan in place to ensure that all users are aware of their responsibilities and obligations when using Microsoft 365 services and that the data and information within the organization is protected and managed appropriately.

Finally, M365 Governance also involves continuous review and updates to policies and procedures to align with changing business requirements, technological advancements, and regulatory compliance requirements. This includes regular risk assessments, security audits, and assessments of user adoption and usage patterns to identify areas of improvement and ensure that the M365 Governance plan is effective in meeting the needs of the organization.