This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: New blog articles in Microsoft Tech Community.
This article is the third in a series exploring the benefits of the Microsoft Service Adoption framework for Government Community Clouds. Isn’t driving adoption only about the people side of change? We covered technical competence and personas in the previous articles.
Service Adoption is for “people who are interested in both technology and people.”
You'll hear this (above) in the course Introduction, and to me, it sets the right tone for what Service Adoption is ultimately about, empowering people to achieve more with technology.
Years ago, my desire to be more technical led me to attempt the Exchange Ranger Program (Microsoft Certified Master). With a ~25% pass rate, it was one of the most difficult technical endeavors I've ever completed. A Microsoft MVP described it this way: "Over the years, I've met some Masters, and that designation always inspired a little awe in me. It's good, even for adults, to have heroes." Towards the end of that 6-week program, the executive sponsor gathered the rotation for a talk. Eagerly waiting, we thought, what incredible technical insights will be shared? But he said this instead, “Years from now, your customers will forget what you did for them technically. But they’ll never forget how you made them feel…” As an end-user facing delivery resource in the field (National Security, Civilian, and DoD organizations), I’ve always remembered this talk about user experience.
The future of cloud services in our field, I believe, will pivot on the quality of the adoption experience. To the degree cloud services (technology) are being commoditized, we must invest in improving the adoption (people) experience – we can do this by following the Service Adoption framework. Please invest in Service Adoption. Years from now, our end-users will forget what capabilities and features were in Teams. But they’ll never forget how we made them feel as we cultivated and curated a superior adoption experience by focusing on technology AND people.
PS: for context, I work as a full-time Service Adoption Specialist in the field (National Security, Civilian, and DoD organizations) focused on Teams, leading some of the largest and fastest adopted Teams deployments in the world. If your experience differs, I’d love to hear about it and learn from it! Thanks in advance.
