Unified Communication and collaboration (UC&C) service deployments do have a large-scale impact on your business. If well planned and executed a positiv one which supports the return on (your) investment over time. I’m writing this post because I’ve seen the excellent, the good and the bad adoption strategy realization. Some companies struggle and some do very well. I like to write down some notes which might be helpful for the one or the other to reach a good or even excellent adoption strategy realization.

Why is change management important for your UC&C service?

UC&C is very holistic because it is not just one service it’s a bunch of services for communications and collaboration. We all know that many IT infrastructure services are touched or involved in a properly functioning UC&C environment. That IT provides the fitting services to business should be standard. However it is not always the case. Users which keep the core business running and who will not receive what they need are more and more creative. In other words users might try to find and obtain the required service somewhere else to close the gap between provided IT services and requested IT services. But sometimes there are services provided by IT, like UC&C services but users are not aware of the features and how to use them. To put it in a nutshell if you have a car but do not know how to drive you will switch to and use what you know, so you’ll might ride a horse or bicycle instead of driving a car. So the car than stays where it is. If you bought it or pay a leasing rate there is no added value, on contrary you lose money. The same applies for IT services and UC&C. There are differences between IT services (direct / indirect services for users). UC&C is a direct service  (or bunch of direct services) because users will directly interact with the applications and devices providing UC&C capabilities. For instance database services or network services are indirect services because users are not directly interacting with these kind of services. To sum it up it is essential to plan for user adoption and training before rolling out all UC&C services and features to end users. Additionally I must also note that change management is always a good thing if your IT clients, users by default, are going to be confronted with new technology, services and organizational transformation. Don’t leave anyone behind! By using a car you can go more kilometers a day instead of going by horse or bicycle. 😉

What can I do?

You could implement an adequate project change management which accompanies your UC&C project. It will help you to …

• establish and execute a strategy for the change to an UC&C service
• plan and execute user communication
• plan and execute users involvement (surveys, discussions, service previews/demos, …)
• enable users (trainings, FAQs, wiki pages, handouts, video clips, …)
• enable service for users (roll out / activation of services, disable / decommissioning legacy service (if applicable))
• …

What can I provide my users to adopt UC&C?

It is common for vendors which provide applications and services for users to have supportive information and material available. Below you will find some examples what it can be like. It’s just some basic information. Depending on what the UC&C changes will be and look like within your organisation more and also customized material might be necessary. It’s no big deal but it must be taken into account for project planning.

Some resources for Microsoft Skype for Business

• Skype for Business help https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Skype-for-Business-help-4fbe07ce-6b15-4a06-bcf0-baea57890410?omkt=en-001&ui=en-US&rs=en-001&ad=US
• Skype for Business change management and adoption https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Skype-for-Business-change-management-and-adoption-d8d85da6-52e7-4819-8451-45c103fb5ccb
• Rollout and Adoption Success Kit (RASK) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=37031
• Skype for Business: How to Execute an Effective End-User Adoption and Change Management Program https://ignite.microsoft.com/session/sessionmoreinfo/?topicid=48fd4d28-cf9d-e411-b87f-00155d5066d7 / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbwbM9TaXfU
• Maximizing ROI and End User Adoption https://youtu.be/lhFyL6BY7hc

Some resources for Cisco Collaboration Services

• Proactively Prepare Your Business to Support New Collaboration Technologies http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/services/portfolio/documents/collaboration-change-management-service-overview.pdf
• Collaboration Optimization Services http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collaboration/collaboration-optimization-service.html
• Jabber User Guide http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/jabber/Windows/11_0/UG/JABW_BK_CD4EA7A2_00_cisco-jabber-for-windows-110-userguide.html
• Jabber User Guides (for mobile devices) http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/jabber-iphone-ipad/products-user-guide-list.html
• IP Phone 69xx-Series http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/collaboration-endpoints/unified-ip-phone-6900-series/products-user-guide-list.html
• IP Phone 78xx-Series http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/collaboration-endpoints/unified-ip-phone-7800-series/products-user-guide-list.html
• IP Phone 79xx-Series http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/collaboration-endpoints/unified-ip-phone-7900-series/products-user-guide-list.html
• IP Phone 88xx-Series http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/collaboration-endpoints/unified-ip-phone-8800-series/products-user-guide-list.html

Let’s start your project, make a change and improve things! 😉