Assess your organization’s readiness

3 minutes

Assess the readiness and capabilities of your people and organization to adopt Microsoft 365 Copilot and address any gaps or barriers.

What is Readiness?

Readiness means how willing and prepared users and organizations are to adopt new technology. This state varies a lot between different organizations, as it depends on factors like regional differences, work styles, professional profiles, and various organizational characteristics. Evaluating how open users are to change their work habits and use new technologies is important. Therefore, it's essential to create a rollout plan that matches the organization's specific readiness level. It's important to understand that resistance to change is normal; so, planning for possible objections and addressing them is crucial to make the transition to new technological solutions easier.

There are key factors that will tell you how ready your team members are for the transition to a new technology.

Clear vision for the organization to adopt
Clear vision for the individual to adopt
Level of overall change
Executive alignment

Assess organizational factors:

Think about a time when your organization adopted a new technology. What made that adoption successful or not successful?
Employees may not be able to focus on Microsoft 365 Copilot if they're focused on other changes. Are there key initiatives taking place during the Copilot rollout that should be considered in your planning?
What type of internal resources exist within your organization that can be leveraged for the adoption effort? This includes communications channels, change network, training cadence, and leadership events.
What are the perceived risks and benefits of the Microsoft 365 Copilot implementation? How can you highlight benefits? How can you mitigate risks?

Understand your “Why”

When planning for adoption, users need to understand why the change is occurring for the organization and how Microsoft 365 Copilot will help individual employees achieve more. This includes ensuring they understand what’s in it for them, and why they’re being asked to change. Capture these reasons and use it to build your communications and engagement content. Consider these questions:

How will Microsoft 365 Copilot benefit your organization?
How will Microsoft 365 Copilot benefit employees?

Identify key changes for each team

Create a list of things that will change for your team members with the implementation of Microsoft 365 Copilot. This includes the new technology and new ways of working and engaging. Make sure to incorporate these key changes in your awareness and training plans.

Identify areas of alignment