Driving adoption of Microsoft Flow

In the land of Office 365, Microsoft Flow users are unique. While most of your users may use Outlook for email, OneDrive for file storage, and Microsoft Teams for intra-team collaboration, not all your users will create and leverage flows. Your approach to Microsoft Flow user adoption needs to account for this uniqueness. While you can launch broad Office 365 awareness campaigns, you will need to create a targeted adoption model just for Microsoft Flow.

Your user adoption campaign should focus on 4 key goals:

1. Make flow relevant. Show your users how Microsoft Flow can help them meet their business goals. Making flow relevant to their daily work lives will drive home the why.
2. Make flow achievable. Some innovators may start using Microsoft Flow based on word-of-mouth discussions or native curiosity about what the app can do. But the vast majority of your users will need help breaking through the conceptual barriers to using flow. They need an easy way to learn the basics, easy wins that can boost their confidence, and a method for getting peer or expert IT support as they start building more advanced workflows.
3. Give your users a running start. Teach your users how to leverage Microsoft’s existing flow template gallery. And to drive stronger adoption and greater ROI, consider building out a series of company-specific flow templates that can be re-used internally.
4. Make them shine. Provide your users with the educational materials and coaching they need to build flows that will make a difference and drive business value. Turning new flow users into flow superheroes will ensure continued adoption.

Planning for your flow user adoption campaign
To get started, you will need to clearly identify your target audience. I recommend creating formal personas for each of the key user groups you believe will leverage Microsoft Flow. You may have a business user, for example, that creates flows to help drive departmental process improvements. You may have a developer that creates flows as part of an agile engineering team. Identifying key types of flow users, documenting the reasons why they would leverage flow, and identifying their technology learning preferences will lay the groundwork for your custom user adoption campaign.

Once you identify your user personas, start building a target estimate for flow user volume. The estimate should project the rate at which users will start leveraging flow. If you have 1,000 Office 365 users, for example, you may target having 10% of your users adopt Microsoft Flow within the first 12 months. Your flow user adoption plans should account for driving this user growth, and monthly checks should be performed to measure your adoption efforts against your defined goals.

Now that you’ve identified your target adoption rate, it’s time to start building your flow user adoption campaign. It’s vital that you design your campaign to reflect and complement your organization’s culture. Look at programs that have succeeded or failed in your organization and unpack the key lessons learned. Determine what types of education and communication initiatives work well in your organization. If employees at your company don’t engage with or read news stories published on your company intranet, then publishing mass-market intranet articles about flow will not yield much success. If brown bags are popular, consider hosting targeted lunch and learns for each of your core Microsoft Flow user personas.

You also need to determine how to invest your valuable time and user adoption efforts. As I explain in Change by color: The secret of green dots, yellow dots and red dots, some of your users will readily accept change and be driven to adopt new technologies based on an intrinsic desire to learn and grow. Invest in these change adopters, but don’t overcommit your time. Target your efforts on the users that are slower to adapt but are still willing to change and learn new technologies.

Once you’ve defined your user personas and built specific user adoption campaign ideas that fit your corporate culture, you’re ready! Identify business needs and existing work processes that can be improved using Microsoft Flow. Leverage these opportunities as “starter projects” that will show of flow’s capabilities. Ensure you’re working alongside key influencers and innovators on your business teams for these starter projects. You want to engage with users that embrace technology and are quick to adopt. They’ll be willing to hear new ideas and, if they’re successful, will be able to evangelize flow’s capabilities. If you have resources that are already knowledgeable about Microsoft Flow (e.g. pilot testers or members of IT), introduce them to key business users and foster peer mentorship opportunities.

Most importantly, remember that flow user adoption isn’t a one-time project. In order for flow user adoption to become a reality, you need to treat it as an ongoing service. And yes, you’ll need to build, evolve, and drive your adoption program from now until the day you stop leveraging Microsoft Flow. Even the most successful adoption programs will die without dedicated attention and fresh ideas.

Originally published at blog.splibrarian.com on September 25, 2018.