Microsoft 365 Community Day – WellingtonB+LNZ: Modern Workplace JourneyTracey Ryan, CRM & Technology Manager31 October 2018

Agenda

• Who we are

• Roadmap to a modern workplace

• SharePoint & Office 365 tools

• Wins

• User adoption challenges

Who we are

• Beef + Lamb New Zealand Ltd (B+LNZ) is a farmer-owned, industry organisation representing New Zealand's

sheep and beef farmers – BY FARMERS, FOR FARMERS.

• Staff of 100 – split between Wellington office, and a spread out, very mobile, regional team.

• We have a very clear strategy, and our IT solution needs to support this.

• Work in partnership with Techtonics to provide Information Management and IT Infrastructure services to B+LNZ.

About me

• Started at B+LNZ 4 years ago solely managing the CRM database, but the role

evolved to manage the Information management strategy and Technology

platforms.

• Focused on identifying business needs and users requirements, and

championing and implementing new systems in Office 365 and SharePoint.

Our Roadmap to a modern workplace

• In April 2016 we developed our plan with Techtonics - to future proof B+LNZ’s technology, ensuring we have the best infrastructure, technology and processes in place to work effectively and efficiently.

• The road map was broken down into well defined and manageable phases,

with a focus on meeting our business needs.

• This enabled both behind the scenes infrastructure readiness and user

adoption of Office 365 in the business.

Discovery and

current state

Foundations

and behind the

scenes

Implementation

and roll out

Phase 1 - Discovery

• Technical investigations to truly understand our current state

• Document management system outdated

• Email servers no longer fit for purpose

• Outdated workstations (Windows 7) in need of upgrades

• CRM (farmer data base system) outdated

• Large, complex, ageing physical infrastructure with complicated back up and

disaster recovery processes

Phase 1 - Discovery

• Creating a clear picture of what we wanted to achieve

• Digital first

• Mobile

• Collaborative

• Single source of truth

• Clouded and SaaS where possible

• Providing the Business case and ensuring buy in from our Board and

Senior Management

• Identifying and engaging with project team(s)

• Understanding high level costs and realistic timelines

Phase 2 - Foundations

• Office 365 licencing and email migration to Exchange Online (late 2016)

• Workstation Upgrades to Windows 10 (Feb – March 2017)

• Network and Connectivity improvements (2017-18)

• Information Management Strategy developed (August 2017)

• We asked people to consider the process itself rather than jump to a

technology solution - “I need to be able to share documents with my

colleagues and collaborate”.

• Principals developed to help guide how we build infrastructure to

support how we work.

Phase 3 – Implementation of Office 365

• B+LNZ are working on the Office 365 Implementation phase now.

• Working with SharePoint Consultant (Rebecca Gordon) to ensure we get this right

• Focus on a few of areas first to ensure user adoption

CRM upgrade (late 2016)

• CRM2011 (on premise) upgraded to

Dynamics 365 (clouded)

• Modern, easy to use interface

• Created opportunities for better use of

CRM and integrations with other systems

• Reduced operating costs by leveraging

Office 365 licencing and clouded hosting

Intranet redevelopment

• Old branding and outdated content

• Difficult and expensive to update

content – could only be done by IT

• Missing key information around farmer

engagement and communications.

Intranet - SharePoint• Uses SharePoint Modern UI

• cost effective to design and build

• New, modern, responsive interface leading to increased usability and adoption

• Easy for nominated end users to update content

• Has provided a platform for all our key business information and a single

source of information

Document Management System - SharePoint

SharePoint DMS roll out

Build Info.

Architecture

Test and QA

to ensure

build matches

requirements

Training and

Handover –

start to use

SharePoint!

Review and

Feedback

Make

changes

Workshop 2 -

brainstorm and

draft IA to

meet teams

requirements

Identify team representative

with GM or Manager

Workshop 1 -preparation and demo

Information Gathering -team rep. to engage with their team

• Phase implementation by team, using a defined

process which ensured it is designed, built and

tested in line with each team’s functions.

• Use team representatives to champion the design

of SharePoint and support their team.

• Clear roles and responsibilities of the project

team/team representatives.

• Iterative approach – build and make changes as

required.

Big win - Board Papers

Previous state:

• Multiple versions/copies in different repositories

• Confusion around which version was the latest

• Unknown status of papers (draft? final?)

• Only one person could work on a document at a time

• Access issues to internal servers when working from home or for

non Wellington based staff members

Current State:

• Clear, agreed, documented process for Board Papers

• One library for all papers and everyone works off a single

document – single source of truth.

• Use of customised metadata to clearly show current status and

who we’re waiting on

• Papers can be accessed from anywhere!

Other O365 tools to support modern workplace

OneDrive for Business

• Huge and quick uptake of OneDrive

for Business

• Less “structured” than SharePoint

which allowed people to learn at their

own pace and get a feel for Office 365

• Documents accessed from anywhere

• Very easy to share and collaborate

with widespread teams

Teams & Planner

• Project team kept up to date and on track

• Add Planner for tasks

Project Update site on Intranet

• Modern UI provided a platform for

all staff updates

• Outlined project, key contacts and

reference material

• Users could Follow/subscribe if they

wanted to

• Email communication used in early

stages to encourage people to visit

update sites

Stream

• Quick 5 min demo videos on SharePoint

and the Intranet (recorded using Skype

for Business)

• Frequent Senior Management Team

video updates to allow staff to feel

engaged and connected

Collaboration tools

Yammer

• Quickly and easily share snap shots of what people

are up to in a more social and non formal way

Skype for Business

• Simplified video conferencing solution

• Improved connectivity of regional staff, for team meetings,

one on ones with managers and for training

• Huge operational savings in conference call and travel costs

Wins

• Up to date document management system

• One source of the truth for information

• Supports easy collaboration and mobility

• All users are moving towards being on the same system

• Ability to leverage many diverse Office 365 tools with a single

Office 365 licence

• Less reliance on physical servers

Challenges & Advice

• User adoption and resistance to change

• Use team representatives to champion and support teams

• Gain support from General Managers early

• Ongoing training, drop ins, communication and input from end users is critical

• But engagement from widespread teams and competing priorities continues to be a challenge to

fully adopt SharePoint – so we continue to use a mixture of systems for now!

• Office 365 and everything that is available can be over whelming

• Start small, focus on a few of areas first to ensure user adoption

• Break the project down into manageable stages, and scope each one out separately

• Not all teams and systems are compatible with clouded solutions - we have a couple of on premise

databases that we cannot move to the cloud (yet!), so continue to have reliance on physical servers

Tracey Ryan

Beef + Lamb New Zealand

www.beeflambnz.com

Tracey.ryan@beeflambnz.com