Navigating the Constant: Microsoft’s Approach to Microsoft 365 Change Management
When Microsoft 365 transitioned into a service model, the way IT teams approached change management fundamentally shifted. “We were no exceptions,” states David Johnson, Principal Product Manager Architect at Microsoft, who leads the team overseeing Microsoft 365 deployments internally. “Microsoft 365 began evolving daily, and we needed to figure out how to keep pace.”
The shift to Software as a Service (SaaS) was further complicated by the global pandemic and evolving work styles. The ongoing pandemic, with its uncertain timeline, required organizations to be agile and responsive to workforce needs. IT teams needed to continually assess and integrate new technologies and cloud-based solutions to support remote collaboration, seamless communication, and maintain productivity. Asynchronous workflows, a result of remote work, provided flexibility regarding work location and timing. Generative AI has now entered the picture. Employees can utilize tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams Meeting Recap to reduce meeting fatigue and prioritize their workloads.
The pressure on IT administrators, both within Microsoft and elsewhere, significantly increased. A core concern for businesses became, “How do I effectively decide which features to enable for my company?” This is a vital conversation in the industry.
“This was a lot to absorb for an industry that had previously thrived on consistency, reliability, and predictability.” – David Johnson, Principal Product Manager Architect, Microsoft Digital
Change became the new normal, a concept that everyone is still adapting to. “It’s a hot topic for customers,” says Johnson, whose team has been at the forefront of both the industry’s move to the cloud and the technology demands of a new mobile workforce. “How do I decide what I’m going to turn on for my company effectively? From an industry perspective, this is a fairly important conversation.”
Microsoft Teams alone has hundreds of new features and modifications in development simultaneously. Rapid changes also affect the broader Microsoft 365 suite, including Office apps, hosted email, and Microsoft SharePoint. Johnson’s objective was to standardize change management for all Microsoft 365 products. His team focuses on three key areas: initial triage, establishing guardrails to foster innovation, and staying informed about the latest developments.
Triage: Assessing Upcoming Changes
IT administrators largely control which changes are available to employees, who has access to those features, and how they are configured. Some updates, like adding the ability to raise a virtual hand in a Microsoft Teams meeting, are easily implemented. More complex updates involving artificial intelligence or data mining require careful triage. Broadly, Microsoft’s internal triage process involves developing an IT posture—a set of principles for the company—and ensuring changes align with that posture.
For instance, a posture might define security and data privacy requirements. Microsoft 365’s compliance capabilities, like data loss prevention (DLP), information protection, and eDiscovery, have enabled major financial institutions to align their IT environments with defined compliance postures. They implemented strong data protection measures, including encryption and access management, to protect sensitive financial data. They also used advanced threat protection to proactively detect and respond to potential security incidents.
Having an established posture simplifies the triage process. The first step is to assess the significance of an upcoming change and consider a series of questions reflecting the company’s IT posture, such as:
- Does this require a security review?
- Should this be reviewed by privacy experts?
- What are the legal implications?
- Does the Human Resources team need involvement?
- Will the workers council or union need to be involved?
- What is the IT manageability impact?
- Are there any IT resource impacts?
- Are there employee experience considerations?
Guardrails: Balancing Innovation and Security
Microsoft prioritizes privacy and security but also values creativity, innovation, and collaboration. One vital posture is maintaining the balance between protecting employees while allowing open communication, file sharing, and collaboration across multiple platforms. To maintain this balance, the company employs guardrails to ensure security and privacy while providing employees with flexibility.
One way to test this balance is through an internal ring structure for change management. There is a natural first ring of testers that consists of the engineering and supporting teams that worked closely with the solution. This internal ring structure allows the people who know the solution best to validate it before sharing it with the second ring, and the initial features are then gradually shared more broadly. At Microsoft, a group of employees, known as Microsoft Elite, sign up to see early deployments. The ring structure can be used by any IT department that wants to gradually roll out changes and monitor the effects before impacting users broadly.
“The team that manages the deployment of Microsoft Exchange internally at Microsoft uses rings to try out new features before they are broadly deployed across the company.” – Nate Carson, a senior service manager at Microsoft
Using rings improves the time security and data privacy teams have to assess the impact of new features. That’s critical for managing change in this age of hacking, ransomware, phishing, and other security attacks. Companies need to be more aware of software features and their potential impact on digital security.
“There is an explosion of data and really an explosion of hackers trying to get at your data… It’s mind-boggling how many attack vectors there are, and it’s all centered on people and their identities.” – Faye Harold, principal program manager for information protection services at Microsoft Digital.
“Companies need to be more aware of software features that are being released and understand how they might impact digital security,” says Peterson.
Staying Informed of the Latest Developments
The pandemic highlighted the rapid pace of change for companies. Staying informed about the latest communications from software and service developers is essential. Microsoft uses a Microsoft 365 Message Center to keep customers aware of changes impacting the Microsoft Office 365 environment. The Message Center provides important news, detailed information, and visual indications of items needing administrator attention. It outlines actions administrators need to take and the timeframes involved.
“Another way to stay current on products and features is by checking in with the docs.microsoft.com site. It’s pretty much our encyclopedia of everything Microsoft.” – Darren Moffatt, senior service engineer for Microsoft 365
Microsoft has now made it easier for organizations to handle their Message Center with the help of Planner. With Planner, companies can evaluate if a message could potentially affect their operations. This integration allows them to quickly assess the importance of each message and assign it to the right person for further review if needed. With Planner’s assistance, the triage process becomes smoother, ensuring messages are carefully examined and addressed promptly.
The Evolving Role of IT
As the modern workforce shifts to the cloud, IT is no longer just focused on tech support; it is now deeply involved in business enablement and improving the bottom line. IT departments used to be siloed, but those boundaries have blurred as software enables more collaboration. Working in IT now requires knowledge across disciplines; Microsoft immerses employees in diverse areas to develop broader skill sets and handle change management, says Moffatt. So, when change comes quickly, more of the team is ready to respond. Employees see scenarios, and those scenarios are now starting to blend. “All of these services converged because our employee scenarios converged,” states Johnson. “Collaboration doesn’t start or end at a meeting. Voice call is no longer just a voice call; it’s now a chat, and files that you’re sharing. That’s why you converge many of these experiences to enable effectively a more complete package for your employees.”
In the broader context, Microsoft 365’s continuous improvements to change management, security, and collaboration indirectly contribute to enhanced AI experiences. Organizations that embrace efficient change management practices and stay updated with the latest developments, while carefully balancing security and innovation, create an environment conducive to effectively leveraging AI technologies. This enables them to embrace AI-driven solutions, streamline processes, and deliver more personalized and efficient AI experiences.
