Ofwat embraces Microsoft Teams
How a leading public sector organisation successfully pivoted from a Teams implementation to an adoption and hybrid-working project
About the client
As a tech-mature organisation, Ofwat already had video conferencing and chat platforms and was eagerly anticipating implementing MS Teams. Then, like most organisations, the Covid pandemic altered its digital transformation strategy.
Inform won the Teams implementation contract as an approved supplier within the government’s G-Cloud procurement process. When Covid hit, it accelerated Ofwat’s Teams rollout and changed the scope of the project. Inform is used to scaling and changing at short notice to support clients. Inform was able to quickly pivot, providing Ofwat with an adoption strategy to help embed their mature digital workplace culture further and better instil a hybrid model.
Ofwat’s vision is to make the greatest contribution possible to improving life through water
A non-ministerial government department
Regulating water and sewage industries in England and Wales
Government smarter working status
Ofwat has around 240 employees
Two main office sites: Birmingham and London
Changing circumstances – getting the most for Ofwat’s people
Ofwat had already released Teams as a resilience tool to help manage the immediate shift to home-working during the Covid pandemic. And while Ofwat is recognised as a tech-mature organisation using smarter ways of working, they knew they needed adoption support to get the most out of it. As director of IT and digital, Caroline Gregory explains:
It’s not just about the tools and technology we deploy, it’s about how we can get the most value out of them and how our people can make the most of the digital services on offer.”
And when an organisation has already released tools and technology quickly – as many did during the pandemic – how do they start to understand the ways their people are using them?
Understanding Ofwat – Inform’s unique discovery
Using Inform’s data-rich maturity assessment, Ofwat was able to see trackable user analytics to build a data-focused view of how its people were using Teams. In turn, through Inform’s discovery sessions, a clear overview of Ofwat’s digital goals, existing digital culture, and organisational maturity gave the data to build a detailed, comparative picture of present use versus ideal future use.
With a detailed benchmark produced, Inform’s experienced change consultants were able to deliver a strategic change report with recommendations for improving Ofwat’s digital maturity focusing on specific areas for change.
The maturity assessment did highlight some weaknesses … I appreciated the strategic oversight and taking that step back and looking at maturity and where we needed to focus.”
Caroline Gregory
Director of IT and Digital
How Inform helped
Inform’s unique discovery and maturity assessment are the first key deliverables for any Microsoft 365 project. After the first step and with a clear view of Ofwat’s existing Teams culture charted against where it wanted to be, Inform used its trademarked 4E’s change methodology, delivering a tailored training and communications plan. Through listening to and understanding the organisation, Inform was able to successfully adapt what was delivered, based on Ofwat’s organisational needs. This people-first, data-focused approach meant Ofwat had a change plan specific to and aligned with its organisational goals.
training sessions
training workshops
quick reference guides
top tip GIFs for Yammer
dedicated SLT training programmes
Library of training videos
Dedicated intranet content
Intranet, newsletters, Yammer and sponsor content
As Ofwat’s director of IT and digital, Caroline Gregory, points out, “we were able to run everything virtually through Teams and do very interactive sessions,” to further promote and embed the Teams-first digital culture.
After the first tranche of training and after two incumbent collaboration systems were retired, we repeated our maturity assessment. With two maturity assessments, Inform were able to sharpen the project with additional focused training that really skilled up Ofwat’s people and embedded the Teams culture across the organisation.
We always recommend this comparative approach of assessing an organisation’s data before and after. It’s the perfect way to hone an ongoing project, delivering exceptional value and meeting the needs of your people. It’s also used to help embed your digital culture as you’re able to see over time how your people use the tools you have and alter and embed your strategies accordingly.
Seeing results
As a result of our detailed discoveries and tailored training and communications plans, Ofwat’s people are starting to see the benefits of deeper engagement with Teams.
- Emails sent dropped by 13%
- Active chat usage increased from 55% to 85%
- Teams calls usage increased 35%
- Active meeting users increased 27 percentage points
- 57% increase in user confidence
- Three-fold increase in Teams versus Exchange activity
As Caroline Gregory reflects, Teams is the enabler to hybrid working,
“we’re seeing the benefits of having a hybrid working environment … [and] we see Microsoft Teams as being that collaboration tool which will really underpin an awful lot of the activity.”
Inform knows technology change management
As Ofwat’s hybrid–working–using–Teams project demonstrates, Inform’s proven change management methodologies work as well with digitally mature organisations as they do with those just beginning the journey.
By trusting Inform and making best use of our unique combination of discovery and maturity assessment, organisations can develop a clearer, data-focused view of how their people use the technology. From there they can engage Inform’s change specialists to deliver strategic recommendations for achieving digital maturity.
If you’d like to find out how Inform can help you and your people with your digital change programme, get in touch with one of our specialists.
