Beezy is an internal social network solution for Sharepoint 2010
that brings advanced social features such as microblogging,
activity streams, groups, hasthags, follows, mentions, likes, etc.
Beezy seamlessly integrates with Lync, Office, Outlook and other
enterprise systems like SAP.
Last November, Beezy was successfully implemented in a European
regional Government fostering civil servants productivity and
generating proven return on investment.
European governments are under enormous pressure to reduce
costs, improve efficiency and be more transparent. In this context,
Beezy was chosen among different social products because of its
fast implementation and out-of-the-box integration with the
client's existing IT infrastructure (SharePoint, Lync, Office,
Outlook).
This article is about how Beezy was successfully used during a 3
month period by this regional government and below is the top
conclusions from this experience.
Deploying Strategy
Progressive deployment was a major decision in this project.
Employees can be quite reluctant to pick up new tools that don't
coincide with their goals. So it was decided to start deploying a
new tool to those groups of employees that were already exchanging
a lot of data and information, usually complaining of email
overload and lack of user adoption with the current tools.
By doing so, the promoters were able to scale up the adoption with
a self-generated demand instead of having to artificially inject
motivation.
While deploying Beezy we followed three phases that we believed
would maximize deployment and user adoption. We are currently in
phase two.
Phase one
Beezy was deployed within a sample size of 50-60. Candidates
were carefully chosen as either project promoters or social network
enthusiasts. This small sample was then then commissioned to use
Beezy in their key processes and profiles. The advantage being that
they would not be editing their working habit at all as they
already used SharePoint.
Phase Two
The next phase saw us increase to 500 people and the number of
groups increased from 50 to 500 groups across their IT Department.
This gave improved internal communication across a department and
improved their current projects processes. At this stage we also
began contact with HR to encourage any social activists to begin
getting involved in the project.
Phase Three
The final phase will be for the entire 200,000 workforce and the
creation of 20,000 groups. This will also include Beezy's External
Module for Extended Users. Users will now be fully embracing this
type of fluid working with open groups added between departments
and commissions.
The key benefit from this model was that it encourages organic
deployment, which is painless to the end user as they don´t change
the tools they are working with (just the user interface). This
lead to sustainable change management that was self-motivated and
regulated. This of course came from progressive adjustments and
scalability.
User satisfaction
After the first three month period, a survey was conducted among
employees showing a high rate of user satisfaction. The number of
employees who were very satisfied with the new tool and 80%
admitted that the tool has proven to be useful for their daily
job.
Easiness has been voted the most valuated aspect of our tool.
While its capacity to manage documents inside SharePoint and its
seamless integration with Lync, figured among the top benefits for
the users.
ROI and business value
One of the main purposes of running a progressive implementation
plan was to measure real business value throughout the process.
The following business values have been observed and
measured:
Intangible benefits
Better workplace image
Improved transparency
More efficient knowledge management
More engaged and aware employees
Tangible benefits
E-mail & disk space drastic reduction
Communications bill shrunk
Less time consumed in meetings and spending
Less time lost finding relevant information
Old 1.0 Intranet drop
Simpler and cheaper IT infrastructure
By deploying Beezy, employees benefited from having more
comprehensive communications solution that helps employees be more
productive at their jobs. Employees noted in their feedback that
they had better transparency of what was going on in their
department which lead to more efficient knowledge management.
Employees also commented that it was much easier to engage with
colleagues across departments, making them much more aware of what
was going on in the entire organization.
Driving adoption
The benefits from moving from traditional tools like email to
internal social networks are clear. Therefore, the importance of
driving adoption was the ultimate goal.
As a final resume we can list here the factors that allowed this
project to be so far successful.
- Easiness as main adoption factor
Employees need fast and easy-to-use tools. If not, they will keep
using their email and network folders to share information and
collaborate.
- 2. Clear guidance and effective rights
distribution
Top management have to provide clear guideline about how to use
these new tools and deliver administration rights in a proper way
that allows organic growth and self-control. Without these two
ingredients; change management can become costly both economically
and in motivation.
- Transition from old channels
As more people progressively feel comfortable with the new tools,
old technologies have to be shut down. If you don't, duplicity will
always prevent real adoption e.g. if project documentation is moved
to a social networking group, the older way of working must be
dropped (email, attachments, local files, etc).
For more information about Beezy please visit http://www.gobeezy.com
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