According to a leading industry source, more than 50 percent of enterprise-sized IT infrastructures are running mixed Microsoft Office end-user environments. Half the knowledge workers are running 2003; the rest are getting to know 2007 and the Ribbon.

When half your knowledge workers are using one version and the rest another, that’s a whole lot of lost functionality — and wasted time.

The recession and Office 2007’s immense learning curve are partly to blame, but, ultimately, it’s you, the IT leader, who must take responsibility for diminished return on investment. There’s still time to finish your migration; here are six reasons why you should:

1. ROI: You purchased X number of licenses and only have migrated half. You do the math: You purchased the upgrade for a reason — to take advantage of new and easier to find productivity features.

2. The dreaded Office 2007 learning curve: As evident in the hundreds of expletive-laced Tweets about Office 2007, the new user interface is a downright shock to many knowledge workers. Where’s the file menu? How do you save a document? What is this Ribbon? If you finish your migration, you will not have to face these questions again when you decide to upgrade to the next version (which also has a Ribbon interface). Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Finish What You Started, Office 2007 CIO, downtime, learning curve, Office 2007 migration, ROI, software support, the Ribbon

We see it all the time. Customers call for help after they’ve wrestled with a software snag for an hour or sometimes more. They preface the call with “I should know how to do this” and “sorry for the stupid question.”

The reports and surveys tell a compelling story. Actual customer feedback is even more powerful.

They are usually exasperated, and often embarrassed. Who wants to admit lack of knowledge, especially if they believe their job is on the line?

The employers themselves, the ones chanting “do more with less, do more with less” at every all-hands and in every company-wide e-memo, are partially to blame. If a corporation doesn’t offer software support, workers must find their own solutions — which usually cost dearly in downtime and lost productivity. If a company does offer how-to support, it’s considered a luxury and its use may be frowned upon. (This recent Dilbert cartoon, sent to me by a colleague, captures it precisely.)

In sour financial times, desktop application support usually is the first to go when budgets are cut. It’s hard to tally its return on investment, and the demand for such support is often hidden.

But the need is there, and even more so now when many companies are operating with fewer employees and the same workload. (See a post I wrote in October titled “Basic Training: Why Workers Need Software Support.”) Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Worker Productivity Access, Dilbert, downtime, How To, software support

Whether you have invested or are getting ready to invest in Windows 7 and Office 2007, you cannot afford to approach the migration willy-nilly. The switch promises to be like no other, especially if you are upgrading from XP. The user interface is radically different, and your employees will hit snags just trying to figure out how to perform basic tasks. How you handle the inevitable learning curve depends on your preparedness — and it may dictate future budget allocations, even the health of your IT department. This post breaks down the components of our Windows 7 and Office 2007 migration readiness kit, and gives you the information you need for a snag-free switchover.

Click to download your free Windows 7 and Office 2007 Migration Readiness Kit.

Part One, The Big Picture:

Expert support and training before, during, and after deployment is the key to a successful migration. You will need to tackle the steep learning curve and minimize downtime so your employees can regain the confidence and knowledge necessary to remain productive.

Some questions to keep in mind: If the average end-user was completing 30 tasks per day prior to migrating, what will it take to bring them back up to that level once Windows 7 and Office 2007 are deployed?

• Technical support and training for employees before, during, and after migration.
• Live, expert support and training, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Focused project timelines to coordinate deployment, support and training.
• Awareness campaigns that let Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Office 2007 Migration Assurance Program, Windows 7 CIO, downtime, Office 2007, Outsourcing, quality assurance, ROI, software support

Every workplace has an office tech expert. Someone who knows how to use Excel formulas, can put up a good fight with a gnarly mail merge, and knows what temp files are and why they should be cleared.

They’re valuable people to have on your team. If only more of your employees were so clever with the computer, your business would hum.

Shadow support may seem harmless, but it’s actually taking two employees away from their jobs. That’s double-downtime.

Unfortunately, not everyone’s strength is software or logic — and that’s just fine. (I can’t do my own taxes; that’s why I outsource it to my mother.) However, you cannot continue relying on the office computer guy forever. As much as he saves your office’s collective rear-end on a regular basis, the time he’s spending doing something other than his job is costing you dearly.

There are two types of downtime: unavoidable and avoidable. Unavoidable downtime includes hardware malfunctions or network connectivity problems — problems that will always exist and are really just part of running an IT infrastructure.

Avoidable downtime is where the office expert comes in, and includes shadow support, self-help, and no help at all. Read more…

Jenny Sweeney ROI, Worker Productivity Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, downtime, Excel, mail merge, PowerPoint, productivity, TCO