SE Lunch & Learn Recap: Productivity & Collaboration in the Cloud

Systems Engineering’s (SE) Lunch & Learn: "Productivity & Collaboration in the Cloud: It’s not your mother’s office anymore" was held this past June in Bangor and Portland, Maine and Bedford, New Hampshire. This event reviewed Microsoft’s latest Office 365 and SharePoint offerings which are enabling organizations to improve collaboration between remote workers, multi-office locations, and business partners. In addition, these solutions are increasing productivity by allowing end-users to work with any device and at any time.

Much has changed with the cloud over the past several years. Some of the big change drivers include a younger workforce or millennials (age 15-35) who have adopted a ‘work is what you do, not where you go’ mantra. An increase in mobile devices and apps use that allows us to work anywhere, at any time, from any device. Also, the demand to access and use data while having a similar user experience across platforms.

Moving to the cloud isn’t a forklift exercise. There is a lot that needs to be considered when moving. Here are some keys to a successful cloud migration, particular to Office 365:

• When to move: Timing is everything. When does it make sense for your organization to move? What are the business triggers such equipment or software upgrades that make it the right time to move? 
• Data: Really look at your data and decide whether to move it or dump it. Move only what makes sense.
• Migrate: You don’t have to move it all or move it all at once.
• Granting permissions: Think through the permissions and who should be allowed to access what.
• Governance: This should be really simple. It should include what you can do (policies), who can do it (ownership), how you should do it (guidance) and what happens if you don’t (enforcement).

When cloud services first hit the market, many organizations requested to be taken to the cloud without really understanding what that meant. Now that the hype of going to the cloud is over, it’s about understanding what truly belongs in the cloud, what types of workloads and/or processes benefit by being in the cloud and the best way to get there. Cloud solutions such as Office 365 and SharePoint have come a long way, offering new features and services with an affordable cost of entry for most organizations.