A practical guide to implement Copilot and leverage its benefits

“Powerful AI assistant Copilot is, but change management approach and culture of collective intelligence it requires. Patient, learner, clean, critical, and open you must be, and common traps you must avoid.”

Master Copilot Yoda

Copilot is a powerful AI assistant that helps you find, create, and share information across Microsoft 365. It can surface relevant emails, documents, meetings, and people based on your natural language queries. It can also generate summaries, presentations, FAQs, and other content from your existing data. Copilot can save you time, keep you updated, and help you explore new possibilities.

But how can you adopt Copilot in your organization and make the most of it? In this blog post, I will share some best practices and tips to help you implement Copilot and foster a culture of collective intelligence. I will cover the following topics:

• Main Copilot traps and how to avoid them
• My favorite Copilot usages so far
• Recommended approach to discover and deploy Copilot
• What is important for users to know and do
• Overall methodology to scale Copilot adoption

Main Copilot traps and how to avoid them

Copilot is a powerful tool, but it is not perfect. It is still learning and improving every day. Sometimes, it might not work as expected, or it might give you wrong or incomplete results. Here are some common traps that you might encounter when using Copilot and how to avoid them:

• We trust Copilot too much and we don’t do our due diligence to check the results. Copilot is not an autopilot. You are in charge. Don’t set your expectations at a miracle level. Double check the results and make sure they are accurate, relevant, and ethical.
• We don’t trust Copilot the first time because of wrong results, and we rarely go back. Copilot is not a one-time solution. It is a continuous learning process. What does not work one day might work in the future. Learn from your failures and try new prompts. Share your feedback and help Copilot improve.
• We are lost in the serendipity of discussing with Copilot for a non-satisfying result. Copilot is not a chatbot. It is a search and creation tool. Don’t waste your time in endless conversations with Copilot. Be clear and specific in your queries. Stop prompting after 3 prompts if the answer is not accurate. Use other tools if Copilot is not the best fit for your need.
• We rely on the wrong source of truth. Copilot is not a data warehouse. It is a data aggregator. It relies on the data that you and your colleagues have in Microsoft 365. If your data is outdated, duplicated, or unauthorized, Copilot might surface it. Make sure you manage your data properly and respect permissions and privacy.
• We need to rethink how we work. Copilot is not a replacement. It is a complement. It does not do your work for you. It helps you do your work better. You still need to use your skills, judgment, and creativity. You also need to collaborate with others and share your knowledge and insights.

My favorite Copilot usages so far

Copilot can help you with many tasks and scenarios. Here are some of my favorite usages so far:

• Save time: Copilot can help you save time by surfacing emails, documents, meetings, and people that are relevant to your query. For example, you can ask Copilot to summarize a thread, query a meeting, or find the best person to do a project with certain skills.
• Be professional: Copilot can help you be professional by recycling, polishing, and surprising your content. For example, you can ask Copilot to write a Word document from a PowerPoint, rewrite a paragraph, or try new prompts.

• Explore fast: Copilot can help you explore fast by searching and extracting information from your data. For example, you can ask Copilot to give you five lines on a topic, offer suggested answers, or create a FAQ on Teams.
• Be updated: Copilot can help you be updated by catching up on the latest emails, creating meeting minutes, or summarizing what you missed so far.
• Crunch fast: Copilot can help you crunch fast by creating a presentation from a document, organizing your slides, proofreading your email, or making your presentation shorter.

Recommended approach to discover and deploy Copilot

Copilot is a new and innovative tool that requires a change management approach to ensure a successful adoption. Here are some steps that you can follow to discover and deploy Copilot in your organization:

Change scope analysis

Understand the context, first vision, needs, expectations, concerns, and stakeholders of Copilot adoption

Interviews

Identify use cases where Copilot could be useful and understand the patterns of usage

Survey

Measure the interest and readiness for Copilot at the scale of the organization and understand the trends of usage

Focus group

Demonstrate use cases to a panel of users and prioritize the audience and use cases for Copilot adoption

Recommendations

Build a clear vision aligned with the organization strategy and goals and propose a best plan for Copilot adoption

Pilot

Showcase Copilot to selected users, foster collective intelligence, provide support, and measure feedback and results

Governance

Build best practices for Copilot usage, such as use cases, permission management, data hygiene, and ethics

Champions program

Educate, assist, survey, foster collective intelligence (“Copilothon”), and guide champions who will promote and support Copilot in their teams

Generalization

Communicate, educate, guide, and support the generalization of Copilot to all users in the organization

Reporting and adjustment

Analyze Copilot usages and adjust the support and communication campaigns accordingly

Evangelization

Work with departments to build specific best practices for their use cases and evangelize Copilot benefits

What is important for users to know and do

Copilot is a new and innovative tool that requires users to know and do some things to make the most of it. Here are some tips for users to use Copilot effectively:

Be patient

Don’t give up on Copilot. Try again, differently or later.

Learn

Learn the good prompts, clean bad prompts, learn the tools, explore always.

Be clean

Protect information, clean duplicates, respect ethics.

Be critical

You are in charge. Double check the results for accuracy, relevance, and ethics.

Share

Share your success, tips, failures, and feedback.

Overall methodology to scale Copilot adoption

I hope this blog post has given you some insights and tips on how to adopt Copilot in your organization and leverage its benefits. Copilot is a powerful AI assistant that can help you find, create, and share information across Microsoft 365. It can save you time, keep you updated, and help you explore new possibilities. But it also requires a change management approach to ensure a successful adoption. If you want to learn more about Copilot, please contact me, I would love to hear from you and help you make the most of Copilot.

This blog post has been created through Microsoft 365 Copilot from a PowerPoint where the author brought his own intelligence and experience 😊

Addendum: I asked Copilot to rewrite this post in a more narrative way here under is the result

Here is a possible narrative based on the page:

The Copilot Adoption Journey: From Failure to Success

I was very excited when I first heard about Copilot, the powerful AI assistant that could help me find, create, and share information across Microsoft 365¹[1]²[2]. I thought it would be a game-changer for my work, saving me time and effort, and opening new possibilities³[3]. I couldn’t wait to try it out.

But my initial experience with Copilot was disappointing. It didn’t work as I expected⁴[4]. Sometimes, it gave me wrong or incomplete results. Sometimes, it didn’t understand my queries. Sometimes, it just didn’t respond at all. I felt frustrated and confused. I wondered if Copilot was a hype or a hoax.

I was about to give up on Copilot, when I learned that my organization was planning to adopt it as a strategic tool. They hired a consultant, Pierre-Yves Delacôte, who was an expert in digital transformation and Copilot adoption. He explained to me that Copilot was not a magic solution, but a learning process. He said that Copilot required a change management approach to ensure a successful adoption⁵[5]⁶[6].

He shared with me some best practices and tips to use Copilot effectively. He told me to be patient, to learn from my failures, to double check the results, to manage my data properly, and to share my feedback and insights. He also showed me some use cases where Copilot could be useful, such as summarizing emails, creating presentations, extracting information, and catching up on the latest updates⁷[7].

He invited me to join a pilot group of selected users who would test Copilot and provide feedback. He also introduced me to a network of champions who would promote and support Copilot in their teams. He said that Copilot was not a replacement, but a complement⁸[8]. He said that Copilot was not a chatbot, but a search and creation tool⁹[9]. He said that Copilot was not a data warehouse, but a data aggregator[^10^][10]. He said that Copilot was not an autopilot, but an assistant¹¹[11].

I decided to give Copilot another chance. I followed his advice and tried Copilot again, with a different mindset and attitude. I was amazed by the results. Copilot helped me save time, be professional, explore fast, be updated, and crunch fast¹²[12]. Copilot helped me do my work better, and discover new opportunities. Copilot helped me collaborate with others, and foster a culture of collective intelligence¹³[13].

I realized that Copilot was not a hype or a hoax, but a powerful and innovative tool. I realized that Copilot was not a problem, but a solution. I realized that Copilot was not a failure, but a success. I became a Copilot fan and advocate. I shared my success stories and tips with others. I helped Copilot improve and grow¹⁴[14]. I thanked Pierre-Yves for his guidance and support.

This is my Copilot adoption journey, from failure to success. What is yours?

Source: Conversation with Bing, 2/13/2024

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About the Author:

Pierre-Yves Delacôte

Reference:

Delacôte, P (2024). How to adopt Copilot in your organization. Available at: How to adopt Copilot in your organization | LinkedIn [Accessed: 18th October 2024].