Get ready to transition to Microsoft Loop. I'm going to explain to you why it's important to make a plan to phase out processes that will become legacy.
Listen/Subscribe on Spotify / YouTube / Google / Apple / Amazon / Audible
Summary
In this video or podcast, Ravi Sandhu explains seven things about Microsoft Loop. He introduces himself and his experience in supporting learning, communication, change, and digital adoption in the enterprise space. He explains why viewers should care about Microsoft Loop, a new platform that is part of a completely different way of thinking, and why it is essential to handle the transition over with care. Sandhu also goes on to explain what Microsoft Loop is, who will be affected, when they will be affected, where you and they will use it, and how to get ready for Microsoft Loop.
Introduction
Stick around because I'm going to explain seven things. First, who am I and why have I put these videos together? Second, why you should care about Microsoft Loop. Third, what is Microsoft Loop? Fourth, who will be affected? Five, when will they be affected? Six. Where will you and they use it? And seven, how to get ready.
About me and this course
My name is Ravi Sandhu, and I have 20 years of experience supporting learning, communication change, and digital adoption in the enterprise space. I really believe Microsoft Loop is about to change things in a really big way. Now you are either watching this as a video or experiencing this as a podcast, and so whichever one you're doing, if you would prefer another one, this is available as a podcast and wherever you get your podcasts from.
It's also on YouTube and it's on my website where you can see it broken down and you get a certificate. So I've designed this to help you and other people learn about Microsoft Loop. So please share it. And if you really want these videos to be able to put onto an internal platform, then contact me on my website, ravi8.me.
Why care?
Why should you care about Microsoft Loop? The first thing to understand, and I'm sure if you've been working with Microsoft, uh, 365 in particular, you see updates all the time, but Microsoft Loop is more than an update. Microsoft is more than a plugin, and I think that you need to handle the transition over to Microsoft Loop with care.
Microsoft Loop is part of a completely different way of thinking. To understand this, you may already have some background and understand Notion. Notion is a platform that is especially used in startups. Now I work mostly in enterprise, but I can tell you something, in the 20 years that I've worked in enterprise, almost, you know, everybody who's involved in innovation and change and support really wishes that people in the enterprise have a "startup" mentality.
So why is that important? Because it, because Notion and similar, uh, competitors. They work really well in startups, but Microsoft Loop is about to getting, you know, be part of the, the, the big organizations, the big enterprises, um, and Microsoft Loop will enable that sort of "startup", hyper collaboration, quick paced, uh, culture.
Maybe not across a whole organization, but certainly in smaller areas. So I think this is why it's important that you should care, and especially if you wish your team was more agile, more collaborative, or hyper collaborative, then this is why I think you should care about Microsoft Loop. Microsoft Loop will change your collaboration workflow completely or least has the potential to, you may not use Microsoft Loop, and I think that if you don't, then you risk getting left behind or you risk not getting the value and the benefit of this modernization that's happening.
But you sort of, you should also care because Microsoft Loop may become part of your stack of technologies and the more technologies have, you'll actually, have a negative impact on collaboration. So at some point, you and your teams and your organizations and, uh, colleagues and so on, you need to make some decisions and say, okay, this thing has come now maybe we need to take these things out of our processes to, to try and have a clean, um, minimalistic process, because that's a very important part of hyper collaboration.
So this is why you should care.
What is it?
What is Microsoft Loop? I think a simplistic answer is it's a single source of truth. You should see right now, you see copies of documents, word, Excel, PowerPoint notes, emails, even. Um, every time an email is sent, a copy is being created and all these copies on top is of copies, creates all sorts of issues from a single source single source truth point of view.
So Microsoft Loop has the potential to change that the, when information exists, it's in a single place. Now you might be saying, well, we have a knowledge base that already happens. And yes, this something I see in, in many organizations, a knowledge base using a Microsoft technology like SharePoint.
Well, Microsoft Loop is gonna take that knowledge base concept and make it much more easy, much more frictionless, much more normal. This idea of single source, uh, e even our emails are gonna change. I, I really think this is gonna be a, a, a, a, a big step change. There are three parts to Microsoft Loop. The top level are Workspaces.
Then one level down are Pages, and then one level down are Components. So the idea is you have a workspace that might cover a, a whole department, a whole team. You have pages and they might cover certain projects. And then you have components which sit, which sit inside those pages. Um, and it's the components that I think is worth getting very excited about, that you can then take those components and communicate them to use them to communicate with different people, especially on email or Microsoft teams.
And the information that they add to it will automatically get updated in that component, in that page, in that workspace. I think it's a very clever way of single sourcing and helping everybody have the latest information in one single place.
Who will be affected?
So who's gonna be affected by Microsoft Loop and your organization? Um, switching it on. The answer is, everybody that uses Microsoft Office 365, they will be able to, in the early days. I think what will happen is they'll get an email and think, oh, there's a table in there. It's a little bit unusual. I've not seen that before.
Um, and ideally you don't want that. Ideally, you want them to be aware of how to deal with these tables because, um, You know, I can send somebody an email and say, you know, you can edit this table directly, but I think that your organization needs to be enabled on how to use Microsoft Loop. Um, that if you get an email that's got a loop component in it, how does it behave?
Um, and then, I mean, that's a reactive way, but a more active way is how can you maximize, how can you get the best benefit out of Microsoft Loop? Microsoft, Microsoft Loop is so significant that I think you, you need to put some effort into this and certainly not just allow it to organically, um, find its way into your organization.
So naturally early adopters, uh, and people who own processes will lead the way. So if you are part of that, if you are involved in IT departments or any parts in your team, You have some responsibility on, okay, well we create a document like this, and then we do this, and then we do any sort of process.
Then I think understanding Microsoft Loop and how to build that into your processes is very important, and try not to be the late majority. If you're familiar with the idea of the change curve, this idea of early adopters and the late majority, um, adopt the, adopt this technology as quickly as possible so you can get the benefits out of it.
This is, this is my advice.
When will they be affected?
So, when will Microsoft Loop be available? Well, before you think about Microsoft Loop, I want you to think about Microsoft Teams, which I'm guessing you might use, if you remember about 5, 6, 7 years ago perhaps. Microsoft Teams wasn't even really a thing. The, the, the technology that was, um, permeating its way into enterprise was Slack, uh, and still doing very well, don't get me wrong.
Um, but a few years. I forget off, uh, I haven't, I haven't looked it up. I think it was about five years ago, Microsoft came along and pretty much copied Slack and at first we thought, Hmm, okay, they'll exist side by side. But many years on, um, Microsoft teams has, has kind of like in from an adoption usage point of view surpassed Slack.
That's my understanding. You might correct me, leave a comment if I'm wrong. Um, So I think the same thing's gonna happen with Loop. That's, that's how, how, uh, I wanna say how significant Microsoft Loop is that think of notion as like Slack. The notion is permeating its way to many organizations. People are really finding it refreshing and powerful and useful in the same way as Slack was.
Almost 10 years ago now, slack is there still in many organizations. I'm, I'm aware of that, but Microsoft Teams is a really big player in terms of chatting to each other, primarily I, or, or even video calls. So mi uh, Microsoft Teams has so much capability, but my, primarily it's used for chatting and video calls.
Um, But the great thing about it, or the, I should say, the interesting thing about Loop and Microsoft Teams isn't their work together. So please don't think, oh, okay, well now we've gotta learn something new and Microsoft Teams is gonna become old. Quite the contrary, I think what's gonna happen is Microsoft, Microsoft Teams is gonna become even more effective and more powerful because it's gonna integrate with Microsoft Loop and they're gonna become quite disconnected.
Not quite seamless, because you will see. Difference, I think. But we shall see. So, um, mi um, Microsoft Loop was announced in 2022. Like, um, you can find some videos on YouTube and Microsoft's website about what Loop is trying to do, what I've already explained about the different components and how they sit in different places.
Um, the first few loop components started to become available on Microsoft teams in, I think it was late 2022. Like I could see some things, but I didn't see a lot of value in using. But the loop, uh, uh, workspaces, so loop.microsoft.com. That became available on preview a week ago, and I've started to play with that and I've created a previous video about that.
Um, It will eventually become available in your corporation, your enterprise, your charity, your small business, your, you know, any type of organization. You will eventually be able to use Microsoft Loop. I suspect it will be this year. I suspect the full rollout. I don't know. I don't think Microsoft is confirmed.
I think they even actually. As I think back, I think Microsoft Loop was, uh, marked for being out by summer 2022, and it wasn't. So maybe I'll be wrong on this, but at some point Microsoft Loop will be just as normal as Teams is today, and I, I suspect it'll be, uh, the end of 20, by the end of 2023. Uh, but it could take a bit longer, but I'll make another prediction.
Which is that I think that loop will become as normal as what teams is from any organization as normal. That is as that is today. Now, 4, 5, 6 years ago. I think if I said to you that it's gonna be normal to ch text each other, an email is dying. You, you might have said, I, I dunno about that. Now. Emails still not dying, but Microsoft Teams and Slack are very popular, I think, and very become very normal in, uh, in organizations.
Uh, so I think our, my prediction is that by 2026. Um, maybe it'll be sooner than this, but I think by 2026 Loop will be as normal as the way Microsoft Teams is today. So 2026 is not very far away in the grand scheme of things. And if you, you know, you don't wanna be, you and your team don't wanna be late adopters of this, then I think it's important to, to be ready for that and, uh, bring on Microsoft Loop into your process.
Where you use it?
So where will you use Microsoft Loop now you might be already familiar with a lot of Microsoft products like power, um, be, um, well it's the power apps things. The power apps things or uh, whiteboard or a lot of these apps. Microsoft has so many things in its whole Microsoft 365 ecosystem. And you might be thinking, well, loop is just a thing that will be one of those.
And technically speaking kind of is, but the thing to understand is that where if you're using Microsoft Whiteboard, it just sits somewhere else. And some people geeks like me use that and not everybody uses that. Or the, the power apps thing. Not everybody uses that. Um, SharePoint, not everybody edits SharePoint and creates SharePoint sites.
Um, But what about Loop? I think Loop will be used by the majority. So like almost everybody will use Microsoft Loop. It's that impactful. It's that severe from a change point of view that lots and lots of people will use it. The reason why is because you'll be able to place loop. Objects into email, so into Outlook, you'll be able to put them into teams, into Word, into PowerPoint, into Excel, into, uh, uh, use it internally within your organization and potentially externally as well.
That's my guess. Haven't seen it fully in, in action yet, but because it has the potential to improve collaboration across the board. This will finally, the way Microsoft Teams has challenged people, like, do, does that need an email? You know, that's kind of the question that Microsoft Teams has, um, ch challenged us to consider over the last 5, 6, 7 years.
Microsoft Loop will do a similar thing to your word, your Excel, your PowerPoint, OneNote potentially. Um, and also the way teams is used as well. Do you put the information into teams or do you put it into a component and then paste that into teams that, that these sorts of. Decisions need to be ma made about your processes.
And this is why I'm saying process owners really need to get on and understand and think, okay, how are we gonna do this? Because if you don't, if you're not careful, it will just organically grow and people will start using it. Uh, and frankly speaking, you'll lose control. So, um, it's important to have some controls over it.
It's important to optimize it. Uh, and please don't think Microsoft Loop is some add-on some sort of separate thing. It. Disruptive, it's gonna disrupt the whole Microsoft Office 365 ecosystem. That's my belief. So, um, and, and you can, I hope you can see the reasons why, because it's gonna be available in all the things that people popularly use, your Outlook, your teams, and so on.
How to get ready?
How to get ready. Um, brings me to the end, which is the methodology that I use to support people in, uh, their transition to new technology. Uh, so I'm showing you, I'm explaining to you a seven step process, um, of how to get ready. But as I go through these, I want you to always remember, start with the end in mind.
Okay? So let's start with the first one. Step one, get your project team ready. These are your process owners and early adopters. Get around a physical or a distributed or a remote table. Talk about it. How's Microsoft Loop gonna affect us? Play with it, experiment with it. Go on the preview, these sorts of things.
So you're gonna start doing that. Um, you won't complete that. And then you move to level two. Uh, uh, step two, like I say, start with the end in mind. So I'll come back to that in a moment. So number. The who, who's Microsoft Loop going to affect? And I think I've already touched on that in a moment, but you'll have a deeper dive on this.
I'm making some assumptions based on the work that you do, but I think it's Microsoft Loop is gonna affect a lot of people. It's gonna affect whole departments, whole teams, whole personas. So start thinking about that. Who are the personas? Who are the people that currently make Word documents or PowerPoint documents or Excel documents?
Um, Um, who would probably otherwise start experimenting with this that you can support and you can encourage and have a, a consistent approach to how you all use this. Number three, where, um, will people find out how to use Microsoft Loop? So that's the next thing you need to think about. Where will they find out?
Will they go to a. Learning management system, will they attend some meetings? And it doesn't have to be one thing, right? So like how do you do this currently? How do you teach people how to use Word or any other technologies within your organization? And think about how are you gonna bring Microsoft Loop and the teachings around Microsoft Loop into those, whether you want to call 'em channel channels or forums or vehicles, or methods, which formats, whichever is appropriate. Then you move on to number four. Uh uh, I say move on to number four. This is the experience for everybody, but remember, start with the end in mind and I'll come back to that. So the fourth step of the transition is thinking about the when. Um, and this involves setting a goal and communicating its timeline.
So what I mean by this is once you understand, okay, what's Microsoft Loop going to do as quickly as possible, you communicate to everybody and say, Hey, everybody. Please don't use Microsoft Loop until, so you might make this decision. You might say, look, we're not gonna use it until Q3 of 2024 or something like that.
But when we do, what we intend to do is we intend by the end of the year or the following summer, or whatever it might be, that you, your project team have discussed and roadmap. This is, um, when we're gonna start bringing in Microsoft Loop components, cuz it's gonna give us time to learn it, it's gonna give us time to teach or train people and enable people and, and all of that.
So step four is the, Step five is the why. Now, you might think the when and the why work well together, and that's great, but often you might find that you aren't ready to explain the why. Um, at this stage. So that's why I've put the why as a step five. But like I say, you could do step four and step five at the same time.
Um, you could do a few of these steps at the same time, so you are free to do that, but I suggest that you spend a bit more time thinking about the why, so that when you communicate the why, it, it's a more, uh, informed and a more detailed. Uh, uh, uh, communication. So what issues or problems were transitioning to Microsoft Loop or adopting Microsoft Loops solve?
So these are the sorts of things, and you might, uh, uh, kind of package this information up as well. You told us that you keep getting lots of duplicate documents. You told us that. Clients aren't getting this information in time because you don't have a single place to find this. This sort of detail, all those things that you figure out, you communicate as part of your why.
That's step five, step six. That's when you get into what is loop and communicating to that, that to people. You see, many people that I work with, they think they have to understand the software or the, the product or the, you know, whatever the transition is in detail before they communicate it. And what I'm suggesting to you is that no, you work on these steps and there is a step six.
Can explain what is loop, what are the processes that you will be using, um, and you'll have figured some of these out, the project team and, uh, where, and the when and the why and all of that. So now you can start to say what is Loop? It fits into our processes here. Uh, and when we do this, then we use Loop and all these sorts of things.
So we can have to document all of that. You'll document this, all these stages. But it's at six that you start to communicate this. And then finally, seven, how to use Microsoft Loop with our processes. So if you're involved in rolling out technology, you would probably call steps one, but more specifically two to five as communication, and then six and seven as training.
But as you see from my steps, I'm breaking the, I'm removing those. And I'm simply putting it the who, the where, the when, the why, the what, and the how. But yeah, conventionally, if you're used to communicating and training, then these are similar things. Um, so my advice to you is, as I mentioned before, start with the end in mind.
Ask these questions of your project team of as you are talking with different personas and different departments, how will you use Loop and document this? Um, and how will you teach this when you get to step seven? So how will you reinforce it? How will you create knowledge bases or guidance on how to use it?
Create that as quickly as possible, as much as you can. You won't have a full picture, then work backwards. Then you get six step six ready. Then you get step five ready. Then you just get step four ready and you work backwards as much as possible. And then you go for.
Got for it
It's my hope that you found this, um, series of videos or this podcast useful. Reach out to me, connect with me. You'll find this on my website, Ravi eight.me. I look forward to hearing from you and see if you've got any questions or any comments about how we can transition and optimize our adoption of new technology.
See you next time.
Comments ()