At GitHub Universe I had several conversations with customers about their rollout of GitHub Copilot. While they loved the product, they were flummoxed as to why their rollout stagnated. They saw an early uptake of adoption which leveled off, and in some cases even decreased. What happened? What went wrong?
What if I told you there's a few simple things you can do to ensure a successful rollout of GitHub Copilot and drive adoption. The third will surprise you!
Teach them to fish
GitHub Copilot isn't just a flashy demo. It's a productivity tool, and should be treated as such.
Here's the thing - GitHub Copilot is a tool, just like your IDE is a tool. And developers need to learn how to use the tool, just like, well, any other tool. We need to teach them to fish.
This isn't about your developers throwing out everything they know about writing code and starting over, but rather adding a few new skills and techniques.
Help your developers learn where GitHub Copilot shines, and the workloads it does best with. It can help developers with syntax they often have to look up like regular expressions. Or allow them to offload code they don't like to write, like unit tests, or data transfer objects, or unit tests, or boilerplate code, or unit tests. (Did I mention unit tests?)
There's also a skill to be learned in crafting prompts and interacting with any AI tool, including GitHub Copilot. A bit of time spent working with your team to learn how best to write comments or manage code to generate better code will drive productivity and happier developers.
This doesn't need to be formal classroom training (although that can certainly help). It can take the form of lunch and learns, or a self-guided workshop, or by allowing your internal influencers to influence.
Influencers influence
in-floo-*uh*n-ser (n): a person who has the power to influence many people, as through social media or traditional media
While the word influencer might conjure up images of Instagram and TikTok, you have internal influencers. These are the front-line managers and senior developers people look up to. We all know the importance of executive buy-in; gaining the support of your influencers is just as important.
Your influencers will help shape the opinion your developers have about any new tools, including GitHub Copilot. They're the ones your developers look to when they have questions or get stuck.
Help your influencers influence. Provide them with the resources to support their teams. Encourage them to be proactive, to post to Slack, and to send emails to the team.
Not all email is spam
We've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty...
I know. It's 2024. Who still reads email, right? Turns out, everyone. While it may not be as frequent, people do, in fact, read their email. Email can serve as a great reminder for someone to take action.
When our senior researcher who investigates such things told me this one simple trick I didn't believe her. Yet, it actually works. Send reminder emails.
When developers are first given access to GitHub Copilot they'll receive an email with instructions on how to install it, but there isn't an automatic follow-up process. Craft a couple of emails to send out over the next handful of weeks talking about GitHub Copilot, highlight some common use cases, and you'll notice more developers will start using it.
The more things change
Old techniques continue to work even when we're talking about new tools
Nothing laid out above is new. Training, influencers and reminders are key to successfully rolling out any changes. But from my experience there does seem to be something a bit different about the way people perceive GitHub Copilot. It feels as though it's magic at times, almost self-explanatory. This leads to a "set it and forget it" mentality where it's "flipped on" without the necessary steps in place to ensure success.
There doesn't need to be a lot of formalities involved. But taking these steps can help ensure your organization gets the most out of GitHub Copilot.
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