Kevin McDonnell
UK Copilot and Agent Lead @ Avanade, Co-host Copilot Connection, MVP
Sevenoaks, United Kingdom
Actions
Inspired by those in the community that have gone before me, I try to share what I learn by looking at what the services from Microsoft can offer, understanding challenges people have and bringing those two things together. Having learned from 13 years in Financial Services, I moved into the world of consulting, currently acting as Director, owning Copilot and Agents within the UK at Avanade.
I am lucky enough to have been awarded as a Microsoft MVP in Microsoft 365 for Copilot and Copilot Extensibility and co-host the award winning Copilot Connection podcast as well as blogging and sharing videos.
Links
Badges
Area of Expertise
Topics
Agentageddon and how to prevent it
Unless you've been hiding under a giant space rock for the last year, you will be aware of the huge levels of hype around agents, agentic AI and Copilots. Very soon, every time that you open your Teams, Copilot, Dynamics - or pretty much any Microsoft app - you will be presented with different agents, whether published by Microsoft, your own organisation, or even buttons inviting you to create your very own agent. You will be encouraged to add them like adding apps on a smartphone, you'll be encourage to use them, to build them and to talk about them to anyone who will listen. But what are agents? How are they managed? How do we define the job that they do? And how do you know they do what was intended, and that they do so in a safe and responsible way? How can Ben Affleck save us?
This workshop will dive into what you need to do about agents and how you can get started building them - but more importantly, we'll cover the framework to follow to ensure you're being responsible and effective when building and using agents and you don't want to miss a thing!
As three people who have been at the cutting edge of the agentic journey in Copilot and beyond, we will share with you experience from our own organisations and our clients. Plus, we'll bring the fun and energy of the potential of agents when done right, not just the doom mongering, end of days agentageddon that could happen!
In this workshop, we will:
- Explain what agents are and the different ways to build one
- Share the key things you need to consider when building and deploying agents, regardless which technology you use
- Provide you with ways to ensure responsible usage of agents
- Show you how to red team your agents and break the hell out of them
- Help you understand how to implement processes to comply with regulations like the EU AI act
In this session, you will get to see (and hopefully build if the demo gods allow) SharePoint agents, Copilot Studio agents and pro code agents as well as the tools available to monitor them right now. Be the saviour for your organsiation.
Building an AI strategy with Microsoft Copilot
Everyone has heard about Copilot but do you know how many different Copilots there are out there? Have you considered how each of these thread together? Have you worked out how to bring these together to empower your organisation with AI?
AI is moving very fast and organisations are now looking at how they form a strategy for usage and governance around it. Those that are not planning for this will be left behind and those that just let this happen without planning will feel the pain for this later. Join this session to look at what should be included in that strategy and how your organisation can help get the benefits of AI from existing services and building your own.
In this session, you will:
- Be taken through what a Copilot actually is and why Microsoft is pushing these so much.
- Learn how you can build a strategy to help the rest of your organisation understand this.
- See how the different types of Copilot that can help across your organisation, help different roles and help specific scenarios.
- See when you should consider extending the Copilots and even building your own.
- Understand the value that the Microsoft Copilots, extending Copilots and custom Copilots can bring and judge this over time.
- View how you can help with understanding and adoption of AI with Copilots and how to help ensure responsible usage by all.
Building Your Copilot Muscle: A Hands-On Workshop
In no time at all, Copilot has completely transformed the art of the possible for how we all work, bringing the leap forward in AI capabilities right into the everyday apps and services that we all use daily to get our work done. However, just turning these on is not enough. People need guidance and support to understand the potential, they need to build their Copilot muscle, developing new habits and practices that include these new features and capabilities, and then take these capabilities into all their apps, not just those in the Microsoft space. Alongside that, tenant admins and champions need to be able to manage and measure the usage of Copilot, so they can help understand how to get the most value out of the tools, regardless of where they are using it.
Microsoft Copilot’s power is surfaced to users in many different ways and this workshop will cover the full range that relates to the Modern Workplace in Microsoft 365, Bing, Power Platform, Viva and more, helping you to learn what to use when. Through live demos and hands-on labs, our three presenters will share the reality of these services, along with our experiences from customers, including small organisations right the way through to large enterprises.
Whether you work in a large enterprise or work with SMBs, this workshop will give you the information you need to drive value from Copilot in your organisation.
By attending this workshop, you will:
• Understand the different apps and services where you can interact with Copilot and why you would use them, including the licensing required.
• Get hands on with the ways to prompt across different services in our promptathon.
• Learn how you and your organisation can build your Copilot muscle effectively, wherever you are in the journey.
• See how you can effectively administer and govern the Modern Work Copilots.
• Journey beyond the existing Copilots by building your own custom copilot.
Products included in this workshop include:
Copilot for Microsoft 365, Copilot for Microsoft Viva, Copilot in Power Platform, Microsoft Copilot, Admin experience, Copilot Studio
How can Copilot and agents change the way I work?
In this demo heavy session, I will take you through how you can truly change your habits with the power of agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot to transform your productivity, innovation and ability to use long, clever words.
The promise of generative AI is huge but many people are being challenged to actually realise that promise through not building their habits to realise that potential. This session will show you real world examples of where I have integrated Copilot and built agents to help me be more efficient and look at different ways to change my flow of work.
In this session, you will see:
- how Copilot in Teams can let me dig into the whys of a meeting and not just outcomes
- how Copilot in Word will get me started and let me rework whole documents
- how Copilot Chat can take my knowledge from across the organisation and integrate with agents to make useful outputs
- how Copilot Actions and Scheduled Prompts can take me beyond just chatting to Copilot
- how I can build an ad-hoc agent to make my status reports aligned and fast
- how do I connect multi-agents to work together
All of these will be real world scenarios I use and will help you understand how to turn Copilot from theory to reality. Plus, any other new features that may have appeared since I submitted this session!
Positioning yourself for the future of Copilot
With M365 Copilot into its third wave, GitHub Copilot evolving almost on a weekly basis, agents taking over in every app and now Cowork changing what is possible, where is the human value? Are we destined for a Wall-E future where humans pretend to be in control but we are in fact all run by AI? More importantly, what part can you play in this?
Together, Zoe and Kevin will talk through how Copilot has evolved since it’s first announcements in GitHub and Bing and use this to frame to direction it is taking. We will look at how fast our perception of the value it can bring has evolved and delve into the common characteristics of those who are succeeding the most, as well as the importance of retaining human authenticity in the age of AI.
We will highlight the challenges still being faced and the risks still to come, all grounded in the reality that we see. At a fast changing time in history, there are short, medium and long term factors that you need to plan for.
Join us to help plan your future and see why events such as ESPC can help you play a foundational place in the new system of work.
Sheep herding with Agent 365
You've drunk the Kool Aid. You've built the agents. You've taught your colleagues to build agents. Now you have 7753 agents and there's only 1000 people in your company! What do you do now? Can you handle 67 agents called Policy Agent? Can you trust people to connect to the sources they should be using? What happens if someone shares their Agent Builder Agent with all 1000 people? Do you just panic and leave? Or do you let Agent 365 become your sheepdog.
Microsoft's answer to this is Agent 365, the "single solution" to manage your agents. Through Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Purview and more, Microsoft has brought together many different stories into a more aligned story that can help you bring control and understanding to your tenant. Pipe and shepherd's crook optional.
This session will outline more of the horror stories that you could face when not keeping your agents in a sheep pen, show you what Agent 365 is and what you need to do about it.
You will learn:
How to get observability across all your agents, regardless of platform
Control what agents have access to
Control who has access to agents
Analyse what agents are doing
Identify how to manage costs and ensure value
Enable makers to use the right tools and build safely
We will look at how Agent 365 can help you from agents from SharePoint, Agent Builder, Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry and even beyond. Plus we will likely say agent an awful lot and try and avoid too many sheep puns.
Sheep herding with Agent 365
You've drunk the Kool Aid. You've built the agents. You've taught your colleagues to build agents. Now you have 7753 agents and there's only 1000 people in your company! What do you do now? Can you handle 67 agents called Policy Agent? Can you trust people to connect to the sources they should be using? What happens if someone shares their Agent Builder Agent with all 1000 people? Do you just panic and leave? Or do you let Agent 365 become your sheepdog.
Microsoft's answer to this is Agent 365, the "single solution" to manage your agents. Through Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Purview and more, Microsoft has brought together many different stories into a more aligned story that can help you bring control and understanding to your tenant. Pipe and shepherd's crook optional.
This hands-on workshop will start with everyone creating some basic agents to build our flock, show you why this is a bad idea leading to chaos, demonstrate the ways Agent 365 can help manage your agents and more and let you get hands on with how to do it. Naturally, we'll also cover the licensing story too as well as the gaps that you need to fill, both process and technical!
You will learn:
- How to get observability across all your agents, regardless of platform
- Control what agents have access to
- Control who has access to agents
- Analyse what agents are doing
- Identify how to manage costs and ensure value
- Enable makers to use the right tools and build safely
We will look at how Agent 365 can help you from agents from SharePoint, Agent Builder, Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry and even beyond. Plus we will likely say agent an awful lot and try and avoid too many sheep puns. No promises on haggis though…
Skilling up with Skills - how skills can transform your AI usage
Have you heard of Skills in AI yet? No, not just the ability to use AI but the packaged instructions that guide your AI on different scenarios. You haven't heard of them? Oh, you have vaguely but need some guidance on what they are, how to use them, where you can use them and some helpful examples? Great, I have the session for you!
Skills are the next evolution in the way that people are using generative AI to be more effective, making it easier to re-use content and repeat common tasks. Similar to agents but also vastly different. Having started in the Claude world, Microsoft is now baking them into all sorts of areas from VS Code and GitHub to SharePoint and Cowork. They are evolving from a very dev/techie focused capability to something every knowledge worker should know and use. Want to be ahead of the game?
In this session, I will take you through:
- What Skills are
- Examples of useful scenarios
- How to create ones for your scenarios
- The different tools and platforms where you can use them in the Microsoft space
- The difference to agents, claws and whatever else has popped up since I wrote this description
- When not to use them
- How to manage them for yourself, your team and your organisation
- The cost and licensing implications (those tokens won't buy themselves, you know)
I will cover tools such as VS Code, GitHub, SharePoint, Cowork and any other areas using Skills in the Microsoft space by the time this session runs. This is aimed at everyone and how they can bring these initially dev focused tools
So, you think you can agent?
Just like when a new James Bond film is out, agents are everywhere now. However, do you know what they actually are? Do you know the different ways they can help? Are you confused on how to get started? Do you think this is just another hype cycle?
This session will ground you in reality on:
- what an agent can be
- how you can build a strategy for agents
- options for making an agent, from low code to code first
- what you can do right now
I will take you through the different options in the Microsoft space from the end user view with SharePoint agents through Copilot Studio and the Power Platform space and then the world for developers with Teams AI, Declarative agents, Semantic Kernel and AutoGen. Most importantly, you’ll see the different elements needed to build an agent that will help you decide what to use and how to govern it over time.
The anatomy of an agent
What actually is an agent? While the term has been increasingly used across the industry, the reality of what it means can be very different, depending on who and when you speak to someone (especially Microsoft). The excitement of what can happen is often swiftly followed by a confusion of what will actually happen.
This session will break apart the anatomy of what an agent is and talk through the different components of the modern, AI powered capabilities and show you what you need to consider. It will explain the building blocks needed and lead you towards how the decisions on those blocks can help you understand which technologies to use when. With each of these, you will see what different technologies are available and how you can choose what to use when.
You will learn:
- What are the building blocks of an agent
- How do you design your agent to provide the right value
- What technology is available to build agents for end users, power users and specialists
- When you don’t need an agent
- How to be a responsible agent builder
I will talk about Microsoft Foundry agents, Copilot Studio agents, SharePoint agents and may even sprinkle in a little non-Microsoft views. Remember, if your agent is not from the region of generative AI, it is just sparkling automation
Where on earth is Nathan? Building multi-agent workflows with Microsoft Foundry
Are two agents better than one? In many cases, yes. But how do you go about building a multi-agent platform in the latest Microsoft Foundry platform? And where is Nathan?
Microsoft makes a lot of technology available for you to use but seeing a full scenario that can be used, helps you to build out your own scenarios. Talking through the steps to build out your design and ways to bring together different agents with their own specialities is how you can truly build value with your solutions.
In this demo heavy session, you will be taken through building up a multi-agent platform in Microsoft Foundry to build out an application that selects a random photo from somewhere in the world that the audience can then guess where it is.
You will learn:
- How to set up a Foundry project
- How to choose and deploy a model
- How to set up an agent with tools and knowledge
- How to build a multi-agent workflow
- How to test it
- How to publish to Teams and Copilot
You will come away with a deeper understanding of how to get started, how to plan your development and how to get the best value from Foundry.
Why AI is all about the BS and what you should do about it
AI BS...or as Microsoft call it, AI Business Solutions. This is the world of agentic transformation, of increasing productivity and reducing SLAs through AI enhancement, of making a difference both to company bottom lines and to how people feel about work. Well...it should be.
AI BS is also about the world of AI slop, of over promises, of over inflated expectations, of believing that more can be done with less just by flicking on a switch. Over excitable marketing and sales teams along with large language models designed to please have lead to the belief that Agentic AI can do more than it can right now. So what should you do about it?
This session will help you to understand how to make a difference with AI in the right areas and to build a strategy that can help your organisation do it too. From my experience of the pre-release of M365 Copilot through to delivering Agent 365, I will focus on the ways to deliver success through:
- identifying realistic processes and goals
- embedding AI and agentic solutions into your deliveries
- ways to measure value and success
- understanding when to say no to AI
- celebrating the power of agents with the right level of realism
This session will focus on the strategies needed with tools such as Agent Builder, Copilot Studio, M365 Copilot, Microsoft Foundry and Agent 365 used as examples but will not be a technical session.
Taking your Microsoft Search beyond Microsoft 365 with Azure Logic Apps
Bono still can't find what he is looking for after all these years but with Microsoft Search, it has become easier to get to the right content. But what about when that content isn't in Teams, SharePoint or Outlook? Well with Microsoft Search, you can now bring in all sorts of external content and all it takes are a few Logic Apps.
This session will show you how you can build out an event based index for your search and help your users get the content that they need when they need it. It will also show how this can help with your knowledge management needs using Viva Topics to surface knowledge wherever it is held.
Using Salesforce? This can help. Content in your own bespoke apps? No problems. What's that? You want to search for Dataverse data? Oh yes, I'll cover that too.
Microsoft Viva and Syntex Workshop
Learn about how Microsoft Viva and SharePoint Syntex can help your organisation improve their Employee Experience through greater engagement, supportive knowledge management and automated processes with AI.
Agenda
- What is Microsoft Viva and why does Employee Experience matter
- Introduction to the Viva pillars
- Hands-on Viva Connections Workshop
- Hands-on Viva Topics Workshop
- Hands-on SharePoint Syntex Workshop
Is The Intranet Dead?
With the hybrid working climate, there is an increased risk of employees feeling out of touch, detached, frustrated and unproductive. Having a static intranet that does not understand the user's information needs, will only increase this lack of connection.
The personalised intranet provides a genuinely collaborative platform that will manage, organise, and make the content, shared knowledge, and resources accessible and available across your organisation while meeting governance rules.
Modern intranets support:
Workplace culture
Social interaction
Strong user experience
Knowledge and insights sharing
Improved employee experiences
Join Kevin McDonnell as he talks through how integrating SharePoint, Microsoft Viva, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, and the rest of Microsoft 365 will empower hybrid working. We will demonstrate how your organisation can achieve a heightened employee experience through implementing an intranet that meets the needs of your colleagues.
Building a culture of knowledge sharing with Viva Topics
Project Cortex is now out in the wide world as SharePoint Syntex and Viva Topics but was does that mean to your organisation? Will it be unloved and unused as siloed remain and rigid structures with mile high walls remain?
This session will arm you with ways of creating a culture of learning and sharing that can make the benefit of tools like Viva Topics to improve the employee experience, reduce the key person risks and ultimately create a better performing and more productive organisation.
The GreyHatBeard Panel on the etiquette of Microsoft 365
The GreyHatBeard regulars (Al Eardley, Garry Trinder and Kevin McDonnell) will be joined by some special guests to challenge each other on the best tips around the etiquette of using Microsoft 365 services. When should you use Hub Sites? Should you @mention a channel? When to use Planner vs ToDo vs Excel? When should you use Teams Wikis? - obvs never on that one!
All set up like a panel show with a spectacular finish with the two “winners” squaring off to defend the indefensible
An introduction to knowledge management with Viva Topics
When Project Cortex was announced at Ignite 2019, there was a huge level of excitement about the transformation it could make to an organisation’s ability to use knowledge. However, many didn’t consider what they would need to plan ahead for so that they could get the most from services like SharePoint Syntex and Viva Topics. This session will follow on from my knowledge management series at https://www.mcd79.com to talk through finding your knowledge, organising it, making it available with Viva Topics and how you can build a culture of knowledge within your organisation
“Hello, can anyone hear me?” - The etiquette of meetings in Microsoft Teams
With the current global pandemic, organisations are moving to far more meetings held online and for many of those, Microsoft Teams is the place to go for that. However, for many people, this is either the first time that they have run online meetings or the sheer number of them is greatly increased. People are not aware of the ways that Teams can be used to help support them in keeping attendees engaged and how to make sure that everyone behaves in similar ways.
The etiquette of meetings in Microsoft Teams will help both meeting hosts and attendees with useful tips on making the most effective meetings, whether they be a short daily stand up or a full day workshop. It will run through how to prepare, how to share, how to run and how to engage in a way that helps make the most wherever people are.
Microsoft Search - the what, the why and the how
Heard about Microsoft Search but not quite sure where it fits in? Unsure how you can use the search on your own pages? Wondering if you can bring in other content? Let me guide you through what can done now and what is coming soon, balancing the different types of search.
Covering how Microsoft Search and SharePoint Search live harmoniously together (if treated right), this session will show all the benefits of having all your search in one place can give that feeling of consistency to end users and demonstrate that you don't have to lose functionality to do it.
Microsoft Viva - what it is and why you really should care about it
Employees, huh? What are they good for? Well, actually, everything for your organisation and that is why employee experience is such a big topic at the moment. The global coronavirus pandemic has accelerated changes in ways of working that were already taking place but the toll that this change has had on your staff is not always thought about.
Microsoft Viva is the new employee experience platform from Microsoft but the great news is that it is built into all those services that most of you are already using like Teams, SharePoint and the wider Microsoft 365. This session will explore what Viva actually is and how you can use it in your own organisation to support plans to improve life for your employees.
Building engagement with custom dashboard webparts in Viva Connections
The power of Viva Connections is that it makes it easier for organisations to surface data and content from other services into a single page in Teams, providing that personalised hub for employees. Empowering employees to be able to be more focused and productive helps bring about better connections to what they need to do.
This session will show what you can do with Viva Connections to bring other systems like Salesforce, Project Online or even your own bespoke apps to front and centre of your employee experience without making everyone remember lots of different URLs.
Scottish Summit 2022 Sessionize Event
Kevin McDonnell
UK Copilot and Agent Lead @ Avanade, Co-host Copilot Connection, MVP
Sevenoaks, United Kingdom
Links
Actions
Please note that Sessionize is not responsible for the accuracy or validity of the data provided by speakers. If you suspect this profile to be fake or spam, please let us know.
Jump to top