Microsoft Teams Best Practices: How to Achieve a Smooth Rollout
In 2020, Microsoft’s hit workplace collaboration app achieved new heights of popularity. During a challenging period, its simple user interface and ability to bring different tools into one place has helped remote workers keep in touch with their colleagues. There are plenty of fantastic reasons to roll out Teams in your organization – whether your people are on-site or working from home. If you are making the transition, you might be wondering how to make sure the rollout is a success. When it comes to Microsoft Teams’ best practices for rollout, there are several tried and true methods. In this blog, we discuss how to rollout Microsoft Teams effectively for new users.
1. Adopt Change Champions
Any change project requires passionate advocates – and Microsoft Teams is no different. It can be difficult to encourage people to change the way they work but it’s much easier if reluctant workers are surrounded by other people setting a positive example. That’s why it’s helpful to put together a team of ‘change champions’ or advocates, who can hit the ground running with Teams from day one, helping answer their colleagues’ questions and concerns.
Your chosen change champions should represent a diverse cross-section of the company – it’s no good getting only managers or only IT staff to advocate the benefits of Teams. They should also be positive and optimistic about the transition to Teams and the many ways it can help improve the way your organization functions.
2. Lead by Example
One of the many benefits of Microsoft Teams is its decentralized nature; anyone can start a chat, plan a call, create or group or post a meme. But when first confronted with the Teams interface, many new users can also be confused about what functions they can or should use. If you’re used to going through a line manager to schedule every call, it can be quite daunting to start doing it yourself. And for those employees accustomed to the formality of email communication, a more laid-back approach to collaboration through chats and groups can be a tricky step forward.
For that reason, it’s important that managers around the company are proactive in encouraging their departments to widely explore the Teams functionality – and using these features as much as possible themselves. Seeing your manager get involved in conversations, posting a meme or encouraging you to schedule that meeting is often all the reassurance an end user needs to take the leap forward to that new way of working.
3. Carefully Manage Teams and Channels
The web of Teams, Groups and Channels is one of the principal benefits of Teams – but it can be daunting to get started with on day one. Often, understanding which messages belong in which channels can take some time to wrap your head around. For that reason, it’s important to be sensitive about rolling out new channels and take the time to explain to end-users how these should be used.
First and foremost, this should involve establishing clear principles for how groups, teams and channels can be used, so there’s no confusion when it comes to rollout. This will help you avoid different interpretations of the Microsoft Teams’ best practices making it difficult for end-users to understand where they should be sending messages and to whom.
As well as this, it can also be helpful to roll out new teams gradually, so that people can get used to these changes step by step. This is crucial to ensuring employees embrace the new software, rather than get overwhelmed by it.
4. Encourage Users to Manage their Own Settings
Different workers have their own unique preferences for how they want to work – and it’s important that people are given the flexibility they need. Luckily, Teams can cater to this, by allowing users to manage their own notifications and user interface settings – as well as setting quiet hours. These powerful features mean that people can avoid being barraged with notifications – or similarly make sure they are notified for things that are important.
New users to Teams are unlikely to find these features on day one – and they might get quickly frustrated with the new software if the notification settings aren’t to their taste. For that reason, it can be really helpful to encourage new users to manage their settings proactively from day one – so they avoid falling into this trap.
Step by Step with Microsoft Teams Best Practices
There are plenty of fantastic reasons to consider a move to Teams. And once you get started, you’ll almost certainly find that your users are as passionate about it as your IT team. The secret is to tap into and encourage the positive reaction that end users have to the software. From there, the world of business collaboration is your oyster. And if you need some help on that journey, the Teams advocates and experts at Worksighted will be happy to help show your people the ropes. We have a dedicated training team that delivers bite-sized training for end-users on all things Teams, and beyond!
If you want to find out more about getting started with Microsoft Teams, contact the Worksighted team today.
Worksighted Team
We are a team of over-enthusiastic people, ready to help our clients utilize technology to spur growth! We love technology and come to work every day eager to solve problems and find ways to impact our clients.
