Microsoft Teams adoption in times of COVID - What should you consider next?

As I 've discussed in a previous article, the COVID pandemic (coupled by one or two hacking incidents) has created an unforeseen "sense of urgency" that has moved organizations to roll out and adopt Microsoft Teams in a heartbeat.

In response to this need, internal teams in organizations have stepped up their game and are rolling out all-employee training programs that, in many cases, lead with technology (e.g., "Introduction to Microsoft Teams," "Teams 101, 201, 301").

While this is a good starting point, this approach has some limitations that I would like to highlight along with three recommendations in case you are wondering what you can do next.

#1: Ask more questions and reduce the focus on technology

Albert Einstein once said that if he had 1 hour to solve an important problem, that he would spend 55 minutes determining the questions to ask and the last 5 minutes coming up with the answer.

I love this quote because it highlights the importance of asking questions to tailor your approach to the productivity and collaboration needs of your users (rather than assuming you know what they need). I realize that this approach of asking questions is a bit harder to scale than the "Teams 101" approach to learning but there are ways to find a happy middle ground, like identifying common use cases and mapping those to roles in your organization.

#2: Consider rolling out Microsoft Teams by user stories or scenarios (rather than feature by feature)

In line with my point above, rolling out Microsoft Teams by lighting up features at different times is a common approach and it creates confusion or disappointment. For example, users may love Teams but they will be disappointed to know that they cannot record their online meetings (like they did in Skype) unless they put a request for "special" access to Stream.

Try rolling out user stories or scenarios instead of features or apps. A pre-requisite of this, of course, is to work with your IT team to help see the light (he!) and ensure users have the capabilities they need to perform in these scenarios.

#3: Move to the transformational stuff

Having someone learn how to host a meeting in Microsoft Teams or start a chat is a great first step but we need to get past the basics and start focusing on the truly transformational stuff. I am not referring to teaching users how to become experts in PowerApps and Flow, by the way (although that would be pretty cool). I am referring to the need to take a few minutes to understand people's day to day processes and helping them see how those processes can be improved by “out of the box” Microsoft solutions. Plan and simple.

There is still a lot of work to be done to help others see the possibilities in Microsoft 365.

I am curious to hear your experiences with Microsoft rollouts and adoption. Do you agree with my reflections and/or what other suggestions would you have?