Modern collaboration tools – how to make the introduction a success

Collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack, Skype or Zoom have been booming since the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic. The goal of these tools is to improve the productivity of distributed teams by enabling them to communicate easily with colleagues, working together on projects or even holding video conferences with internal and external people. Used correctly, these can be a real blessing, but if used incorrectly, they are huge time and resource guzzlers. I would like to summarize briefly in this blog post why it makes sense to link MS Teams and your CRM.

“And suddenly Microsoft teams was there…” This is how many employees must have felt. From one day to the next, many organizations have decided – or had to decide – to shorten their actual planned roadmap for Microsoft 365 implementation and get down to business as quickly as possible.

In many ciompanies, Microsoft 365 (or as it was then still called Microsoft Office 365) was therefore introduced without further ado with the most diverse components.

Schon gewusst? Collaboration itmx

No matter if SharePoint, Teams, ToDo, Planner or any other application from the MS 365 Kosmos is used And it is not too seldom that one or the other decision was made (too) quickly without building up a concept, asking individual users about their needs, drawing boundaries to other tools and services or going into detail about the implementation. The classic mistakes of every IT project, but it simply had to be done quickly…

For me and also for our company, a lot has changed due to the changes that are taking place. We, too, made some decisions in a hurry, which we had to turn back painfully. Nevertheless, the same applies here: Learn from mistakes and make them better in the future.

I would like to summarize some of the insights (and by far not all!) that we have gained through our own experience, but also within external projects.

  • Get an overview of the functionalities of e.g. Microsoft 365 and clearly define individual implementation steps. The Big Bang with the introduction of all functionalities that MS Teams offers is not necessary and by the way not possible! Provide your employees with digestible snacks.
  • Take your time and talk to the actual users about their needs. Is it even necessary to introduce a specific application, such as ToDo? Or do your colleagues already manage themselves in a different way that also works well?
  • Analyze your existing software landscape and get an overview of which systems should be integrated. It also helps to think in different phases and build a kind of roadmap. Because nothing is more confusing and time-consuming than distributed information or multiple locations that must be kept in view at all times.
  • Think about the structure of the new tools and discuss them with key users using some examples. Nothing is worse than a great concept on a white sheet of paper without an end user ever seeing it.
  • Deliberately leave certain permissions to administrators or key users for the time being, e.g. the creation of new teams. In this way you avoid fast-growing, individual and partly not well thought-out structures.

What is the right structure? How do you find these for your company or how can existing structures be adapted in a targeted manner? And: How is it even possible to think it through from the beginning in such a way that it makes sense in the long term and can be integrated with other tools and services?

I will report on this topic in a second part and I would be pleased if you would stay with it.

Read also the other parts of our blog series

Collaboration? Yes, but if, then right!

Part 2 of the blog series

While we shared core knowledge with you in Part 1, this part of the blog series gives you tips on how to take the right steps from the start and how to achieve targeted and efficient collaboration with MS Teams in your company.

Read part 2 of the blog series

Sales Excellence with Microsoft Teams

Part 3 of the blog series

In the previous sections, we have shown you tips on the right approach and first steps for an efficient collaboration with MS Teams. Part 3 is all about integration opportunities in sales and the path to business excellence.

Read part 3 of the blog series
Robin Hartmann
Robin HartmannHead of Modern Work and Business Intelligence itmX GmbH
As Head of Modern Work and Business Intelligence, Robin is responsible for optimising our customers’ processes and helping them to position themselves for future challenges. As a creative mind, he is primarily driven by innovation topics. Due to his proximity to the customer, he experiences the real business requirements first-hand and enjoys driving them forward together with our customers.