Reduce Confusion and Improve Project Velocity with Microsoft Teams

One of the major concerns for small and medium businesses (SMBs) is having to adapt to a new reality, one that needs to continue to support remote workers and teams spread across multiple jurisdictions. Having to collaborate in this environment can be fraught with confusion due to inadequate communication strategies or using the wrong technology to support ongoing projects. 

According to CTECH Consulting Group president, Carl Fransen, Microsoft has an easy answer to this common challenge: Microsoft Teams.

What Is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is the hub for teamwork within Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365). Teams provide a means to communicate through chats and online meetings with coworkers both inside and outside of your organization (if external access is turned on). Teams allow co-workers to collaborate from anywhere across the country instantly going from chat to video conferencing seamlessly with the touch of a button. Teams’ mobile and web applications are as comprehensive as their desktop counterparts as it integrates with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, SharePoint, the new Planner Task Management App, Stream Video Portal and even Power BI.

This collaboration tool allows employees to seamlessly switch between multiple communication apps such as video conferencing, instant messaging, real-time document collaboration, and file sharing all within a single window which ultimately empowers those with access, to fully engage with the business, and other team members to speed up employee productivity.

Access to Improved Communication Tools

When you enable Microsoft Teams on Microsoft 365, you gain access to a streamlined communication interface that instantly aids collaboration. The chat function on Teams allows you to engage in threaded conversations, which reduces confusion as you can store brainstorming sessions, conference calls, and other meetings into a single easy to find a repository. This feature in Teams also allows you to choose between team and private discussions, as well as integrate audio and video chats reducing any possible confusion due to miscommunication.

Increased Productivity and Collaboration

When you use Microsoft Teams to facilitate your projects, you immediately increase the productivity and collaboration capability of your people. Using traditional email to work on a project puts the team at risk of losing crucial information in threads if someone forgets to reply all. With Team’s chat-based platform, this ensures everyone receives the same message at the same time, minimizing possible confusion. This allows your people to collaborate and keep the discussion flowing, helping them to reach solutions faster plus develop more efficient action plans. Should someone join a project team midstream, they instantly gain access to previous conversations allowing them to quickly come up to speed.

Integration of Other Microsoft 365 Applications

A huge benefit of using Microsoft Teams is that the application doesn’t limit you to the chat or communication functionality. You can migrate any Microsoft 365 application into the mix -- including Microsoft Project -- to increase your team’s productivity. If you have multiple teams working on a particular project, they can all view the same Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, or OneNote documents as they collaborate together on the same content. There is no more having to go back and forth between applications with the potential to miss important points of the discussion.

Project teams can quickly review and change documents efficiently at the same time, logging persistent chat around the documents being discussed. Whether team members are working in an office environment or working remotely from anywhere in the country, Microsoft Teams helps facilitate some of the best and most seamless collaboration possible. You can get your organization started with a free version of Teams. When it comes to finding the right IT support team for your business, your local IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) is uniquely positioned to provide you with affordable ongoing support for all your technology needs.