Microsoft introduced its Microsoft Teams offering as the new hub for collaboration in March 2016 – the new place where people work together through conversation, meetings, and shared apps and data. Teams has rapidly become a widely-embraced toolset in some organisations, and globally Microsoft claims over 13 million people use the product at least once a day (at July 2019). Success with Teams, however, requires more than just making it available and getting people to start using it. As has always been the case, the toolset needs to fit appropriately within the context of a vision for usage, guidelines for effective governance, principles of human collaboration, and employee digital competencies. Insufficient strength of the context factors results in subpar performance of the tool – which affects not only individuals and teams, but the entire organisation across areas such as information governance, compliance, and data security.

Agenda
The Microsoft Teams Workshop: Context Edition is focused on equipping and enabling the collaboration strategists, Office 365 product managers, decision-makers and modern IT teams at end-user organisations to become well-informed and start confidently on the journey to effective use of Microsoft Teams. The workshop includes a healthy mix of exploring the key elements of context that need to be addressed in developing a strategy for starting with Teams, along with a facilitated discussion on how your organisation will start. Elements of context include:

• Examining the Category: Principles for Successful Collaboration
• Microsoft Teams vs. Other Tools in Office 365 (and Beyond, if appropriate)
• Creation Rights for New Teams Workspaces
• Templated Design for New Teams Workspaces
• Closure Policy for End-of-Life Teams Workspaces
• Data Protection and Data Retention of Content in Teams
• Use of Third-Party Apps in Teams Workspaces: Issues and Considerations Beyond Cool Capabilities
• Use of Third-Party Tools for Managing Microsoft Teams: Issues and Considerations for Operational Excellence
• User and Group Adoption Support for Microsoft Teams
• Measuring the Business Value of Microsoft Teams

The workshop is structured so that:

• Each organisation can describe its concerns, roadblocks, uncertainties, and misgivings about embracing Microsoft Teams.
• Each of the context elements are explored – what they are, what they mean, and what the relevant options are.
• Participants in the workshop can work together to create a structure for how to introduce Microsoft Teams into their organisation.

Duration and Facilitator
The workshop is one-day in duration, and is facilitated by Michael Sampson. Michael is a consultant to leading organisations on how to confidently embrace new technologies to improve team collaboration. Michael has facilitated workshops with clients around the world, and has written multiple books on governance, strategy and effective use for Microsoft tools and beyond.