We’ve been using Microsoft Teams internally at Centriq for quite a while, but the product continues to evolve each month. This is an exciting reality, but it can also make it difficult for users to stay on top of all Microsoft Teams has to offer. Because Microsoft Teams is our digital workplace at Centriq, where a majority of our communication and collaborative efforts take place, we wanted to do something to help our colleagues boost productivity, unlock new ways of working together online, and communicate more effectively using the latest features available.
To address this, our Microsoft 365 team recently sponsored two virtual, internal Microsoft Teams refresher lunch ‘n’ learn sessions which also served as an introduction to tips and best practices for our newer employees.
Session content
Our agenda covered common questions like:
- What is a team vs a channel?
- When should I use chat vs group chat vs channel conversations?
- How do I make sure people see my posts?
- How can I manage my own notifications and organize my teams and channels?
- Where do files live and how do I know who can see or edit them?
- What’s new in Teams?
These sessions were mostly demonstration, led by one of our Microsoft 365 training specialists, and we ended our sessions with a live quiz competition. Our first-place winner from each session received a plush Microsoft Monkey! You can find other ideas for Microsoft prizes here.
Attendee highlights
Based on how these first two sessions went, we are excited to do more in the future. Here are what some of our attendees had to say about their takeaways from this first experience:
Until today, I did not know that you could pin channels and chats. This will save me so much time digging through chats to find the ones I use most often. Additionally, I think the discussion around channel or chat has made be realize that there are some conversations that I need to move out of chat. I also learned how to find the files that I previously uploaded to chats in Teams. That is going to help a lot, especially as I am trying to share things on the go. Finally, it was great to see the upcoming changes. I love hearing about these.
–Jenna Beckett, Full Stack Training Manager
I will immediately start using some of the new nuggets of information that I learned. I always walk away with something new which is why we do these!
–Jenn Miller, Sr. Customer Success Specialist
I will use this information to make my day more organized and productive.
–Owen Graham, Business Development Manager
Very helpful! Nate kept it upbeat, relevant, and very interactive. It was honestly refreshing to be able to take a break from my workday and learn/think about how I can be more efficient. I had some great takeaways, including creating custom tags, Wiki vs. OneNote, and best practices with deciding Chat vs. Team/Channel.
–Jessica Oliver, Vice President of Operations
[Most valuable? The] reminder on the best practices for mentioning someone to ensure they see the post; figuring out how to share direct links via the globe icon; showing us how to set-up tags.
–Leanora Wendling, Director of Sales Enablement
Provide this experience for your team
You can create a similar experience in your organization by following these steps:
1) Schedule a Microsoft Teams webinar with a custom registration form. Here’s what ours looked like:
2) Send the custom registration link out to the company (org-wide teams work great for getting the word out) along with your agenda.
3) Track registrations in the event details in Teams and send reminders to your org-wide team (and privately perhaps, to specific people or departments who would be especially interested) to drive additional registrations leading up to the event(s).
4) When the day(s) arrives, start the session and record it (informing attendees, of course) so that those who are unavailable can watch later and benefit from a searchable transcript.
5) Close with Q&A (be sure to allow attendee mics) and a live quiz competition using something like Mentimeter. If you have a prize to give away, you can incentivize your top-scoring attendees (which might also help drive live attendance as opposed to recording views).
6) After the meeting, share the link to the recording, slide deck, and any additional resources that may have come up during Q&A. You can do this via email to attendees by pulling an attendance report for the session and emailing those listed. You could also post the resources more broadly as a conversation post in an org-wide team channel dedicated to events like this.
We can help
We have a group of Microsoft 365 training experts at Centriq who would be more than happy to help you with your internal Teams training efforts. We can lead 1-hour sessions like the ones recapped in this post, or we can do multiple 2-hr sessions in the same day, half days, full days, and even multiple days depending on your specific needs. We tailor the agenda to focus on your specific pain points, interests, and needs.
If you want something less customized, we do offer two public courses with standard agendas:
- Microsoft Teams – Workday Essentials Training Course
- Microsoft Teams – Workday Advanced Training Course
Whether leading your own, or partnering with us to create impactful training experiences, we’re confident your organization’s users will appreciate the opportunity to unlock new ways to boost their productivity and communicate more effectively.