The Essential

Guide to Microsoft
Teams End-User
Engagement

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 Microsoft Teams is changing workplace collaboration by
bringing together chat, meetings, apps, bots, personal
storage, and calls into one interface. But with so many
features available, it’s possible to take on too much, too
quickly. Having a Microsoft Teams implementation strategy
is crucial to avoiding common pitfalls, and to ensure
successful adoption and end-user engagement.

Whether your organization is new to Teams, or you’re

looking for greater end-user adoption and engagement,
this guide will walk you through 10 best practices,
considerations, and suggestions that can enrich your
Microsoft Teams deployment and ensure end-user
adoption (people using the tool) and engagement
(people thriving in using the tool – the ultimate goal).

Why collaborate?
Studies have routinely found a link
between collaboration and performance.
In fact, a joint study from the Institute
for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) and
Rob Cross, Edward A. Madden professor
of global business at Babson College,
found that companies that promoted
collaborative working were five times
as likely to be high-performing.

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1. Create a solid foundation for your implementation
Providing a positive user experience is a vital building block to So ask yourself this question first: “What is our plan for Office 365
engagement. A negative experience in Microsoft Teams can have a Groups?“ Answering this question up front will establish the right
lasting effect on some users. The foundational workloads such as foundation for Teams. This same question should be repeated for OneDrive
Office 365 Groups, OneDrive, Skype, and SharePoint Online must be for Business (personal storage) and SharePoint Online. Governance will be
well situated before introducing Teams to users. discussed later in this guide, but this starting question is vital to determining
why you are doing this and how you will get there. After all, you can’t drive
Solidify your plan for Teams by first addressing the approach for Office adoption and engagement if you can’t get out of the driveway.
365 Groups. When you create a team, on the backend you’re creating
an Office 365 Group and the associated SharePoint document library
and OneNote notebook, along with ties into other Office 365 cloud
applications. However, group features and capabilities for your users Skype to Teams
depend upon from where you drive group membership.
As Skype migrates to Teams, a plan must be created
that addresses co-existence in some cases, and
For example, if you remove a member from a team, they are
transition in others. Define where your organization
removed from the Office 365 Group as well. Removal from the group
wants to go and how it will get there with a strategy
immediately removes the team and channels from the Teams client.
and roadmap.
If you remove a person from a group using the Office 365 admin
center, they will no longer have access to the other collaborative
aspects such as SharePoint Online document library, Yammer group,
or shared OneNote.

1
Forbes
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 2. Understand your company’s working styles
Not all users will interact with Microsoft Teams
the same way. That is why it’s important for you
to understand the different ways people work in
Teams, so you can set realistic expectations. to elicit new behaviors.
Digital literacy plays a huge part in this
exercise. Digital literacy is the ability to use
information and communication technologies
to find, evaluate, create, and communicate
information, and requires both cognitive and
technical skills. This concept dictates how
companies use technology as a competitive
advantage for employee productivity,
collaboration, and communication.
Knowing your company’s working style is an
important step toward understanding how your
end-users will interact with Teams. But even
after you roll out Teams, people still may not
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utilize it the way you expect. So the real work
comes when you are ready to start moving
users in a new direction. It takes a lot of work
Most user interaction with Teams is based on
the user’s digital literacy level. Typically, they will
view Teams as: The Good Place, The “Meh”
Place, or the Zero-Inbox Dungeon. It’s important Keep it Simple
to understand how a user’s view of Teams may
Data suggests that
shape their use. Don’t expect all individuals to
70%-80% of a technology
jump directly from email to Teams seamlessly.
or systems change
management project’s
With the right support, however, users can
ROI depends upon people
achieve acceptable over the course of weeks
using the new systems,
or months rather than years. The goal is to
applications, and tools as
change behaviors and help users see the
desired (Prosci).
value Teams can bring. This will ensure
their future engagement.
How Different Users Perceive Teams
The Good Place (Teams)
Some users will more readily embrace
Teams and this new way of working. They’ll
jump on board immediately, collaborate
freely, and use all of the tool’s resources.
Others will take interest in how it simplifies
and centralizes collaboration efforts.
Regardless of user motivation, be sure to
capitalize on and enable those who are
Teams advocates and champions. They are
your best spokespeople!
The “Meh” Place (SharePoint Online)
Some users will interact with SharePoint
Online more than others and be drawn into
conversations as needed from SharePoint,
Yammer, email, or other communication
channels. Although SharePoint can be a
great platform for collaboration, it often
becomes an endless, disorganized storage
closet at worst, and a cluttered but valuable
resource library at best. The goal is to help
these SharePoint Online activists understand
the difference between the tools, and the
benefits that Teams can offer.
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The Zero-Inbox Dungeon
(Outlook and Office 365)
If your endorphins fire when you reach an
inbox of 0 new messages, this is your place.
These users will stay very close to their inbox,
receiving messages and information in Outlook,
jumping into Teams only when absolutely
necessary. They will likely interact more with
the O365 group vs. the Teams application.
This means their experiences will be limited to
mostly documents and messages.
 If Teams is not making you more productive, consider
leveraging the following Teams features:

3. Use Teams features

to minimize distractions
Mentions Notifications
Determining one’s signal-to-noise ratio is pivotal to user
Use @mentions to call They keep you current with
engagement. It’s easy to drown in a sea of notifications,
attention to your message in what’s happening in your
interruptions, and distractions. With Teams, your users
conversations. This directs Teams. Turn them on, turn
can easily manage these deterrents. The key is to first
the message to the person or them off, choose how and
determine a suitable signal-to-noise ratio with “signal”
group of people you intended when to be notified.
being the things you and your team should care about.
and lets them know their
“Noise” includes the things that get in the way of the
attention is needed.
things you care about. The whole goal of Teams is
employee collaboration and productivity.

Use Subject Headers
Add subject headers to your
conversations to reduce clutter.
Theme
Change your theme based on
how you prefer to see things
(dark, high contrast etc.).
Follow
“Followed” channels show
up in the activity feed and
notifications. Only follow
channels relevant to you
or your immediate projects
to keep your activity
feed manageable and
minimize “noise.”

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4. Create a team for end-user support and community
Any IT-focused Teams rollout strategy can be problematic. Business unit
buy-in is fundamental to the success of the platform from an adoption
and engagement perspective. A change management strategy is equally Make Use of Yammer
important. Change management is more than just “moving the cheese” Yammer is built to be a sounding board. It’s awesome
and then sending an email telling people where you moved it. as a feedback channel. Utilize Yammer to set up a
public, all access community for folks ramping up on
Change management offers a more holistic approach to a Teams rollout, Microsoft Teams and Office 365. This Yammer group
by providing end-user support from inception to launch. To maximize your can also be integrated into Teams as needed via a tab.
change management strategy, create a Team within the tool to provide
end-user education while getting end users acquainted with using the tool.

Start with this basic set up of Teams and channels:

Get-to-Know Teams Microsoft Teams Implementation Teamwork Champions

(for all users) (for stakeholders) (for change champions and platform enthusiasts)

Proposed Channel Names Proposed Channel Names Proposed Channel Names

• General • General • Strategy and Planning • General
• Say “Hi” • Awareness and Adoption • Service Health • Best Practices, Training, and How-To
• How Do I? • Business Engagement and Incidents • Champion Corner
• Success Stories • Early Adopter Program • Training • Feedback and Support
• Feedback • Feedback and Insights • Watercooler Chat • Program Leads
• Ideas for Future Teams • Security and Compliance • Office 365 Public Roadmap • Social Hub
• Support
• Our/My Company MS Teams
Roadmap

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 5. Don’t overthink governance More Items to consider:
• Set content levels for the fun stuff
Remember, when a user creates a Microsoft Team, an Office 365 Group
• Narrow down your connectors and apps to what you support
is also created. This Office 365 Group, by default, creates an Outlook
distribution list, a SharePoint Site Collection, a shared Calendar, Planner,
Deeper Governance Concepts:
and OneNote notebook for the group members. With so many inter-
• Plan for lifecycle management in Teams
connected elements, things can quickly become a virtual “Wild West.”
• Plan for governance in Teams
Governance Considerations Checklist • Plan for security and compliance in Teams
To effectively manage Teams and keep the chaos at bay, it is important • Enterprise mobility and device management
to implement governance. But governance does not have to be tricky.
• Data protection with eDiscovery, retention, etc.
The key is to keep it simple. Use this quick checklist of governance
considerations.
Start small. Answer the key questions and ensure you have coverage
and a roadmap for the bigger items. Microsoft suggests asking these
key questions.
Consider a Core
Governance Strategy
Who can create Teams?
If it makes sense, consider starting with
Teams naming conventions a core governance strategy. This is a
Guest access and connectors simplified version of the more detailed and
robust governance policies that concentrate
Approved apps
on settings and hard controls rather than
Are meetings included? If not, what’s the plan? processes and other deeper concerns.
Data security This is a starting point that will grow with
Team and O365 group expiry your use of Teams and Office 365.

How long will you POC vs. pilot vs. launch?

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 Case Study Format:
Name of the Team
­­­
6. Celebrate your wins
Goal(s) of the Team
with case studies ­­­
­­­
Create internal case studies that demonstrate Teams
use cases. These case studies can be a simple article, a Teams Owner(s) and Leadership
PowerPoint file, a video, a stakeholder interview, or something
bigger that brings all of these use case ideas together. Most
­­­
employees get their motivation from others. Providing case
­­­
studies celebrating how people are using Teams is the best
way to motivate people and show them what their peers
Stakeholders
are doing. It’s also important to celebrate both the wins and
successes and the challenges. Lessons learned are invaluable
to ensure your employees do not repeat the same mistakes. ­­­
­­­

Successes

Use Communication
Tools to Drive your POCs ­­­
and Pilots ­­­
Consider using a SharePoint
Challenges and Lessons Learned
Communication site to store these
case studies and use Yammer,
Teams, and Stream to drive the ­­­
content and awareness. ­­­

What’s Next?
Post successful tips, tricks and ideas, and even questions on
the Microsoft Tech Community areas. These case studies
don’t have to live in one place – post them everywhere.

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 7. Use deeper analytics
to drive success
The Office 365 Admin Center provides some information on Teams
usage. While you may be happy with this level of information, most
organizations need something more.

CoreView and tyGraph are great tools for getting exactly what you
need to be successful with Microsoft Teams. Both tools report vital
criteria that can’t be found easily in the Admin Center. If you are not
familiar with these analytics tools, here’s a quick breakdown of each:

tyGraph for Teams CoreView for Teams

Reporting Functions
• Overall Team Engagement
• Recent Team & Channel Activity
• Sentiments Scores
• Member Interaction
• Sentiment Tracking
• Message Activity
• Filters by Time
Reporting Functions
• On-Event Alerts
• Adoption Campaigns
• Just-in-Time Learning
• License Management
• User Information Cards
• 24x7 Monitoring
• Microsoft 365 Monitoring

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8. Support end users
with valuable,
time-saving tips
There’s no right or wrong way to use Teams. But there are
some ideas and concepts that can help make end users
more productive, more quickly.
• Reference the Getting Started in Teams in the General tab
• Use @mentions to call attention to your message in
conversations
• When an issue/question is resolved, @mention the entire
group for closure and visibility
• Learn the five keyboard shortcuts for Teams
• Check out these “hacks”
• Record meetings and post the Stream video back to the
Teams channel

Create a Communication Site

Using Teams channels to share information
is a great start. But think about how these
items can be pushed out to more people
and promoted throughout the organization.

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 9. Keep it simple and don’t
over-customize your Teams
environment
There are many ways to integrate with Microsoft Teams. There are tabs,
connectors, apps, bots, and custom development to help with these
efforts. But the best approach is to start with your wider user cases.
ServiceNow, Chronos, and other apps are perfect integration points that
can serve more users. Consider a governance process that centralizes
these requests and enables those that serve the masses. This approach
applies value to your customizations.

There are many apps for Microsoft Teams – too many in some cases.
There’s a bot and/or connector for almost everything a company could
connect to/integrate with. That can be both a blessing and a curse.

Start your POC, pilot, and launch with the apps provided by Microsoft.
Then loosen the approach to include applications such as Adobe Creative
Suite, Trello, and others that drive value for business units. There are also
options for customizations. These too should be driven by business value.
Keep customizations to a minimum. The last thing you need is to move
your technical debt from an over-customized SharePoint instance to an
over-customized instance of Microsoft Teams.

Stick to Essential Apps & Connectors

Don’t overwhelm your users with options every
time they want to add a tab. Keep the options simple
with tools they actually use. Same goes for cloud
storage apps.

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10. Steer clear of these
SharePoint pitfalls
Although Teams is backed by an Office 365 Group, a modern
SharePoint Team site (call them collaboration sites to
minimize confusion), and OneDrive, there are some features
that are not yet rendered in Teams.

The SharePoint Tab only renders document libraries. This

lack of flexibility creates many unforeseen limitations
to SharePoint-based user experiences. There are a few
workarounds, but it’s recommended to use the page view tab
in Teams for the most optimal experience.

Here are some criteria for using the page view tab vs. the
SharePoint Tab:
• Rendering lists such as tasks and calendars may not offer
the best experience
• Metadata views are also a non-starter; this goes double for
content types as well
• Integrating with other SharePoint tenants and farms can
also be problematic

Be Careful with
SharePoint Lists
Lists and Calendars can be tricky!
Try using a page viewer tab instead.

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 Perficient Teams Blog Series Collab 365 –

Get Started
Microsoft Teams Hacks

with Teams
Microsoft Teams is a hub for team collaboration
that can accelerate digital transformation by Microsoft Teams Adoption Kit tyGraph for Teams
improving your organization’s communication,
collaboration, and productivity. But ensuring that
you have the right strategy and approach is key to
ensuring end-user adoption and engagement.

Providing a positive end-user experience in

Teams shouldn’t stop after your rollout. Here are
Governance Quick Start CoreView
some additional resources you can leverage to
for Microsoft Teams
keep your end users engaging with Teams –
and enjoying the experience!

Perficient Case Studies

14 / THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO MICROSOFT TEAMS END-USER ENGAGEMENT

About the Author
Ron Jones
Director, Modern Productivity Practice

Ron is the practice director for modern

productivity at Perficient, driving
collaboration solutions for Office 365. He has expertise
with SharePoint and his experience with Microsoft
SharePoint Server 2001, 2003, 2007, and 2010,
allowed Ron to easily transition into the SharePoint
2013 and Office 365 worlds. Of particular interest to
Ron is enterprise search and helping clients complete
successful collaboration initiatives.

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO MICROSOFT TEAMS END-USER ENGAGEMENT / 15

Let Perficient help
you on your digital
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