Rachel Burnham writes: At the moment I am seeing and hearing Teams
everywhere. Not ‘teams’ but ‘Teams’,
that is Microsoft Teams to be precise. I
am seeing presentations about it, talking about it with friends & colleagues,
reading about it and even receiving emails about it (there is an irony here, as
Teams is often talked about reducing the need for emails). It is in my work and
soon to be in my volunteering. Microsoft Teams seem to be everywhere I look – I
think I am having one of those times when having become aware of a topic or
product, you suddenly see it everywhere.
If you haven’t yet
come across Microsoft Teams, it is a communication and collaboration tool
designed by Microsoft that works alongside a whole array of their other
products, particularly Office 365. There
is a paid for enterprise version and also a free version that anyone can
download – there are some differences in capabilities between the two. I’ve heard it described as hub for your work,
both with people, within and without your organisation and the software tools
that you regularly use. Or the glue
that holds it all together.
It isn’t the only
game in town. There are of course other
alternatives available from other providers (I am feeling a little like a BBC
presenter at this point) and they each have many common features and their own
strengths and weaknesses – I am most familiar with the alternative offered by
Slack. I have no interest in promoting
Microsoft Teams over any of these other platforms and tools, it is just that
this is the one that has grabbed my attention at this point. I am not making a case for this particular product, over any
other, but I do want to make the case for using what we have well.
If your organisation has chosen to adopt Microsoft Teams as it’s
chosen platform, then it seems to me that it behoves us in L&D to really
get our heads around how the organisation is using it and how we all can make
best use of it, including L&D. We
need to be playing our part in seeing how this tool can be used to enable
effective performance. That means using it in ways that do not stimulate unhelpful
habits (eg like not being able to do ‘deep work’ for constant interruptions
through poor use of chat features) nor seeing it as a silver bullet, that can
of itself solve major challenges (eg silo working) without doing the other work
needed to support this. However,
I do think it has a huge potential, if used well, for supporting and enabling
behaviours that lead to effective performance, including learning.
My thinking around
this was stimulated by this year’s Learning Technologies’ event, where I went
along to a presentation which was titled ‘Microsoft Teams as a Learning
Platform’. I was hoping for lots of
sharing of ideas and experiences of using Teams to enable learning in the flow
of work. Lots of people turned up for
the presentation. But I was very
disappointed by the content, which was very much about using Teams as an LMS
and about access to training. But it made
me ponder how else we could be using Teams.
It made me focus on the question ‘If we are working within Teams, why
not learn within Teams?’
Anyway, I Sketchnoted
the session and as is my habit, I shared my Sketchnote both on Twitter and
later on LinkedIn – I received a huge response from people, so many comments,
questions and lots of sharing of experience.
Many were sharing that their organisation is adopting Microsoft Teams
and they are trying to get their heads around it, some were puzzled about how
it can be used to aid learning, others excited by the possibilities but wanting
help and support, others were already making use of it to aid collaboration and
support learning and shared some of the ways they are doing that.
Two comments in
particular stood out for me. Jo
Wainwright shared on LinkedIn ‘I use it because it is where people already are
and it already connects to everything else.’
When you are wanting to encourage social and collaborating learning, it
is always helpful to consider where people already are – it means you don’t
have to work hard to get them there or to overcome barriers to access. Secondly, Mike Bedford shared on Linkedin ‘…I
do not want it to be seen as another wasteful LMS missed opportunity’. Nor do I!
One of the other
people who responded to my Sketchnote was Helen Blunden, @ActivateLearn, who
works for Adopt & Embrace, who along with her colleagues has written a book
full of advice on using Teams. I have
been reading this with great interest and recommend it to you for providing
some great examples of how Teams can be used and a framework for thinking about
what is needed for each Team.
Here are a few quick
ideas about how we could be using Microsoft Teams. Some are my ideas, some have come out of the
conversations with colleagues since Learning Technologies, some from my reading
and some were shared via social media in response to my Sketchnote – many thanks
to all those who have contributed towards my thoughts on this.
·
You
could host a community of practice or a Working Out Loud Circle in a Team and
use Microsoft Teams to host the conversations and resources shared. This can provide a safe space for conversations
and exploration of ideas and practices.
·
You
could build reflection into every single Team by always incorporating a channel
dedicated to ‘Lessons Learned’ or something similar. Of course setting aside the space, won’t
make the reflection happen, but it could provide a mechanism to enable it.
·
You could
use the Teams Meeting feature – a video chat feature similar to Skype for
Business – to host online coaching or webinars/virtual classrooms. These can also be recorded, so you could record
webinars or walk-throughs sharing your desktop. The features for webinars are
not perhaps as fully developed as in other platforms, but can be combined with
other tools.
·
You
could share resources with colleagues through Teams eg a line manager or a peer
recommending an article or video to colleagues.
·
You
could curate useful resources as an individual or as a team using either
OneNote or a wiki, both of which can be easily linked to a Team.
·
You
could create a curated learning programme involving online discussion,
reflection and sharing hosted either within a Team or using a wiki.
·
You
could help people to find who within your organisation has particular expertise
using ‘Who’, a bot that can be utilised. You could then ask for help from that individual using Chat.
·
You
could make relevant performance support tools and resources easily to hand
within the relevant Team via a Tab.
·
You
could make use of Forms to develop questionnaires and other tools within
Teams. Or use Teams with existing other
survey tools eg SurveyMonkey.
I am
sure this list is only scratching the surface of the possibilities and of
course, it is making these ideas work that is the challenging part. Encouraging the behaviours and habits of
individuals and teams to give these tools and approaches a go.
Microsoft
Teams is just a tool. We know that it
isn’t the tool that is important. What
is important is how we use it to solve the problems that matter to the people
we work with and our organisations.
If
you are interested in joining me in working together to explore how Microsoft
Teams can be used effectively to aid learning and performance, do get in touch.
Rachel Burnham
8/3/2020
I help individuals and organisations to work and learn
more effectively, particularly though using the tools of Sketchnoting and the
curation of resources. I make use of
Sketchnoting to introduce people to using visuals to aid thinking, working and
learning. I help people to manage for
themselves the information they need to stay up-to-date in their professional
work.
