As my work colleagues will attest, I’ve become an evangelist for Microsoft Teams as a collaboration (and prioritization!) tool. It has become the primary method I’ve been using to take back control of my ever-growing set of responsibilities and deliverables.
I was skeptical of MS Teams when I first came across it, having probably tried every productivity tool available in the past 30 years 🙄
For about 15 of those years, Skype has (had!) been my ultimate “go to” tool for collaboration, since all of my work success involves access to other people. Only Skype generally had access to the variety of people around the world that I rely on – current colleagues, former colleagues and of course friends and family too.
From early messaging tools like ICQ and MSN Messenger, through the AOL and Yahoo Messengers of the world to more corporate-friendly tools like Jabber and Slack, I’ve probably tried them all. I even went through a phase of using an IM aggregator called Trillian to reach the widest audience possible. But eventually I realized all of my most-valued daily connections were on Skype, so the others faded into obscurity.
Don’t get me started on the mess known as Lync and the audacity of Microsoft to call it Skype for Business… For me that was a dark chapter in Skype history 🤬
Microsoft have however redeemed themselves by introducing Teams add the first tool to wow me in years! And what’s more, they are actively improving it even more – and I have only just scratched the surface of what’s possible with add-ons.
Feel free to follow my journey to enlightenment here or just dip in occasional to sample some of my tips, tricks and emerging best practices.
P.S. Beyond messaging, Teams has exceeded other tools I have relied on such as Basecamp HQ and a large variety of video-conferencing tools from GoToMeeting to WebEx.