Microsoft Teams Webinar Recap: Top 5 Microsoft Teams Deployement Challenges & How to Overcome Them

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Last week, Joe Brown, Xgility’s Chief Strategy Officer, teamed up with Fergus Wilson, Repstor’s CTO to discuss some of the top challenges that organizations face as they roll out Microsoft Teams – and how a strategic approach to Microsoft Teams and automated management tools can help put up the right guardrails to balance both user productivity and risk prevention.

In case you missed it, here’s the recorded webinar and key takeaways.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Let’s Face It: Deploying Microsoft Teams and Office 365 Can Be Challenging

If you and your organization have found that deploying Microsoft Teams and gaining wide-spread adoption is more challenging than you expected, you aren’t alone. Rolling out Teams without planning upfront be overwhelming both the IT department and end-users – and can lead to:

  • Limited adoption
  • Shadow IT
  • Data Loss
  • Security Breaches
  • Overall chaos for IT and Users

Top 5 Common Challenges When Rolling Out Microsoft Teams

Based on our experience, here’s top five challenge our clients face when they deploy teams – and why they come to us for help:

  • Deployed without a strategic plan. Have no defined user requirements, didn’t identify key uses cases, or talk to departments.
  • No equitable Governance Plan that empowers users and IT.
  • Cannot agree on the best way to enable external sharing so it’s disabled.
  • Users continue to use tools like Box or DropBox – aka Shadow IT – posing risks around security and data loss.
  • Lack of adoption support or training.

Take a Prescriptive & Strategic Approach: Recommendations for Success

So, how do we help our clients overcome those challenges? Here are our top recommendations.

  • Start with a strategic plan that includes governance requirements based on well-defined use cases.
  • Educate users not just how to use the tools but also explain the “how and why” around governance.
  • Don’t overlook data protection – especially for compliance requirements. Keep internal and external content separate when engaging between internal and external teams.
  • Don’t just train users to use Microsoft Teams features. Show them the “why and how” based on the use cases. Also, identify Teams Champions (Ambassadors) to provide sustainable and long-term adoption activities. The Ambassadors shouldn’t be in the IT department but rather early tech-adopters across the organization.
  • Roll out a small number of Teams initially – evaluate and adjust.

Automate Governance: Take the Pressure Off Both IT & Users

Not only is strategic planning key to success, but using purpose-built technology, like Repstor’s Custodian, can empower both your users and IT department to achieve broad adoption of Teams as well.

Their full life cycle information management solutions allow users to take full advantage of Microsoft Teams without creating information management problems or compliance headaches down the line. It brings new control, templating. and lifecycle management capabilities to Microsoft Teams workspaces and helps:

  • Identify key use cases around departments with specific compliance requirements. ​
  • ​Set up guardrails based on department’s requirements – takes the pressure off IT.​
  • ​Automate a way to request new teams – give control to users or Ambassadors.​
  • ​Employees use Teams and other Office 365 tools – making the most of investment AND reduce the use of 3rd party apps and shadow IT.

Take a Step Back and Plan for Microsoft Teams Long-Term  Success

To gain the widespread adoption of Microsoft Teams across your organization, strategic planning is a key step towards long-term success. If your organization is using Teams without a strategic plan, now is the time to step back and evaluate if your users are truly using it to its full potential.

Our Team is Here to Help

At Xgility, we know what it takes to strategically plan and deploy Microsoft Teams.

Our team has been helping our clients of all sizes successfully roll out Microsoft Teams with unprecedented adoption rates. Contact us today if you would like to schedule a demo of Repstor Custodian and to learn how our team can help your organization strategically plan and deploy Microsoft Teams.

As a Microsoft Gold Partner with vast experience under our belts, we are ready to help. Contact Us Now »