It’s a special kind of relentless attack all business owners and managers face. It’s the persistent, crazy, and chaotic assault on your time and attention. No one is immune, and every business deals with it.
Some leaders handle the constant pressure on their attention brilliantly, keeping the team organized and highly productive. However, most people struggle with this. They feel crushed and overwhelmed by all the things they have to keep track of and do. This goes double if your business is in growth mode and not “standing still” or casually strolling through its existence.
Add to this a remote workforce, and it can be intensely difficult to wrap your head around everything. There are projects, to-dos, deadlines, and client deliverables you and your leadership team must manage.
We as an IT company cannot tell you what projects are most important. However, we can absolutely help you and your team stay far more organized. This will allow you to know if the people on your team are properly aligned. They should prioritize the right work and focus on the things you want them to focus on. We can also help you organize communication. This minimizes the chances of a dropped ball or a communication failure. This issue is by far the #1 reason why problems happen in business.
One of the tools we recommend to clients wanting to get more operational control and clearer communication is Microsoft Teams. There are a lot of reasons why this is a “super tool” for productivity and organizational alignment. As a bonus, it typically ends up saving our clients quite a bit of money on technology. It replaces other applications, like Slack, Zoom, and dozens of popular project management software. All of it is put into one lower-cost, more secure, and more tightly integrated system.
Let me share just a few of the cool features you’ll love in Teams. Keep in mind that this list is far from complete. Microsoft Teams has over 1,900 applications. You can pick from these to integrate into a Teams Channel. Use these apps to organize information, workflow, tasks, deadlines, and documents.
Posts: The “post” feature works a lot like Slack. It allows you to post questions, reminders, and status updates to everyone on that Team regarding that project. This ensures all communication for a project is kept in one place. It also creates a history and alerts everyone on the team to what’s going on. This feature saves a lot of money for companies using Slack since it’s native and included in Microsoft Teams.
Tasks By Planner And To-Do: This section of Teams is one of our favorites. It allows you to create “complex” to-do lists. You can assign each item to one or more people. You can have a progress status, priority and due date. You can add documents and files. You can create a checklist of all the things that need to be done. Better yet, team members responsible for the project can provide status updates. They can check off completed items. This way, you know where you are with any particular project.
Video Conferencing: Teams is not as slick as Zoom. However, it has some features that make it better for team collaboration and projects. The biggest advantage over Zoom is that you can hold a video conference. The recording of the meeting will remain in that Team for easy reference. This includes all of the notes, files, and links. This is extremely helpful for people who might have missed a meeting. It makes it easy for them to find and watch the recording. It also retains a record of critical conversations. Plus, it eliminates expensive Zoom licenses for all employees because it’s included in Microsoft 365.
If you want to see a demo of Teams, we can show it to you. You can also do a cost analysis. This will help see how implementing this can save your organization money. It manages to save money on Slack, Zoom, and other project management software by combining it into one application. Click here to schedule a brief call.