Welcome

Back to: Working Together Utilising Microsoft Teams – On Demand

Hi, and welcome to Let’s Work Together utilizing Microsoft Teams.

I’m Rhonda Garvin from Palm Tree Learning.

When I was first looking at putting a software training course together, I thought Microsoft Teams would be a simple half day end user course. However, I quickly realized that there was a lot more in the product since I’d last looked, and Teams definitely went beyond the Teams meeting. I had quite a learning curve in front of me!

I was right at seeing Microsoft Teams as fitting my expertise. I’ve got quite a history in groupware and teamwork products – on the development side of a product; also in the I.T. admin side of setting up the environments across an organisation; as well as in teaching groupware products – teaching is always my favorite part.

I was also keen to help people to learn more about Microsoft Teams and how else it could help their work and their workplace. I wanted to take people’s knowlege beyond the Teams’ meeting they had been using to communicate with their clients and their colleagues, and to learn more about what else is available in Teams.

“Love that feature, Rhonda, but how could we use that feature to work better in the team and the projects that I am part of?”

“I love that feature, Rhonda, but how could I use that to work better with my external clients – in communication, in sharing information, in project management? How could it help?”

“Love that feature! But, what about the tools I could use to simplify the projects that I work on as an individual?”

Course Approach

So, I’m approaching the course a little bit differently. Rather than just being a “how to use Teams”, I’m going to start by talking about teamwork and sharing information within that team from an I.T. perspective, and what issues teams typically face.

And then I have a practical project that you are going to work on through the course. In this project, I’ll get you to focus on just one of the teams or projects that you are part of, and get you to identify what is working at the moment in the IT space when sharing information, and what needs improving on. And so then as you go through the course, there’ll be opportunities for you to work through and identify potential solutions for those issues. And you’ll pick up extra ideas that may potentially solve issues or help with issues that you didn’t think were solvable.

I love when teams find solutions together, as we just don’t all work the same way. But if it’s just you doing this course and not with one of your teams, keep that in mind. The initial solution that you find for the team just might need some ironing out so that everybody works well in that space.

Who is Rhonda Garvin?

A little bit about me. I now live on the Gold Coast. I’ve spent a lot of time in the software industry, originally in Sydney and Melbourne. I did a lot of work with Lotus Notes and Domino – that was the groupware product I was very much involved with in development and admin.
But my favorite part, as I said, has been in teaching. I’ve mostly done classroom teaching where people come in for a few hours or a few days, but I’ve also done some online teaching since the 1990s – in the very early days. I’ve very much enjoyed working with a lot of corporates, however I’ve worked with them.

Course Outline

Let’s have a look at the course outline, and all the different sections that we’re going to cover.

First we are going to look at “It’s all about Teams”. I mentioned we’re going to start from there and talk about teamwork and team issues.

And then we will get into the basics of Microsoft Teams, and how we set up a team, and we need to talk about channels in there as well.

We need to talk about adding other apps into Teams – these could be Microsoft apps, but there are also so many external applications that you can use and add into the Microsoft Teams space and connect in.

Then finally in almost the last two sections of the course, we will actually talk about Teams meetings!

Firstly from the perspective of an attendee – what you experience when you arrive into a meeting that somebody’s invited you to, what you get on the screen, and how you can change what you see on the screen. We will also talk about what should happen before you get into that meeting – getting your camera position right, getting your lighting correct, making sure you are going to be heard clearly when you speak – all about these sort of issues.

And then we’ll talk about running a meeting – starting with how to send out the invitations. But all of the other pieces as well – What about security? What about recording the meeting? What about, having an agenda? What about setting up a discussion before the actual meeting and getting that happening? All of those pieces for running a meeting.

And finally

So, lots to learn. I’m very excited that you’re coming along on this journey. Let’s learn.