The hope many people have with Microsoft Teams—and many collaborative tools—is that it means they will get less email. With email still being the predominant source of input and overwhelm it is enticing to think that could be reduced. Collaborative tools like Teams can reduce email volume, but only with clear workflows in place. Otherwise, it’s just moving or scattering the overwhelm across more tools.
Here are two tips for reducing email volume with the adoption of Teams:
1. Create a Team > Channel > Wiki tab to track agendas for your recurring 1:1 and team meetings. This serves as a parking lot whenever anyone has anything to add to the agenda. Adding to the Outlook calendar invite doesn’t work because only the meeting organizer can make an update that gets pushed out to all. Creating this in Teams creates a central, trusted whiteboard for all meeting participants to contribute to as they show up.
2. Next time you’re about to fire something off on email ask yourself, “Can this wait until the next meeting?” Or, “Can this be posted in a Team Channel and use @mention to tag others to discuss?
Our Productivity and Collaboration Essentials course takes a deep dive into using Teams beyond the basics. Learn how to setup Teams for recurring meetings, managing projects, and communicating more effectively. Reach out to us if we can help you make Teams more productive at [email protected].