With Skype for Business Online (SFBO) set to be retired later in 2021, the pressure is on for those organizations using SFBO to start finalizing their move to Microsoft Teams. But, whether you're migrating from SFBO or another platform to Microsoft Teams, there are some key things your organization should be thinking about to ensure your journey is a success.
Your stakeholders need to look at what went wrong, and what worked with previous solutions before migrating to Microsoft Teams. Your chosen collaboration solution needs to integrate, and scale, it must safeguard your information – and it should ensure compliance.
Watch the full Microsoft Teams migration webinar
Many organizations have been using several different tools and integrations because they couldn’t find an effective all-in-one solution to fit their enterprise needs. This potentially makes the migration to Teams more complex, and underlines the importance of monitoring, to ensure the most seamless transition and user experience.
The highlights
One of the reasons that Teams is so popular is that it’s constantly improving its capabilities to better enable enterprise teams to communicate more effectively and break down traditional barriers. But no matter how user-friendly a collaboration solution is, there are some crucial steps to take, to confirm that you’ve made (or are making) the right move.
Conduct a pilot
Start with a smaller cross section of users and grow that into a bigger audience. The key thing to remember is that when upgrading from one technology to another, that technology may be ingrained in an organization. So, in terms of productivity and communication there is the factor of disruption.
The goal is to minimize the disruption, keep the experience positive, and keep users engaged. Microsoft have provided a whole new world of expanded collaboration and enhanced productivity, so it’s hugely important to make the transition to Teams as smooth and anxiety free for end-users as possible.
Understand your project stakeholders
This applies to any technology migration. From achieving project goals to driving accountability, stakeholders are fundamental to the success of your Teams migration. These stakeholders can be defined in two key groups.
- The sponsorship team. Those at executive level, and department managers, who influence the migration, and have a vested interest in the success of the processes and outcomes.
- The project team. Those at the coalface, the voice teams, server teams, the network teams…even HR. These stakeholders are responsible for the training and technical aspects to ensure user readiness.
Defining the project scope
This is crucial to determine an organization’s vision, goals, and governance. It also ensures that all stakeholders are working to achieve the same end result. Questions that stakeholders need to ask are:
- What are we looking to achieve with this migration? Stakeholders need to examine the organization’s business drivers and establish the value of the migration. How will it benefit the organization in terms of productivity and profitability?
- What does successful migration look like? Will Microsoft Teams help to overcome the challenges faced by users in achieving seamless collaboration, and will you have measurable outcomes based on your key success indicators?
- What are the risks? And what plans are in place to mitigate those risks?
Other questions to ask before migrating
- How can you help your organizations understand the coexistence and interoperability between Microsoft Teams and SFBO or other collaboration tools?
- What upgrade journey best suits your business needs?
- How can you best prepare your organization for change? And how can you minimize the risk of a technology change hindering user adoption and productivity?
- What monitoring tools do you have in place to help with network readiness, as well as managing user adoption and experience?
