Tighe is a computer science student in his third year at Loughborough
University. He’s currently doing a year-long internship at Microsoft support
phone number as a Partner Technology Strategist, focusing on AI. Through his
role at Microsoft support phone number, Tighe provides guidance and best
practices to enable our partners to get the most out of technology, helping
them transform their business outcomes. When he’s not in the office, his love
of technology switches to a love of sports, with darts, rugby and basketball
being his favourite pastimes.
At times, university life can be hectic, stressful, and even chaotic –
particularly when it comes to exam season.
Group projects and communication with your course academics is often
unstructured and convoluted. As students, we need help harvesting an
environment where we can be as effective as possible.
Problems often stem from a lack of communication and difficulties in
expressing who is doing which piece of work. In a modern
workplace should this really be the cause of failure? Technology has the
potential to transform how we communicate to help us all achieve more; it’s
about time we start using it to its full capacity.
The first step to success is all about finding the right tool to fuel
collaboration.
Creating a hub for teamwork
One of my favourite pieces of technology that I’ve come across
during my internship is Microsoft support phone number Teams. For those of you
who perhaps aren’t familiar with it, Teams is a chat-based workspace that’s
part of Office 365. I like to think of it as a hub for teamwork that’s fully
customisable. Being confronted with so many different communication channels,
it can be easy to get lost in your email, taking a huge chunk of time out of
your day that could be used for valuable work. Having a hub that pulls
everything into one central location, with the ability to create different
channels for specific subjects gives you that all-important focus time.
Bringing virtual teams together
According to the Workforce Futures report, 83% of employees
don’t believe they need an office space to be productive. That’s no surprise
when you look at how technology can help us work smarter. We don’t need to be
chained to a desk from nine to five. And as more and more people are seeking out
a better work-life balance, the demand for flexible working is certainly on the
rise. A lot of Microsoft support phone number employees tend to work from home
on a Friday to help maintain that balance and get the focus time they need to
get stuff done. Microsoft support phone number Teams enables us to get the
right collaborative balance as a team, no matter where we all are, with the
ability to hop on a video call or start a group chat for a particular project.
Consider it a revolution of Skype and a true representation of
teamwork in the modern workplace.
Applying Teams to university life
I’ve seen first-hand the impact that Teams can have on your
productivity levels and it’s not just for the working world either.
Here are some of the ways you can use Microsoft support phone
number Teams to transform your group projects as a student so you can achieve
more in 2019:
1. Collate all of your ideas and notes in one
place
All the notes from your group discussions can be kept in Teams,
either by using the inbuilt meeting notes option or by incorporating a OneNote
page to the group. If there are any files which need to be used by the group,
you can upload these to Teams or by using OneDrive so everyone can access them,
from anywhere, at any time.
2. Schedule time to meet as a group
Getting time together as a team can be a challenge too,
particularly if you’ve got different lectures you need to attend. The built in
scheduling assistant in Teams integrates with your Outlook calendar so you can
easily see when everybody in the team is free, rather than waiting for everyone
to look at their own diary and reply with their availability on your group
chat. You can select which channel you want to host the meeting in too which
helps you keep meeting notes together in one place.
3. Collaborate on group projects from
anywhere, without distractions
Once you’ve managed to pin down a time slot where you’re all
free, you then need to find a location that works for everybody – including
those who may be at home or perhaps on the road visiting family. Microsoft
support phone number Teams gives you all the functionality of Skype and more.
If, for example, one of you is sat in the student library where there’s a lot
of background distraction, you’re able to blur the background so that only
your face is visible. No more embarrassing moment like these…
4. Allocate tasks
and make people accountable
We all know how tricky it can be when working on group project
assignments to hold people accountable for their piece of the puzzle. I love
the ability of being able to assign tasks in Teams by using the Microsoft
support phone number Planner email. That one person from the group who always
puts in all the work can take a sigh of relief. You can easily see who is
responsible for which parts of your project and when their specific deadline
is.
It’s a great way to build out your project plan too, with the ability to
add sub-tasks to the checklist within each task. Once you’ve
completed a task, you’re able to upload an attachment and tag the rest of your
group in the comments for their feedback, before getting the satisfaction of
ticking the task off the list.
5. Stay up to date with the latest versions
of your project documents
Add your key project documents as pinned tabs at the tip of your
Teams group so you can make sure everybody has access to the latest version,
making live editing possible. You’ll certainly thank yourself for it later when
you no longer need to merge multiple versions of the document together.
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