As a follow-up to his webinar on “Delivering Microsoft Teams Training at Scale,” Senior IT Consultant Wey Tan answers questions about Teams training, shares tips for catering to your audience, and reveals why he chose Star Wars characters to make training a fun, engaging experience for Access Sciences’ end users.

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Episode 4: Delivering Microsoft Teams Training with Wey Tan

Julia:

Welcome to Access Answers. If you’ve been tuned into our Microsoft Teams series, you know that I’m Julia and I’ll be your host along with Angela O’Pry. Our guest today is Wey Tan, a senior IT consultant with Access Sciences, and he’ll be talking to you guys about delivering Microsoft Teams training.

Angela:

Hi, Wey. We’re so excited to have you on our podcast today. You’re live from Columbus. Welcome.

Wey:

Hi, thanks you all. Thanks for having me.

Angela:

Yeah, we were so excited to partner with you to produce the webinar that you hosted on Wednesday. We got a lot of really great feedback. I think one of the comments even said she never leaves comments, but it was an amazing presentation. So, awesome job. We wanted to take some time today to just do a little bit of a deeper dive about your experience training Teams internally, and also any advice that you might have for the audience.

Wey:

Okay.

Angela:

We received some feedback from audience members that they had just kind of been thrown into Teams without any training. And we felt a lot of empathy for that. That seems to be a trend these days. So, what advice do you have for those people who were just completely thrown into it and had no idea what to do?

Wey:

Well, they’re not alone. There’s tons and tons of users out there who are in the same boat as you. Me kind of included, Teams is pretty new to me. I haven’t really used it before this year. So, like a lot of you, we’re learning as we go.

Angela:

Yeah. And you delivered the internal Teams training, so it was kind of a train the trainer situation. What process did you go through yourself to learn more about Teams?

Wey:

A lot of what I’ve learned was from just using it. We did a lot of testing and part of my background had a lot of testing involved. So, it wasn’t too much of an issue for me to go in and come up with a lot of scenarios and then go in and test them. So, that’s what we did.

Angela:

And tell us more about the team that was involved with the internal rollout for Access Sciences.

Wey:

Sure. It was me and three other consultants that were involved in the testing and the training portions. And then we had another internal resource. We were all internal. We had another internal resource who managed the change management portions with all the communications. And then we had a couple IT guys who helped us come up with some of the IT requirements and the governance requirements. And they helped us do all the settings and the license stuff. And then finally we had our project managers and project sponsors.

Julia:

So, throughout the process, communications is such an important part of the training that you did, but from your experience, how much do you think is too much to communicate at once? Because I know there’s that constant communication as you’re training and things keep rolling out.

Wey:

Yeah. I think we needed to space it out a little bit. It depends on, I guess, how many emails your organization already sends out on a daily basis or a weekly basis. I would say once or twice a week, maybe, especially if you’re starting to do this and no one’s ever heard of Teams before, maybe front loaded at the beginning and then maybe start tapering off as people start becoming aware of what’s going on and then you can taper it off a little bit, so then people don’t become immune or numb to the constant communication where they eventually start ignoring it.

Julia:

Right. And how often would you say that you send updates on Teams?

Wey:

So now that we’ve finished our training, we’ve only sent out a few emails. We kind of waited. I think we’re doing once a month. We wait and kind of gather the list of issues people have been reporting over the month, any updates Microsoft might be coming up with and anything else that we want to show people such as tips and tricks or shortcuts and stuff like that.

Angela:

So also, what’s the plan for training new hires?

Wey:

Right. So, in the webinar, I talked about the scalability of our training and one of the examples I gave was making your training available in a portal so new hires can go and reference it. What people could do is rerecord some of their training sessions or rerecord sessions talking about certain features into clean videos, meaning you don’t have a lot of the pausing, the asking questions, stuff like that. So, they could go in and reference it when new hires come along.

Angela:

And you mentioned some new features that might be coming out. Tell us more about that.

Wey:

Yeah. So, Ignite 2020 happened just recently and some of the new features includes the together mode, the breakout rooms. So, a lot of people love using their backgrounds, their custom backgrounds, because it’s just like a fun way to use the application. I remember when Zoom came out, people went crazy just picking their custom backgrounds. So, this together mode is like a variant of that. And so, you can see kind of everybody in the same room together and the breakout rooms are kind of cool. It’s a way for you to be in mini meetings within your meeting. So, if you had like a big working session or something, and then you needed to squirrel away into another room and talk to another person, you don’t have to leave the meeting, you can just kind of join that room.

Angela:

Well, I think we’re excited to try that for Eighties Trivia that we have coming up for our 35th anniversary celebration.

Wey:

Okay. That should be fun.

Julia:

Yeah, it will be fun.

Angela:

Yeah.

Wey:

I won’t know anything.

Angela:

Yeah, we are probably the wrong group here on the call today, but two millennials and then gen Z, but it’s okay. We can still dress up and have fun.

Julia:

So, speaking of eighties, I know it’s not necessarily eighties, but more seventies. I know you use Star Wars characters to make the training fun and engaging. So, can you talk a little bit about that and how that came about?

Wey:

Sure. So originally, we had the two test accounts and we cleverly named them T migration 1, T migration 2. And it just was a mouthful to say. We actually had a couple of trainings where we use those accounts, and it was just… It got confusing because people were like, “Which one do I message?” It got confusing for us because I mentioned in our webinar that we had two trainers. So sometimes we would get mixed up which accounts we were on or something like that. So, I suggested maybe we should give these guys names. So, I didn’t want to do something boring, like John Doe or whatever. And so, I wanted to make it unique. Our project manager, Renu left it up to me and she said your call and my favorite movie is Star Wars. So, I just came up with two main characters and I put pictures on the accounts and everything and kind of took off from there.

Julia:

It worked because we got great feedback from the surveys that you put out at the end of training. So, speaking on that, how do you recommend others get that feedback after training has been rolled out in using it to help facilitate future trainings or updating on Teams?

Wey:

So, we use QR codes to help users get to the training. So, what other organizations use doesn’t really matter in terms of what they use to collect feedback. It can be free stuff like Google Docs, there’s polls available on there. There’s SurveyMonkey. The important thing is that you ask the right questions. Another question that we asked is what training did they attend? It was a little bit of a lengthy survey, but it wasn’t something that you had to think too hard about. So, we asked things like, “Did they just think the tasks were appropriate? Did you understand the presenter?” Things like that. But then we also made sure we asked specifically, “Did you learn how to look up an external contact? Did you learn how to start a group chat?” So, we specifically targeted the certain tasks and ask them if they were clear on all those steps. So, we could kind of go back and refine our training, be more clear about our instructions if they weren’t clear on that.

Angela:

Yeah. I think that’s really great to ask specific pointed questions rather than just, did you agree or disagree or how did you like the training? And on the training for the Darth Vader and Obi-Wan, didn’t you also have fun backgrounds?

Wey:

I did. Oh, okay. So something, I guess I forgot to mention that I just grabbed some screenshots off of the Internet, but if that had a picture of me I guess, dressed in Star Wars stuff, but yeah, she had that… I remember also doing this a couple of times in some of the trainings, where I… Well, this is a podcast, so you can’t see, but I pulled out the helmets and when we were asked to turn on our cameras, I put it on, and I guess that helped wake everyone up.

Julia:

Well, I know everyone’s pretty crazy about the Team’s background. I think that’s most people’s favorite feature. Angela, actually I know you know Wey, but I’m telling the audience, came up with a bunch of branded Teams backgrounds, and everyone in the company kind of went crazy over them and she keeps rolling out with more as kind of a fun surprise. I think you just did Halloween ones.

Angela:

Yeah.

Wey:

Yeah, I saw that.

Angela:

It’s officially October now. So, I think it’s officially appropriate to put out pumpkins and decorate your Team’s background for Halloween. Okay, Wey, so one of the polls that you did in the webinar ask the audience what stumbling blocks they’ve either already experienced or anticipate to experience? The number one answer to that was how to cater based on user needs. What advice do you have for catering to the audience?

Wey:

Okay. We need to know first of all, who they’re going to be using Teams with. Are they going to be primarily using it with each other internally? If they know that they are going to be using it with third-party accounts, third-party companies, they need to know some of the issues that may come with that or how to deal with some of those things. Know some of the limitations surrounding talking with third party people or people outside their organization, I should say. And then know how they are going to share files and things like that. Are they going to be sharing it within Teams or? So, this is again, going back to the part where I talk about governance and establishing all that upfront before training Teams so people know. So, if organizations decide that you shouldn’t be sharing your documents on Teams, you should be actually sharing links to SharePoint instead. So that kind of stuff gets decided upfront. So, you need to know your organization is working a certain way, and then you can then cater your training to fit that.

Angela:

And how do you assess technical skills of the users? You talked about champions, which also Linda and Sondra talked about it in their last webinar, identifying the champions are the early adopters. Any tips for that?

Wey:

So, assessing technical skills is very subjective. It’s kind of like if they can pick up the tool and use it reasonably well without needing to ask for much help, then I would consider them technically competent. If they pick it up and have no idea what to do or how to even install it, then maybe then they need a little bit more handholding. And then if you’re like a computer programmer and you eat and sleep computer programming, then I would assume that you would be able to pick it up and not have any problems using it. And then in terms of the champions… So, we picked some key people within each project. A lot of them were managers or supervisors, team leads within that project. So those are the people who we either appointed or they volunteered to become the champions.

And similarly, with Teams, that’s just kind of how champions have worked. The client that I referred to in the past, when we had training, we also kind of used the managers as the champions because they were the ones who wanted to drive the change, so they volunteered to be the champion.

Angela:

So, Wey you mentioned in the beginning of your webinar, you showed the picture of the bread that you were baking during quarantine.

Wey:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I actually started doing the sourdough stuff or looking into it before coronavirus, but I was kind of too intimidated to really start. And so, I guess it gave me an opportunity to really get into it when we were in full lockdown mode, it was fun.

Angela:

Is it a soothing hobby for you or is it stressful, because cooking of any sort stresses me out?

Wey:

I don’t find it stressful. It’s a little bit of a challenge and I kind of learn a little bit something new each time I do it. And then again, I kind of change up something each time I do it. And that kind of explains how the results vary each time I do it. But yeah, it’s a long process. It’s not something that you can do in a day. It really takes all day to prepare. The change management resource on our team, she actually had to pause one of our meetings once because she had to run off and go do her dough, she said. So, a lot of people picked up sourdough bread baking during the quarantine, so.

Julia:

Yeah, I am not one of those people baking during quarantine.

Angela:

I heard a lot about banana bread too.

Wey:

That too. Yeah. So, sourdough, it takes two days. It takes all day to prepare the dough. And then the next day is when you bake.

Julia:

It’s a whole lot of patience.

Angela:

So, the whole thing about immediate gratification is just a myth, right?

Wey

For what?

Angela:

For millennials, like how we have-

Wey:

No.

Angela:

… to have instant gratification for everything.

Wey:

Yeah, yeah. That’s when you just go to the store and buy it.

Angela:

Yeah.

Julia:

So, also mentioned in your webinar, you said that you highly recommend that users put Microsoft Teams on their cell phone or mobile device for use there. So why do you feel so strongly about that?

Wey:

Yeah, I feel like if you don’t use it on your phone, you’re not using Teams to its fullest, I guess, potential. It’s just so seamless to be able to do something on your computer and then just walk away and then continue that on your phone. And then it can be a good thing and a bad thing at the same time if you don’t want to be able to be reached at all times, but just like anything else on your phone, you’re able to silence those notifications, but it’s just nice to be able to check your phone and then be able to see any messages that you’ve missed without having to go back and log into your computer and all that stuff.

And then on several occasions, because we’re all working from home, we have things to do, like take out our dogs and stuff. So, during one of our meetings, I had to take my dog out for a potty break and it was easy. No one noticed that I was outside. You can just join from your phone seamlessly, no one’s able to tell. And then you can pop in your earphones and just go about your day and still participate in the meeting.

Angela:

You could also take the call from IKEA, I hear.

Wey:

Right. So, I-

Julia:

You have been exposed.

Angela:

Yeah.

Wey:

… I had to take a meeting once, I did not drive so I was sitting in the passenger seat and I was still participating in the meeting. The signal stays strong throughout the way. And then when we got to IKEA, I hopped onto their Wi-Fi and still listened in on the meeting although it was a little loud on my end. I’m sure everyone was looking at me like, “What is he doing? What is he talking about?” We were talking about chatbots. We were planning out the chatbot. But yeah, it’s kind of how people are going to work today. I think Microsoft plans on having people be a lot more productive. Having Teams on your phone is just going to be a new way of life for everyone.

Angela:

Did you do any IKEA hacks because I’ve been seeing a lot of that on TikTok?

Wey:

No. I don’t even remember what we went there to go buy anymore. I think it was something fabulous. My wife just wanted to go out to go to IKEA because we hadn’t… Oh, I think it had just opened back up and they were actually out of what we were looking for.

Angela:

Oh, bummer.

Julia:

So, you mentioned the chatbots just a little bit ago and I know our audience has heard about the chatbots once or twice, once in Renu’s webinar and then we have a blog out about it. What’s your experience working with the chatbot and the benefits you see from having one in your organization for Teams?

Wey:

Yeah. So, our chatbot is still in its infancy. We named it Omni because chatbots should be omnipotent. So, I thought it would be cool name to name it Omni. So, our chatbot is still a baby, has a lot to learn still. There’s a lot of technologies that make up the chatbot and it’s really amazing what it can do and it’s very scalable. So, like I said in the webinar, it can be very simple and give you just clickable answers or it can understand almost full sentences or paragraphs and be able to pick out kind of what you’re asking. So yeah, I’m excited to learn more about everything that kind of makes up the chatbot and see where ours grows up to be.

Angela:

I just had a random question that came to my mind about the voice to chat feature. Like on my iPhone, I can say, “Text Wey, happy birthday.” Does the chat feature in Teams have the same ability? Could I say, “Hi, Omni create a new team site called blah, blah blah?”

Wey:

So yeah, the chatbot works off of a chat like a regular Teams chat. And now on your phone, one of the newest updates on your phone is it uses Cortana, which is Microsoft’s version of Siri. So, I think so. I think you could just do voice to text with it.

Angela:

What about using Microsoft Teams on a Mac? Is that a different experience versus a PC?

Wey:

Yes. So, I have Microsoft Teams on my Mac and my work laptop. Again, kind of like having it on your phone it’s nice to be able to just see when messages come in. I also am able to share files. Again, this all depends on how your organization wants you to be able to share files, but like let’s say you need a link or something like that. I can share the link once and then jump over to my Mac and then still have it on there without having to say, email myself again. In terms of the experience, that part might be not as in sync as the updates that are coming out to the Microsoft version, the version numbers aren’t always going to be the same and some of the experience might be a little bit different. But in general, just being able to just jump from each device if you have a Mac it’s kind of neat to be able to do that.

Angela:

So, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you what your favorite of the three C’s were. Linda and Sondra introduced them in their webinar. The executives revealed three C’s to Microsoft team success. They were culture, champions, and communication. What do you think is the most important C?

Wey:

I think my favorite C would be the culture part. Kind of appreciating the differences of the organization, realizing that everybody works the same way. It would be a really boring place to work at if everyone worked same way. And it’s kind of a challenge to deal with those differences, cater what you’re doing to kind of help those people out.

Angela:

Yeah. I think culture is also very important and knowing your audience like you talked about. So, thank you so much for being on our podcast today. We’ll see you very soon for our internal anniversary celebration.

Wey:

Can’t wait.

Angela:

Yeah, celebrating 35 years of Access Sciences. So, we’re going to have a fun virtual eighties party and anyone listening today can also celebrate our anniversary on November 12th. We’ll do a virtual game night, virtual bingo, and all proceeds will be donated to Girls Who Code, supporting young girls in STEM. So, stay tuned for more information about that.

Julia:

And on a last note, if you weren’t able to tune into Wey’s webinar on Delivering Microsoft Teams Training at Scale, we’ll link that below so that you can take a look. It’ll be available on our website.