Implementation of Microsoft Teams

at organizations in Finland

Otto Vauhkonen
Master’s Thesis in Economics
Supervisors: D.Sc Anna Sell
Dr. Anssi Öörni
Åbo Akademi University
Faculty of Social Sciences, Business and Economics
Åbo 2020
 Otto Vauhkonen

Åbo Akademi University – Faculty of Social Sciences, Business and Economics

Research field: Information Systems
Author: Otto Vauhkonen
Title: Implementation of Microsoft Teams at big organizations’ in Finland
Supervisors: D.Sc. Anna Sell, Dr. Anssi Öörni

Abstract:
A digital workplace will seek constantly new digital tools that will assist the way of work
to become more agile, transparent and effective. Digital change needs to be well planned,
managed and executed. Change management is playing a big part in the implementation
of tools such as Microsoft Teams. Tools for digital communication might seem at a first
glimpse as a straightforward IT implementation. However, as a communications tool that
functions like an intranet, data repository and desktop combined into one hub, some
change management will be of good use.

The results in this thesis presents factors that companies in Finland can take into
consideration when implementing software such as Microsoft Teams. In the discussion
chapter an example of a suitable implementation path is presented. By using this template
in the process of implementing new software, companies can avoid making the same
mistakes as others have done before. The aim of this thesis, in the long run, is that
acceptance of new technology will be more pleasant and smooth for the end-user
(employee). This thesis also highlights the use of Microsoft Teams in Finnish
organizations’ point of view.

Key words:
Implementation of new digital technology, Software implementation, Change
management, Digital collaboration platform, Technology acceptance model (TAM),
Ease of use (EOU), Behavioral intentions, Microsoft Teams, Internal communications.
Date: 24.05.2020 Number of pages: 114

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Table of Contents
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... 2
Table of Figures ................................................................................................................. 4
List of Tables...................................................................................................................... 5
Abbreviations and Acronyms............................................................................................. 5
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 6
1.1 Background ......................................................................................................... 6
1.2 Outline ................................................................................................................. 7
1.3 Microsoft Teams .................................................................................................. 7
1.4 Motivation ........................................................................................................... 8
1.5 Problem ............................................................................................................... 9
1.6 Research questions ............................................................................................ 10
2. Research methodology ............................................................................................. 10
2.1 Literature analysis ............................................................................................. 11
2.2 Open personal discussions................................................................................. 12
2.3 Implementation datapoints – (Company x) ....................................................... 12
2.4 Questionnaires ................................................................................................... 13
3. Theory and literature review .................................................................................... 14
3.1 Change Management Models ............................................................................ 14
3.1.1 Kotter’s Eight steps to transform your organization .................................. 14
3.1.2 Prosci: ADKAR ......................................................................................... 15
3.2 Technology Adoption Models ........................................................................... 16
3.2.1 Theory of Reasoned Action ....................................................................... 19
3.2.2 Theory of Planned Behavior ...................................................................... 19
3.2.3 Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior ................................................ 20
3.2.4 3.1.4 Technology Acceptance Model......................................................... 20
3.2.5 Technology Acceptance Model 2............................................................... 21
3.2.6 Technology Acceptance Model 3............................................................... 22
3.2.7 Motivational Model.................................................................................... 23
3.3 Summary of the literature review ...................................................................... 24
4. Microsoft Teams for an organization ....................................................................... 25
4.1 Knowledge sharing and learning within an organization .................................. 25
4.2 Potential benefits of using Microsoft Teams ..................................................... 26
4.2.1 Localizing files ........................................................................................... 26
4.2.2 Collaborative real-time work ..................................................................... 26
4.2.3 Version history control ............................................................................... 27
4.2.4 Transparency and internal communications............................................... 27
4.3 The Project Champion ....................................................................................... 27
4.4 SaaS security ..................................................................................................... 28
5. Open personal discussion with Microsoft Professionals .......................................... 29
5.1 Antti Kiviniemi.................................................................................................. 29
5.2 Kati Viita 11.12.2019 ........................................................................................ 33
5.3 (Harri Mikkanen 19 Dec. 2019.......................................................................... 35
6. Discussions with third-party consultants ................................................................. 40
6.1 Karoliina Kettukari 4.12.2019 ........................................................................... 40

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6.2 Katja Jokisalo 9.12.2019 ................................................................................... 42

6.3 Vesa Nopanen 11.12.2019................................................................................. 44
6.4 Juha Lindfors 13.1.2020 .................................................................................... 47
6.5 Heidi Selkäinaho 8.1.2020 ................................................................................ 50
6.6 Janne Ariluoto 22.1.2020 .................................................................................. 52
7. Discussions with Company solution owners ........................................................... 55
7.1 Max Henttu 11.12.2019 ..................................................................................... 55
7.2 Heidi Von Bell 19.12.2019................................................................................ 57
7.3 Anonymous Senior Communications Manager 16.01.2020 ............................. 60
8. Implementation datapoints – (Company x) .............................................................. 62
9. Structure of questionnaires ....................................................................................... 64
9.1 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey ............................................ 64
9.2 Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with
Microsoft Teams .......................................................................................................... 67
10. Results ................................................................................................................... 67
11. Suggested model for companies implementing Microsoft Teams ........................ 79
11.1 Pre phase ........................................................................................................ 79
11.2 IT-Setup ......................................................................................................... 79
11.3 Planning phase and building the team ........................................................... 80
11.4 IT-Governance ............................................................................................... 81
11.5 Pilot phase and Champions program ............................................................. 81
11.6 Communicating the upcoming change .......................................................... 81
11.7 Education ....................................................................................................... 82
11.8 Teams launch (GO-Live Event) ..................................................................... 82
11.9 Follow-up and continuous development ........................................................ 82
12. Discussion ............................................................................................................. 83
12.1 Practical implications ..................................................................................... 83
12.2 Theoretical implications ................................................................................ 83
12.3 Future research ............................................................................................... 84
13. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 84
14. Swedish Summary - Svensk Sammanfattning ...................................................... 86
14.1 Teori ............................................................................................................... 86
14.2 Metod ............................................................................................................. 88
15. Acknowledgements ............................................................................................... 90
16. References ............................................................................................................. 91
17. Appendices ............................................................................................................ 95
17.1 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey ........................................ 95
17.2 Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with
Microsoft Teams ........................................................................................................ 105
18. Graphs ................................................................................................................. 112

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Table of Figures
Figure 1 Microsoft Teams Numbers (Microsoft Ignite 2019) ........................................... 8
Figure 2 Personal discussions with professionals (Nov. 2019-Feb. 2020) ...................... 12
Figure 3 End-user questionnaire ...................................................................................... 13
Figure 4 An overview of Adoption / Acceptance Models (Taherdoost, 2018) ................ 17
Figure 5 Adoption model (Taherdoost and Masrom, 2009) ............................................ 18
Figure 6 Theory of Reasoned Action ............................................................................... 19
Figure 7 Theory of Planned Behavior .............................................................................. 20
Figure 8 The Technology Acceptance Model, version 1. (Davis, et. al., 1989) .............. 20
Figure 9 Technology Acceptance Model 2 (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000) ...................... 22
Figure 10 Technology Acceptance Model 3 (Venkatesh and Bala, 2008) ...................... 23
Figure 11 Metrics in Teams (Microsoft) .......................................................................... 39
Figure 12 Skype for business messages (Company x) ..................................................... 63
Figure 13 Private chat data (Company x) ........................................................................ 63
Figure 14 Messages / Calls / Meetings (Company x) ...................................................... 64
Figure 15 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q5 .................................... 65
Figure 16 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q2 .................................... 66
Figure 17 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q12 .................................. 66
Figure 18 Respondents to Appendix B ............................................................................ 67
Figure 19 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q6 .................................... 68
Figure 20 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q7 compared to Appendix
B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with Microsoft Teams Q15 .... 69
Figure 21 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q8 .................................... 70
Figure 22 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q19 .................................. 71
Figure 23 Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with
Microsoft Teams Q17 ...................................................................................................... 72
Figure 24 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q21 .................................. 73
Figure 25 Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with
Microsoft Teams Q24 ...................................................................................................... 73
Figure 26 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q23 .................................. 74
Figure 27 Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with
Microsoft Teams Q21 ...................................................................................................... 74
Figure 28 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q25 .................................. 75
Figure 29 Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with
Microsoft Teams .............................................................................................................. 76
Figure 30 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q27 .................................. 77
Figure 31 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q29 .................................. 78
Figure 32 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q33 .................................. 78

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List of Tables
Table 1 Eight steps to transform your organization (Kotter, 1995) ................................. 14
Table 2 Negative attitudes towards Microsoft Appendix A............................................. 70
Table 3 Negative attitudes towards Microsoft Appendix B. ............................................ 71
Table 4 Bandwidth requirements ..................................................................................... 80

Abbreviations and Acronyms

A Attitude
API Application Programming Interface
CC Courtesy Copy
DTPB Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
HR Human Resources
IT Information Technology
IS Information System(s)
MM Motivational Model
MS Microsoft
NAS Network-Attached Storage
OS Operating System
PEU Perceived Ease of Use
PU Perceived Usefulness
SfB Skype for Business
TAM Technology Acceptance Model
TPB Theory of Planned Behavior
TRA Theory of Reasoned Action
URL Uniform Resource Locator
UX User experiences

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1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Companies worldwide are constantly trying to determine more efficient ways to work.
Internal communications and knowledge sharing are and have for a long time been the
only certain way to keep knowledge on a consistent level inside an organization. (Nonaka,
1991) Wrote in Harvard Business Review almost three decades ago about the ‘knowledge-
creating’ company, the same facts still exist, but the knowledge is spreading over the
internet in a matter of milliseconds and therefore, also competition is becoming more
intense day by day.

Software plays a huge role in what we can accomplish since it functions as the main tools
in the digital workplace. A digital workplace is, according to Gartner, something that
‘enables new, more effective ways of working; raises employee engagement and agility;
and exploits consumer-oriented styles and technologies.’ (Gartner, 2020). Companies in
Finland as well as the rest of the world strive to find the digital tools that enable them to
complete their work in a more efficient way. ‘Digitalization is the race to be on the top of
the digital wave year after year, in order to stay competitive.’ (Collin et al., 2015).

For any company to stay competitive amongst rivals in the same industry, new technology
must be continuously implemented (Yang and Meyer, 2015). Decisions against using the
newest technology accessible today could result in the same kinds of missed opportunities
as many companies faced, when deciding against utilizing the internet once it came along.
The future is inevitable and different future events determine what kind of decisions today
turn out to be the most valuable when looking back a few years from now. All that a
company can do for the future, is to keep constantly looking for new technological
solutions to support our core businesses.

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Study conducted by Ravichandran, T & Lertwongsatien. C suggests:

‘ organizations that have failed to systematically develop IS functional capabilities or
invest in the acquisition of IS resources could find themselves lacking the necessary
capacity to leverage IT in the creation and sustenance of competitive positions.’
(Ravichandran and Lertwongsatien, 2005)

1.2 Outline

This study will focus on the usage of Microsoft Teams software as a solution for internal
collaboration and communications. In order to specify the research area, companies with
employees in Finland will be in focus. The study will be aimed at mapping what exactly
companies in Finland have done in terms of preparation, execution and follow-up on the
implementation of Microsoft Teams. The study is conducted with a mix of qualitative and
quantitative data to discover gaps in the assistance of user adaption of Microsoft Teams
at companies in Finland.

1.3 Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) is the main communication software for Office365
Business clients, it enables users to chat, arrange meetings, share and work on documents,
audio and video calls with the option of screen-sharing, etc. In addition, Microsoft Teams
does offer a variety of plugin apps that migrate MS Teams to other software. Since MS
Teams was launched in 2017 Microsoft has been referring to it as ‘the hub for teamwork’
in Microsoft O365.

On July 30th Microsoft announced that Skype for business will be retired on July 31st,
2021 (Skay, 2019). Many businesses are therefore, facing a natural shift from using
Microsoft Skype for Business (SfB) towards using Microsoft Teams. Microsoft has
integrated Microsoft Teams as a part of their Business Office 365 license plans: Business

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Essentials, Business Premium, Enterprise E1, E3, or E5 and Enterprise E4 (for anyone
who purchased it prior to its retirement) (Microsoft, 2020).

Figure 1 Microsoft Teams Numbers (Microsoft Ignite 2019)

Microsoft teams works primarily without download on an internet browser via the URL
teams.microsoft.com. For a full range of features and a better user experience Microsoft
Teams is available to download on desktop platforms Windows, Linux and macOS As
well as on mobile platforms iOS and Android (Microsoft, 2020).

1.4 Motivation

For professionals who have graduated with Information Systems as major subject a rather
high percentage are working as some form of consultancy (Helsingin yliopiston koulutus-
ja kehittämispalvelut, 2019). Any student majoring in Information Systems could
probably see themselves working within consultancy following their graduation.

There are multiple interests in remote work such as communications between offices,
communication between merchant and supplier and communication between on-shore and
off-shore locations. Remote work reduces the amount of traveling which in turn reduces
emissions and company carbon footprint that has become a popular topic during the last

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decade. The employee work-life-balance is an interest for the employee standpoint.

Parents in Finland with small children might need to stay home in a case where the child
is ill. Working remotely from home gives the company close to the same value nowadays
that computers are thin laptops and all data is accessible over the web.

Implementation of new Information Systems (IS) at a workplace might cause some change
resistance. Microsoft products have at some level lacked supporters within the tech
community. Will MS Teams be a tool used at companies to spark new ways to work? How
have companies in Finland managed to implement MS Teams in their day-to-day work?
Furthermore, what can we learn from these cases when implementing Teams to be used
as the first chosen tool for internal communications across a whole organization or to
replace an existing tool - in the future?

1.5 Problem

Companies are implementing Microsoft Teams as a tool for more efficient and transparent
co-working. The reason behind the motive to implement teams may vary depending on
the company. The first initiative to complete an implementation might come from the
company lead, communications department, HR, IT, or an IT-Partner (Microsoft itself or
a third-party IT-partner). Companies that decide to implement Microsoft Teams are often
already using Skype for Business (SfB) and are therefore, sooner or later going to be
forced to switch from SfB to Teams due to Microsoft’s decision to stop updating SfB from
June 2021 (Skay, 2019).

Internal communications tools are digital tools that might be perceived ease of use
compared to more technical software. Microsoft Teams offers a whole new way of
working in groups, it requires some bottom-rules and a so-called playbook with common
rules and guidelines on how to use the software and for what purpose. Implementing
Teams at a large company can be quite a long process. An implementation of this sort will
be an ongoing project with strong involvement from the whole organization. Important to
know, is that implementing Microsoft Teams is not as easy as just launching a new
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technology for the employees to use. For a company to benefit from using Microsoft
Teams, all employees must be involved and given the opportunity to take the time to adopt
the software. External help in the form of consultants within communication and change
management are strongly suggested. In global companies, there is also the question of
different cultures and languages which might cause some extra work with the translation
of guidelines and help-sections. Microsoft Teams is being implemented in as many ways
as there are companies implementing it. Figure 2 Personal discussions with professionals
(Nov. 2019-Feb. 2020).

The purpose of this thesis is to find out where Finnish organizations’ stand in their
implementation of Microsoft Teams. Furthermore, to highlight the possible do’s and
don’ts and paint a picture of how an implementation project could look like, what are
things to consider and what are the things that should be focused on prior to and during
the implementation.

1.6 Research questions

1. What are the reasons and aimed benefit of using Microsoft Teams?

2. How the can success of a Microsoft Teams implementation be measured?

How has the implementation of Microsoft Teams resulted in Finnish companies
according to these metrics?

3. What are the suggested steps in a Microsoft Teams implementation project?

Can we name any keys to success? What type of education assists the end-user?

2. Research methodology
In this chapter the research methods are presented and motivated. In addition, the
collected data and the interviewed professionals are presented.

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2.1 Literature analysis

Qualitative and quantitative research are commonly used methods for research.
Combining parts of the two types of research is done in all behavioral research (Newman
and Ridenour, 1998)

Data collection methods, such as observation, interviews, open-response questionnaire

items, verbal reports, diaries, and discourse analysis are all forms of qualitative research
(Croker, 2009). Qualitative research is often conducted in a face to face meeting.
However, it can also be held via phone (Eriksson and Kovalainen 2008). In this study the
data collection method of choice will be qualitative open interviews. The set of interviews
is going to be held via phone call or Microsoft Teams video-call. The interviews work as
a knowledge ground for creating questionnaires aimed for professionals working with
implementing Microsoft Teams. The set of personal discussions are qualitative data that
are presented in chapters 5–7.

Quantitative research is based on numbers and statistical methods. The methods seek
measurements and analyses that can be replicated by other researchers. (King, Keohane
and Verba, 1994). One main form of quantitative method that will be used in this study is
surveying. ‘Surveying is a research method used to get information about certain groups
of people representative of some larger group of interest’ (Berger, 2018).

For the literature review a selection of adaption models will be reviewed. The selected
models include Kotter’s Eight steps to transform your organization, Prosci: ADKAR
model, Technology Adoption Model, Theory of Reasoned Action, Theory of Planned
Behavior, Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior, Technology Acceptance Model,
Technology Acceptance Model 2, Technology Acceptance Model 3 and the
Motivational Model. Knowledge sharing and learning within an organization will be
investigated in order to build an understanding of the value in collaborative working.
The potential benefits of using Microsoft Teams will be investigated. Some basic
functions that Teams include will be investigated those include; the process of localizing

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files, working collaboratively in real-time, version history control, transparency and

internal communications, the project champion, and SaaS security.

2.2 Open personal discussions

In order to form a good understanding of Microsoft Teams implementation projects a list

of professionals will be invited for an interview. This group of professionals consists of i.
Implementation project owners / internal team members of implementing companies, ii.
Microsoft personnel – Advisory position for helping large scale companies in
implementing Microsoft products and iii. Third-party consultants, that are specializing in
consulting within the implementation of Microsoft products.

Project owners /
third-party consultants Microsoft professionals
personnel of impl. comp.

Karoliina
Kettukari Harri Heidi
Mikkanen Von Bell
Vesa
Nopanen
Kati Max
Viita Henttu
Heidi
Selkäinaho
Antti Professional
Kiviniemi Y
Juha
Lindfors

Katja
Jokisalo
Company X
Janne
Ariluoto

Figure 2 Personal discussions with professionals (Nov. 2019-Feb. 2020)

2.3 Implementation datapoints – (Company x)

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Measuring success can be a tricky part of the implementation of Microsoft Teams. In order
to gain a better understanding and having a concrete example from a Finnish organization,
a large organization (+25 000 employees) agreed to share their implementation data with
the agreement of keeping the organization non-disclosed. These data can be utilized as
part of this thesis in order to form a better guide for other organizations to follow and
thereby succeed in their implementation of Microsoft Teams or similar information
systems.

2.4 Questionnaires

As the qualitative part of this thesis, some basic questionnaires are used to measure
opinions and assumptions that there are around the implementation, adaption, and use of
Microsoft Teams as a tool for internal communication. Appendixes to these surveys can
be found in chapter 17 of this document.

Questionnaire Summary
Responses of
Answers

End user questionnaire Conclution of

(Employees) factors supporting
adaption

Figure 3 End-user questionnaire

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3. Theory and literature review

3.1 Change Management Models

3.1.1 Kotter’s Eight steps to transform your organization

Kotter’s model for change management is a linear step-by-step model for successful
organizational change. These steps are presented in Table 1 Eight steps to transform your
organization (Kotter, 1995).
1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
Examining market and competitive realities
Identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities

2. Forming a Powerful Guiding Coalition

Assembling a group with enough power to lead the change effort Encouraging the
group to work together as a team

3. Creating a Vision
Creating a vision to help direct the change effort Developing strategies for achieving
that vision

4. Communicating the Vision

Using every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies Teaching
new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition

5. Empowering Others to Act on the Vision

Getting rid of obstacles to change
Changing systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision Encouraging risk-
taking and nontraditional ideas, activities and actions

6. Planning for and Creating Short-Term Wins

Planning for visible performance improvements Creating those improvements
Recognizing and rewarding employees involved in the improvements

7. Consolidating Improvements and Producing Still More Change

Using increased credibility to change systems, structures and policies that don’t fit the
vision Hiring, promoting and developing employees who can implement the vision
Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes and change agents

8.Institutionalizing New Approaches

Articulating the connections between the new behaviors and corporate success
Developing the means to ensure leadership development and succession

Table 1 Eight steps to transform your organization (Kotter, 1995)

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3.1.2 Prosci: ADKAR

Prosci’s ADKAR model is an acronym that consists of the words Awareness, Desire,
Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement

Awareness
Awareness is the first step of the implementation where the task is to sort out the business
need. In this stage employees are made aware of the current situation and the needs and
wants of change in the organization. Awareness will have resistance at first but by making
constant efforts towards the awareness of the need for change the resistance will decrease.

Desire
The second step in ADKAR is Desire, once the awareness is tackled the desire to use the
IS is required. The step is done during concept & design phase, ‘The employee’s personal
motivators or barriers contribute to their level of desire to use the new software’ (Prosci
inc.)

Knowledge
The third step is sharing the knowledge on how to change. Once the awareness and desire
are built sharing detailed knowledge can begin. If the employees are sent to training
without awareness or desire the training will lack effect for the adoption. Knowledge
includes instructions on how to use the IS. Knowledge step will be done during the
implementation phase.

Ability
Once the knowledge is in place the ability can be mastered. Where knowledge is about
navigating and learning the buttons, pages and folders for use of the IS, the ability is
knowhow in being able to put things into action. Ability step will be done during the
implementation phase just as knowledge.

Reinforcement

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Once the employees have all the previous steps under control iteration of the use-cases
and features can begin. Reinforcement is all about finding new ways to utilize the tool and
reinforcing the users by following the user groups utilization of the IS. By sharing user
stories and use cases and educating employees in functions the knowledge towards the IS
will grow. Knowledge work will be done after the implementation, in the
postimplementation phase which is supposed to be ongoing until the end of the use for the
IS.

3.2 Technology Adoption Models

User-friendly software ‘User-friendliness’ is what you can hear people talk about when
they refer to a programs ability to be used from a level of no prior experience of system
use. The user-friendliness of an information system or software in academic research is
often measured by a model for adoption or acceptance. Adoption models are models that
describe the users’ path from point A to point B, where point A is a state of use that is
minimal or close to non-existent towards a new technology and point B is the state where
the new technology is part of everyday habits (often at work environments). The
Technology adaption has for long been studied at workplaces purely for the interest of
employers to make their company employees work more effectively. Today, technology
is surrounding us wherever we go since it is packed in mobile devices, the self-service
point of sales is becoming more common and online reservations/ orderings and purchases
are used more frequently. Taherdoost & Masrom examined smart card technology
acceptance using the adoption model. In their article, they have defined the variations in
different acceptance models.

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Figure 4 An overview of Adoption / Acceptance Models (Taherdoost, 2018)

In addition to variables seen in Figure 5, computer playfulness shows an effect on

perceived ease of use according to the study (Hackbarth, Grover and Yi, 2003).

Figure 5 Adoption model (Taherdoost and Masrom, 2009) Is mapping out factors that
bring satisfaction and external variables that affect the end user attitude towards the use
and adoption of new technology. Each variable is also defined and backed up by previous
research.

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 Variable Definition
Awareness The degree to which an individual is
aware about the technology.
Otto Vauhkonen
Support The degree to which an individual
believes that an organizational and
technical infrastructure exists to
support use of the system.
Anxiety The degree to which users are worried
about using technology.
Ease of Use The degree to which a person believes
that using a particular system is free
of effort.
Usefulness The degree to which a person believes
that using a particular system would
enhance his or her job performance.
Security The degree to which a person feels
that security is important to him and
believes that using smart card is
secure.
Compatibility The degree to which the innovation is
perceived to be consistent with the
potential users’ existing values,
previous experiences and needs.
Image The degree to which use of an
innovation is perceived to enhance
one’s image or status in
one's social system.
Social Influence The degree to which an
individual perceives that it is
important others believe he or
she uses the new system.
Triability The degree to which an innovation
may be experimented with before
adoption.
Visibility The degree to which the results
of an innovation are visible and
communicable to others.
Demographic Age, Gender, Education,
Experience.
Figure 5 Adoption model (Taherdoost and Masrom, 2009)
Source
Al-Alawi and Al-Amer (2006),
Bandura (1982)
Bailey and Pearson (1983),
Al-Gahtani. et al (2007)
Bailey and Pearson (1983),
Igbaria. et al (1996)
Davis (1989),
Bailey and Pearson (1983)
Davis (1989),
Venkatesh and Davis (2000),
Bailey and Pearson (1983)
Bailey and Pearson (1983),
Vijayasarathy (2004)
Rogers (2003)
Moore and Benbasat (1991),
Venkatesh and Davis (1996),
Venkatesh and Davis (2000)
Ajzen (1985),
Venkatesh and Davis (1996),
Venkatesh and Davis (2000)
Rogers (1995),
Rogers (2003)
Rogers (1995),
Rogers (2003),
Moore and Benbasat (1991)
Agarwal and Prasad (1999),
Venkatesh and Morris (2000)
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Models for measuring the adoption or acceptance of an IS are numerous, one of the most
notorious models is called the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). TAM has had
various versions and in the following chapters will attempt to explain the evolvement of
the model. The reason this thesis will focus on TAM instead of other similar models, such
as the theory of reasoned action (TRA) or the theory of planned behavior (TPB), is that
TAM shows better performance according to previous studies (Venkatesh et al., 2003).
Just as any other model, also the original version of TAM has become outdated for use in
modern-day organizational implementation projects. Therefore, the new version of TAM
will be in focus and the differences of the models will be discussed in chapter 3.3.

3.2.1 Theory of Reasoned Action

Figure 6 Theory of Reasoned Action

The theory of reasoned action (TRA) by Dr. Martin Fishbein and later revised and
expanded by Ajzen and Fishbein describes a person’s intention to behave in a certain way
where the intention is a decision or ‘attitude’ that is in focus when investigating the path
towards the outcome. Furthermore, the theory gives weight to the variable ‘subjective
norms’ which represents the impact of influential groups on the intention (desire). The
sum of ‘Norm’ and ‘Attitude’ forms the intention which strongly determines future
behavior (Fishbein 1967; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975)

3.2.2 Theory of Planned Behavior

The theory of planned behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991) describes the correlation between
beliefs and behaviors and was made to improve TRA. Perceived behavioral
control is the added variable which takes into account the person’s perception of the
behavior being easy or difficult.

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Figure 7 Theory of Planned Behavior

3.2.3 Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior

The model for the decomposed theory of planned behavior (DTPB) has been criticized as
a rather complex model compared to the other competing models. According to Taylor &
Todd (1995), if the goal is to predict IT usage, then TAM should be the model of choice.
The decomposed TPB provides a deeper understanding of usage intention and behavior
than the original TAM, thus, it will help management understand the reason behind user
intentions. (Taylor and Todd, 1995) DTPB is more complex than the original TAM and
will, therefore, require more precise work and understanding from the implementation
management team. Compared to TPB, DTPB takes into consideration variables behind
attitude towards behavior (PU, PEU, Compatibility), variables behind subjective norm
(Peer Influence, Superior’s Influence) and variables behind perceived behavioral control
(Self-efficacy, Resource Facilitating Conditions, Technology Facilitating Conditions).

3.2.4 3.1.4 Technology Acceptance Model

Figure 8 The Technology Acceptance Model, version 1. (Davis, et. al., 1989)

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The technology acceptance model (TAM) describes how the user accepts new technology
in use. TAM is based on the theoretical model of human behavior from psychology, the
Theory of Reasoned Action by Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975 (Davis, 1986). The core
framework is simple: User experiences (UX) stimulus from discovering System Features
& Capabilities – Inner Motivation towards using the system is building up – Resulting in
actual use of the system and interest to find more use cases for the system (Davis, 1986).
User-friendliness is important in all technology but essential in technology that is
unknown to the user. Davis, Bagozzi and Warshaw (1989) have studied technology
acceptance consisting of perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEU), theory
of reasoned action (TRA) and theory of planned behavior (TPB). The earlier study shows
how PU and PEU are the roots of users’ attitudes (A) towards a new technology and that
attitudes, in their turn, are the spark for motivation and excitement towards using the
technology. TAM has been modified several times since and the most cited work would
be (Davis, Bagozzi and Warshaw, 1989)

3.2.5 Technology Acceptance Model 2

TAM 2 extends the original technology acceptance model by specifying the following
eternal variables: Experience (process that comes with time) subjective norm,
voluntariness and image (social influence processes) and job relevance, output quality,
result demonstrability (cognitive instrumental processes) (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000).
Study found that social influence has a significant effect on user preservation of new
technology and that once users gained experience the impact of social influence had less
influence. (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000)

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Figure 9 Technology Acceptance Model 2 (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000)

3.2.6 Technology Acceptance Model 3

The TAM 3 is suggested as a continuation of the previous models. Potential pre- and
postimplementation interventions are added as variables that can enhance employees’
adoption and use of IT. Variables are presented in Figure 10 Technology Acceptance
Model 3 (Venkatesh and Bala, 2008) These new variables are computer self-efficacy,
perceptions of external control, computer anxiety, computer playfulness (pre-
implementational) and perceived enjoyment and objective usability (post-
implementational). (Venkatesh and Bala, 2008)

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Figure 10 Technology Acceptance Model 3 (Venkatesh and Bala, 2008)

3.2.7 Motivational Model

The motivational model (MM) aims to predict behavioral intention (BI). The model based
on the hypothesis that the behavior of an individual is based on extrinsic and intrinsic
motivations. Extrinsic motivations are found outside the person that is completing the task
or outside the task that is being done. An example of extrinsic motivation is salary or
reward. Intrinsic motivations on the other hand is the motivation that is formed by inner
drive or passion and has an end goal of feeling pleasure or satisfaction. (Bagozzi, Davis
and Warshaw, 1992) Intrinsic motivation could be the use of a photo editing tool in order

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to be able to create a nice-looking deck of slides at work to strive for admiration and praise
from colleges.

3.3 Summary of the literature review

Prosci: ADKAR model is in versatile use of Microsoft professionals today. (Open

personal discussion with Microsoft Professionals). The model is specifically designed for
digital transformation projects and is therefore applicable for use in Microsoft Teams
implementations. ADKAR model outlines the adaption path with a single employee in
focus. ADKAR model is clear and easy to use and needs no complex setup that would
vary depending on your organization. ADKAR is a good tool for planning,
implementation and follow-up. The better an implementation is planned the better it will
succeed, therefore, ADKAR should be brought to attention already in the planning phase
of an implementation. If the implementation has already proceeded ADKAR can still
provide some insight on the needed course of action.

Kotter’s Eight steps to transform your organization is a rather old model for organizational
change to be used in the year 2020. Models created half a century ago are seldomly the
best applicable ones. Organizations’ today are far from the same they were back then.
Employees are treated better and management has become more instructional than
authoritative. According to professionals most of change management models have
similarities to Kotter’s models (5 Open personal discussion with Microsoft Professionals).
Thus, Kotter’s Eight steps to transform your organization can be considerable read prior
to a Microsoft Teams implementation project.

The original TAM has some inadequacy regarding modern-day organizational

implementation projects; as Venkatesh and Bala wrote themselves, ‘ITs are becoming
increasingly complex’ (Venkatesh and Bala, 2008). Compared to 1999, the year 2019 was
different. In the year 2019, the world total number of internet users equated to over half
of the world population (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2020). The end-user is more aware
of the variety of information systems to choose from than before. The number of
companies developing new IS is also skyrocketing. Jay McBain, Principal Analyst at

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Forrester, wrote in 2017 the following: “I estimate there are more than 100,000 software
companies (ISVs) today around the world — up from 10,000 only 10 years ago. I wouldn’t
be surprised, with the level of hyper specialization new buyers are demanding, to see that
number grow to 1 million by 2027.” (McBain, 2017).

Adoption models will have to change accordingly to the users becoming more oriented in
the use of new technology. The emerging technology will also have an impact on user
adoption, as different forms of technology take different amounts of time and internal
motivation in users before they breakthrough. Video features have come long, but for
instance VUIs are still going to need a more mature level of translation before they can
break through in countries where English is a foreign language. Furthermore, 3D and VR
are technologies that have variables that need future investigation for acceptance models
to be able to measure these technologies. Observing the advice that this literature is
suggesting and reflecting it for the use of an implementation project concerning Microsoft
Teams at workplaces in Finland the variables: motivation, acceptance, perceived ease of
use, perceived usefulness, compatibility, awareness, support, anxiety, security, image,
social influence, triability, visibility, voluntariness and demographic will all be applied
for use. Thus, the above models and literature will bring value to this study.

4. Microsoft Teams for an organization

4.1 Knowledge sharing and learning within an organization

Rodgers and Freiberg 1969 wrote that the socially most valuable set of learning is
learning how to learn new things. If you teach yourself first how to learn new skills or
broaden your knowledge, then you will be able to learn faster. (Rogers and Freiberg,
1969) Learning how to read faster makes you faster at reading books, hence you will be
able to read more books during your lifetime.

Knowledge sharing within an organization works the same way. By teaching how to
share practical use cases to employees, there will be more shared use cases. More shared

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knowledge will result in a higher level of average expertise per employee in the
organization. A higher level of organizational knowledge will result in higher
effectiveness (Nonaka, 1991).

According to research employee perceptions of a high level of organizational learning

culture has a positive effect on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. (Hsu,
2009) By securing employees via commitment, the company will also save on expenses.
Employee turnover equals higher expenses in employee onboardings and education. In
companies that develop new products and services in highly competitive markets loss of
skilled employees might cause so-called knowledge leakage, where the former employee
moves to work for a competitor and leak of knowledge happens. (Frishammar, Ericsson
and Patel, 2015)

Different people learn in different ways, therefore, there will not be one way of teaching
that will help all employees within an organization to reach a specific level all within the
same amount of time. In order to make sure that all employees reach a desired level of
expertise there must be multiple ways that assist these employees on the way.

4.2 Potential benefits of using Microsoft Teams

4.2.1 Localizing files

Teams should then provide better access to your files. Microsoft advertise Microsoft
Teams on their website by the following: ‘Microsoft Teams uses powerful, integrated
search capabilities and built-in access to SharePoint, OneNote and Planner, so team
members can find what they’re looking for—instantly.’ (Microsoft 365 Team, 2019)

4.2.2 Collaborative real-time work

Once you have Microsoft Office 365 in use for your organization, you can choose to either
create, edit and save files locally on your computer hard drive or on cloud server space as
advised by Microsoft. The benefit of having files stored in the cloud is that they are easily
available from anywhere by the employees via login using company username and

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password. Files can then be accessed by employees assigned to these specific folders
containing documents. Each team working with documents can share files in their
collaborative folders. By working collaboratively on documents, work becomes more
efficient and transparent. ‘Microsoft Teams is primarily a tool for connecting people and
their daily tasks in a collaborative and transparent hub.’ (Microsoft 365 Team, 2019)

4.2.3 Version history control

To continue on the previous section (4.2.2) working collaboratively and autosaving to the
cloud server space reduces the chance of file misplacements or unsaved documents as well
as keeps track of edits & version history being provided to all authors of the shared
document. ‘Because every document shared in Microsoft Teams is saved to the cloud,
team members work from the latest version—no searching.’ (Microsoft 365 Team, 2019)

4.2.4 Transparency and internal communications

A survey conducted in 2004 by the corporate leadership council spoke for internal
communications and its relevance for employee engagement. An ROI on software for
communications might be impossible to count on existing user metrics, but as it empowers
internal communications and transparency within the organization it definitely does good
for motivating the employee to not only stay at the current employment, but also perform
well in her current position. (The Corporate Leadership Council, 2004)

By perceived low anxiety and high playfulness towards the IS a user will be motivated to
use the IS in a more efficient way and to learn to master the use faster. Providing the
employee with a new technology that is metrics of PEU will result in a more cost-effective
implementation. (Hackbarth, Grover and Yi, 2003)

4.3 The Project Champion

One thing that Microsoft is underlining on its website in the section of tips for Teams
implementation, is a so-called champions network. (Microsoft, 2018) A Project Champion
is a person that drives change in the organization and helps the personnel to reach the goal
set for the project scope. (Pinto and Slevin, 1989) More regarding pilot champions in
chapter 11 Microsoft Teams implementation phases.

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4.4 SaaS security

Software as a service (SaaS) is the form of software subscriptions provided as cloud

software licenses rather than regular desktop software. SaaS solutions enable both faster
installs and solves the problem with on-premise server space. SaaS is also perceived as a
data secure option since the servers are in data centers at nondisclosed remote locations.
Cloud computing services are data availability and data security outsourced.
(Balachandra, Ramakrishna and Rakshit, 2009) Cloud solution security is from an
organization’s perspective is as secure as a Single Sign-On (SSO) can be. Reported
security issues in Microsoft O365 products are rare (Snow, 2017)

When migrating to cloud security concerns worth checking are outdated software, third-
party enterprise security protocols (ESP) as well as the cloud vendors and cloud
applications that you plan to utilize. Risk of data loss can happen in case of files being
compromised through ransomware or deleted by human error.

Microsoft is constantly looking for ways to enhance their cloud security. Microsoft has
incorporated cloud-based anti-malware protection into the basic design of Office 365. The
malware protection detects suspicious files and links and deletes files that might cause
harm. The ongoing work for finding ways to improve cloud-based anti-malware protection
is keeping your organization’s employee Office 365 accounts in a safer state than
traditional anti-malware protection. The malware is never going to reach the device if it is
stopped prior to it being uploaded to the cloud. In an organization where files are
constantly shared amongst colleges this is extremely important. (Arrott, Macalintal and
McMillan, 2017)

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5. Open personal discussion with Microsoft

Professionals

5.1 Antti Kiviniemi

During an interview conducted on January 8, 2020, Antti Kiviniemi, Customer Program

Manager at Microsoft, stated that Teams is a tool for enabling co-operation in an
organization. Teams is the community hub that provides tools for sharing knowledge,
assisting co-workers and collaborating on tasks that have multiple stakeholders. By having
the documents and conversations online and available to all assigned parties, transparency
is added, and unnecessary bottlenecks are removed. Future will show what all features can
be added, but for instance real-time subtitles in a videoconference will certainly allow us
to collaborate better across cultural and geographical borders. (A. Kiviniemi, Customer
Program Manager at Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

Teams is a secure platform and Microsoft as a company has extremely good resources to
maintain the safety of the service. The whole safety-related picture is thought precisely
through from data safety to physical safety. Microsoft datacenters are ISO2000 certified
and security is constantly being tested by both internal personnel and third-party security
partners. Typical testing can be a red team vs blue team where the one tries to find
vulnerabilities and the other tries to stop the attacks (A. Kiviniemi, Customer Program
Manager at Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

Microsoft fast track is a place with good information on how to start using Microsoft
products. When the wish is to move data from an existing repository, on-premise or cloud,
the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) of Microsoft Office 365 cloud are open
for importing and exporting data. Kiviniemi underlined the importance of every
organization’s need to create an exit plan for moving their data in order to prepare the
move, if needed. Microsoft does not want to force any customers to stay on their platform.

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If the need to move from Microsoft cloud would emerge at some point, then Microsoft
APIs will be still open for migrating out from the cloud to another platform provider. (A.
Kiviniemi, Customer Program Manager at Microsoft, personal communication, January
8, 2020).

Microsoft fast track is a good source for learning and educational material also for
employees. The video material is only (for now at least) available in English and the
automated translation is not possible due to the complexity of the Finnish language.
Materials should be shared, but no organization should ever rely on online material alone.
Kiviniemi mentioned a so-called champions program as an excellent way to implement
Teams as a tool for organization-wide collaboration. A champions program usually
includes a few employees with interest and drive to push the organization’s way to work
towards the next level. Champions could be selected for each team or division of the
organization. Champions would receive training in the use of teams until they would be
on a good enough level to feel confident to teach others and help with questions regarding
use. Organizational differences are big, each organization has its own way of educating
personnel. Online instructions should be short and efficient. Help or tips buttons can be
added to Teams that can be linked to an intra or Yammer page where good instructions
and use cases can be gathered. Start from basics and then move to more complex material.
Teams can be used to teach its users by adding a bot that gives hints on new features.
According to Kiviniemi’s experience, the attendance or focus on educational events is
higher if the workshop is in a physical location than online.

A champions program is something that shall be taken into use since it makes peer-to-peer
education multiply. Kiviniemi underlined that good things to use in Teams are a button
for learning pathways and a tips bot that reminds the user of features.

Piloting the implementation of Teams is a good idea for an organization. All

organizations’ have their own specific tasks that will have to be tailored to function around
Teams and Share Point. Piloting help sections, network connections and hardware is

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essential preparation for a successful implementation. (A. Kiviniemi, Customer Program

Manager at Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

In the future, for example alarms can be filtered with the help of AI implemented to teams
via out-of-the-box , third-party applications. Teams will be used as a display layer or
dashboard where different applications can be forwarded. Applications can be made on
top of the Azure cloud and then displayed in Teams. (A. Kiviniemi, Customer Program
Manager at Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

What affects the end-user adoption is influence from the closest superior at the workplace.
Supporting the users with concrete use cases for individual needs is one of the best tools
for motivating end-user. Microsoft Service Adoption Specialist course is a good read for
anyone involved in an implementation project, in the free course Teams is used as an
example of a software to be implemented. (A. Kiviniemi, Customer Program Manager at
Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020). Course can be found at
https://www.edx.org/course/microsoft-service-adoption-specialist-2 .

Having a sponsor from a high enough level of the organization makes a big difference.
The sponsor works as an inspirational or influential leader and communication of the
change/ implementation can be published via this sponsor. A sponsor is the public face
towards the organization and gives credibility to the change project. The sponsor does not
have to oversee the implementation but is used as an influential leader. (A. Kiviniemi,
Customer Program Manager at Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020)

With a so-called soft launch, professionals refer to an IT- implementation where the
software is pushed out across all organizations in a way that it all works, but the software
is not introduced via campaigns or other communications. Workshops or other forms of
education is neither done in soft launches. Kivimäki states that he has seen a few
implementations where the organization has been able to grow the use of Teams up to a
certain level, but that much higher percentage of users are able to adapt to the use of Teams
by implementing it as a change management project. In soft launch cases, end users are

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often confused by how the tool should be used and are having trouble coming to an
agreement. (A. Kiviniemi, Customer Program Manager at Microsoft, personal
communication, January 8, 2020)

Regarding hardware, the network is the most critical component. Teams is moving real-
time media and especially the real-time video. If the organization’s internal network fails
to carry the traffic of video communication during the first attempts to use Teams, then
also the first user experience will be ruined, which in turn dilutes the image of Teams and
its capability to work as a tool for internal communications. Having OS client and drivers
up to date is important prior to implementing Teams due to security and compliance of
audio and video settings to function properly. (A. Kiviniemi, Customer Program Manager
at Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020)

In terms of metrics for measuring the success of the implementation, usage reports can
obviously be utilized to show results. In an implementation project for Microsoft Teams,
the desired end goals will be depending on the organization, for instance, it could be to
strive for increased communality, the number of meetings, conversations in chat, whether
if email attachments have decreased and uploaded files in Teams have increased and so
on. Qualitative metrics are just as important as numeric quantitative metrics, asking
questions that indicate employee inclusiveness of the team or the employee perception on
internal communication are good qualitative measurements. Historical data is important
in order to measure the effect of Teams at improving efficiency at the organization.
Quality can easily be measured as well as the overall satisfaction of the software.
Interviewing the teams that have managed to utilize Teams at a high rate in their day-
today work helps understanding how the adoption can be made easier for others. Choosing
out concrete use cases from teamwork in Teams and sharing those practices will help
others adopt as well. (A. Kiviniemi, Customer Program Manager at Microsoft, personal
communication, January 8, 2020)

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5.2 Kati Viita 11.12.2019

In Finland O365 has been used in many organizations for 1-2 years already prior to Teams
roll-out. In these cases, Teams is often implemented with the aim to replace Lync or SfB,
this alone does not bring much-added value. Teams has the potential to be so much more
and revolutionize the way of working. Often planning is done by IT and management
leads in organizations’, communications and HR must be involved in the implementation
planning as well. Teams is a factor for work-wellbeing and important tool for internal
communications for the organization. The technical part is small compared to the change
management part of it. ‘Utilization grade of Teams at my customers is somewhere
between 5-85% depending on the organization. At some customer companies the adoption
of teams has not even fully covered the communications department’. (K. Viita, Senior
Customer Success Manager at Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

Implementation projects cannot be successful without the support from the lead. Microsoft
Teams is a tool for end-users and brings new ways of working. IT-personnel in
organizations are having a hard time realizing the need for involving management in the
implementation of an IS that “replaces Skype”. Therefore, implementation projects of
Microsoft Teams should always be joint operations between HR, Communications, Upper
Management and IT. Digitalization brings a need for change in ways of working, some
organizations’ have already realized it. (K. Viita, Senior Customer Success Manager at
Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

Educating use for Teams is vital for gaining the full potential from the software. Without
proper education of the use cases the image of the tool might be distorted. In one
organization some department could end up using teams purely as a repository whereas
some other department uses it as a tool for meetings and calls only. Help section in Teams
is a good first tool, live video education and short videos in a library is good to have.
Education requires professional knowledge and experience; the education is strongly
adviced to be outsourced to a professional. (K. Viita, Senior Customer Success Manager
at Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

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Organizational departments might have variations in readiness to adapt to new technology.

Prosci’s change management methodology is commonly used by Microsoft professionals,
it focuses on how change is made on an individual level. Ability to adapt to change
depends on the organization and the individual. Most change management models have
similarities with Kotter’s models. (K. Viita, Senior Customer Success Manager at
Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

Champions network is a selection of employees that are on a mission to drive new ways
of work. The champion network is a train the trainers’ type of knowledge sharing chain.
Leadership is needed in a champions network and that part is often outsourced for
consultants with proficiency in Teams and 0365-products. Champions network is a group
of people that has as much diversity as possible within the organization. Often people that
apply are already superusers (use Teams a lot) or early adopters that want to be part of a
cool group that has meetups and extra training. The champions get the value from the
acknowledgment that the Teams sponsors, and higher management involved gives to these
evangelists. Teaching a diverse group of the employees, a wide variety of use cases
suitable for different positions within the organization. Resistance of use will pretty much
in all cases be at least 5% of employees. Even in companies with purely office-workers
the user rates of Teams have been reaching only 85%. The motivation for the individual
as Prosci’s change management methodology explains, must be made as easy for the
employee as possible. (K. Viita, Senior Customer Success Manager at Microsoft, personal
communication, January 8, 2020).

Playbooks must be done by a team that knows the organization’s internal needs; it cannot
be 100% bought from an external consultant. The playbook must be made as a project and
the sponsor must be involved as a decisionmaker that can make the decisions. Playbook
will contain use-cases that solve problems and guide the user in the adaption of Teams.
The playbook can be done collaboratively with the champion network. (K. Viita, Senior
Customer Success Manager at Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

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Implementation of Microsoft Teams can be measured in various ways, a list of example

measurements is presented in Figure 11 Metrics in Teams (Microsoft). Commitment to
the employment is valuable for organizations’, intent to stay and appreciation towards the
employment have been increased at customers with factory line workers when supplying
employees with Teams for communications. In jobs where communicating in person is
restricted due to the line of work or information is shared only in print-media, any
communication that is provided will add perceived satisfaction for the employment. (K.
Viita, Senior Customer Success Manager at Microsoft, personal communication, January
8, 2020).

In the future Teams will be more like an operating system desktop view than an online
chat or place for video-meetings. ‘At the moment third-party software is rarely used, since
teams is a new tool in many companies. I would guess only 2-3% of users are already
using third-party applications via Teams’ (K. Viita, Senior Customer Success Manager at
Microsoft, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

5.3 (Harri Mikkanen 19 Dec. 2019

Teams will bring clear use for collaboration tools with a small amount of effort. Teams is
a hub for collaboration that reduces the need to switch between multiple software during
work tasks. Teams is implemented for a variety of reasons; usual ones are i.
communications in groups and ii. sharing documents. The most used added applications
on top of Teams are Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Power BI. The planning of tools
that suit the specific organization is important and a rule of thumb would be to have more
users than channels. And organizing the tabs in the channels to be uniform. Using video
features and recording meetings are basic procedures that should be used more. In a digital
world like today we have all calendars packed with meetings and events, the possibility
to watch a post-production/recap of an event or meeting adds visibility and ensures that a
larger audience is reached. Posting the postproduction in Teams or Yammer will be
measured in the amount of views. (H. Mikkanen, Microsoft, personal communication,
December 19, 2019).
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‘We make your data better for you’ – slogan from Microsoft, by collecting all
organizational data at one place and securing it behind the user credentials the
organization will benefit greatly. Moving to the O365 cloud will provide easily available
data regarding the collaboration inside the organization. Employees will have better tools
for following the processes that they are involved in and get tasks done together at a faster
pace. Furthermore, it will enable a helicopter view on the organizational data for
decisionmakers. (H. Mikkanen, Microsoft, personal communication, December 19, 2019).

Prior to the roll-out of Teams, a list of things to consider would be i. Goal for the
implementation of Teams ii. The support of the organizational lead iii. Playbook for
Teams containing the purpose iv. Guidelines for team management and governance v.
Comparison of what was used earlier and what will be used in Teams era vi. Informing
the upcoming change vii. Educating the use. (H. Mikkanen, Microsoft, personal
communication, December 19, 2019).

Organizations’ must learn to observe the use of Teams, which are the user groups? What
tasks are they using teams for? How are they using Teams? To measure the use of Teams
is important in order to see the impact of effort put into change management and education
of the new ways to work collaboratively. Depending on the implementation goal the
measurements can be tuned to indicate the success. If the goal has been to move from SfB
to Teams the measurement could be active user count. Active user count could indicate
that the decrease in SfB users is somewhat equal to the increase in Teams users. In this
case the indicator would be positive. In the ideal case, SfB active users would be zero or
close to zero, while Teams active users would be closer to the number of employees or
organizational logins (operative systems, email accounts). In a sales organization the goal
could be to reduce time/add quality in completing offers. If offers would be sent faster or
with a better percentage of containing the right information, then the success would be
equally high. Satisfaction can be measured with surveys, for surveys to work they must
be done prior to implementation to get the starting point and after the roll-out. Work
reworked was a study ordered by Microsoft and conducted by KRC Research and

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supervised by Dr. Michael Parke, Professor at London Business School. (H. Mikkanen,
Microsoft, personal communication, December 19, 2019).
KRC interviewed 9 113 managers and employees from big (+250 employee) companies.
Research included 15 European countries and was conducted during August 2019.
Average amount of responses was 600 per country (500 employees and100 managers)
(Parke, 2019)

If only implementing new tools in order to change work habits the way of working will
not change, instead, the user will try to find ways to continue making the same work as
before with minimum effort to change anything. In the cloud era new features and add-on
applications are pushed out constantly, some basic core functions might be used in most
organizations’, once those basic tasks are mastered the iteration process continues and the
organization must find value-adding features and applications suitable for their and/or
industry-specific needs. Testing new applications in the cloud is simpler than ever,
software is provided in the form of SaaS. (H. Mikkanen, Microsoft, personal
communication, December 19, 2019).

Education can be easily made as part of Teams by introducing a help section button that
takes the user to a page with FAQ, a chance to ask for help and use-cases. Teams days are
widely used as support for users in an early stage. Teams clinics and sharing use cases are
proven to be good ways to support the user in adoption. (H. Mikkanen, Microsoft, personal
communication, December 19, 2019).

First-time use of Teams will have a strong effect on the perceived usefulness, if the
connection is bad the user will be frustrated. IS that fail to be intuitive will not be adopted
in use and the user will return to the old tool. (H. Mikkanen, Microsoft, personal
communication, December 19, 2019).

Pilots are often done wrong in the sense that they lack some specified concrete criteria for
success. If Microsoft promises that Teams will bear the use of 5 000 active users in some
scenario, then it is pointless to pilot this in an organization. Piloting a combination of

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suitable/effective meeting size is another story. If the pilot users are all from IT, then the
benefit of piloting won’t take the organization anywhere. (H. Mikkanen, Microsoft,
personal communication, December 19, 2019).

A network of Teams champion is beyond valuable especially at our larger customer

organizations’. Public references such as the City of Helsinki and has had no problem at
all in building a champions network. (H. Mikkanen, Microsoft, personal communication,
December 19, 2019). Champion Person who has a desire to change personal, teams and
organizational working habits. Someone willing to share organization-specific guidelines
and best practices. (H. Mikkanen, Microsoft, response to questionnaire for professionals,
Appendix B, 2020)

Microsoft provides material for implementation and Teams has a help section inbuilt in
the software, these are not used enough by the users. The search field provides a list of
shortcuts when user types in “/” and application shortcuts can be found by typing in “@”.
Features can be asked for if they do not exist and once the feature has been voted enough
times it will be raised to the priority list for Microsoft developers. (H. Mikkanen,
Microsoft, personal communication, December 19, 2019).

In the future Teams will provide more suitable next best actions (like sharing a deck of
slides presented in the meeting to all attendees right after the meeting has ended). (H.
Mikkanen, Microsoft, personal communication, December 19, 2019).

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Area
Objective Metric
Unit Marketing Sales OperationsFinance HR IT
Efficiency of Change in productivity Time (eg. Hours) X X X X X X
business processes Change in productivity Time (eg. Hours) X X X X X X
Deadlines/milestones met on time % X X X X X X
Time to launch Time (eg. Days) X X X X X X
Change in time to launch % X X X X X X
Time to develop/design X (project, campaing, etc.) Time (eg. Days) X X X X X X
Change in time to develop/design X (project, campaing, etc.) % X X X X X X
Workload migration completion % X
Adoption of mobile technology % X X X X X
Support requests # X
Change in support requests % X
Employee satisfaction with work environment (eg. Based on NPS
Employee Net Promoter Score) KPI X
Satisfaction Change in work environment satisfaction % X
Employee satisfaction with onboarding (eg. Based on NPS Net
Promoter Score) KPI X
Change in onboarding satisfaction % X
Employee engagement (recognition, relationship with manager
and peers, communication) KPI X
Change in employee engagement % X
Internal promotion % X
Employee turnover (define base: annual, involuntary, voluntary,
high performers, etc.) %
Change in employee turnover (YoY) %
Wellness KPI X
Change in wellness % X
Percent of time spent travelling % X
Change in time spent travelling % X
Improve Number of ideas shared # X X
collaboration Adoption of Modern Communication apps % X X X X X X
Active users in Teams #
Workspaces in Teams #
Active users in Yammer #
Groups in Yammer #
Employees trained # X
Usage of training materials and tools # X
Emails sent # X X X X X X
Change in emails sent % X X X X X X
Number of meetings online # X X X X X X
Change in number of meetings online % X X X X X X
Improve ROI / Operating costs (travel, landline) $ X
Business value Change in operating costs (travel, landline) % X
Maintenance and governance costs $ X X X
Change in maintenance and governance costs % X X X
IT costs $ X X
Change in IT costs % X X
Business objective (eg. Communication with citizens) # X X X

Change in business objective (eg. Communication with citizens) % X X X

Use of employee analytics % X
Security Security alerts raised # X
Documents security catalogued # X

Figure 11 Metrics in Teams (Microsoft)

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6. Discussions with third-party consultants

In order to gather greater knowledge in the subject of how well Microsoft Teams is
implemented at Finnish workplaces and to gather opinions on how to measure a successful
implementation a round of open interviews came as a good tool. The round of interviews
was done as an open dialogue. By asking open questions from professionals, a deep-dive
into their expertise-area was possible. For the round of interviews, the following list of
consultants working with Microsoft Teams were chosen:

6.1 Karoliina Kettukari 4.12.2019

Teams is a platform for collaboration, it brings all tools into one place which enables the
user to have easy access and control for all daily used tools. Teams is implemented at
workplaces for multiple reasons, Teams is mostly implemented as a tool for internal
communications, it adds transparency, makes teamwork more effective, reduces the
amount of different 3rd party tools and systems, adds mobile support for daily tasks,
enables remote working on a professional level. Teams will reduce the amount of mail-
chains with unnecessary participants. Skype for Business is widely used in Finland and
since it is about to be abandoned and Microsoft is making all new features in Teams,
Teams is a natural tool to implement in most organizations. Teams is a part of the Office
365 Enterprise package and organizations are widely utilizing Microsoft products already,
when moving to the cloud Teams is part of the package. (K. Kettukari, Microsoft MVP,
Senior consultant at Sulava, personal communication, December 4, 2019)

Implementing Microsoft Teams is mainly a change management project where the new
way of working is in focus. The employees must be assisted to adopt to the new mindset
of working collaboratively. Besides the change management part of it, Teams setup will
require some basic IT implementation. The IT part of the implementation is about
migrating from the old systems tools and servers to the new ones in the O365 cloud.
Implementation projects often include external help in the form of user adoption

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consultants, Microsoft consultants, change management consultants and IT-data

consultants. The implementation starts off with a planning phase and setting up the tools
(enabling working in the cloud). The project team is supported by internal owners in
various organizational departments. Current state analysis lets the team understand the
starting points of the implementation in different departments. Engaging management is
important, these profiles are often called sponsors. (K. Kettukari, Microsoft MVP, Senior
consultant at Sulava, personal communication, December 4, 2019)

‘Champion network is a very important part of the Teams implementation project.

Champions should always be volunteers. They offer a close and fast way of supporting
their team or unit in the change. Champions have also an important role in sharing
information about Teams and the becoming changes. Champions don't have to be IT-
experts in the first place, you should always train your champions before letting them
loose.’ (K. Kettukari, Microsoft MVP, Senior consultant at Sulava, response to
questionnaire for professionals, Appendix B, 2020)

Piloting is a widely used method of preparation, it is a good way for finding out challenges
regarding Teams use that are specific for the implementing organization. By piloting and
finding challenges, the solutions will also be easy to make prior to the initial launch of
Teams. The level of technical training and support needed in different parts of the
organization can vary quite a lot. Piloting will help underline best practices that can be
utilized in the communication during the user adoption journey. (K. Kettukari, Microsoft
MVP, Senior consultant at Sulava, personal communication, December 4, 2019)

When initializing change, the reason behind the implementation project shall be well
communicated. ‘General company guidelines for the use of supported tools and their
purpose is vital to communicate well to the employees. For example, internal
communication tools and document management tools. Furthermore, a playbook for
Teams should be shared for all employees containing best practices for teamwork,
meetings and task management in Teams. You could also include sections such as "Teams

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for managers"’. (K. Kettukari, Microsoft MVP, Senior consultant at Sulava, response to
questionnaire for professionals, Appendix B, 2020)

6.2 Katja Jokisalo 9.12.2019

Teams is implemented for the reason of SfB going out of service and a new tool is
available. The second reason is to add collaborative working and supply employees with
tools for sharing and collaborating in real-time. Microsoft has plans in making Teams
become the digital desktop for working. Teams will have all software and applications
connected in one window. (K. Jokisalo, Microsoft MVP, Senior Consultant at Sulava,
personal communication, December 9, 2019)

Preparations prior to the roll-out of Teams is setting the aim for the use of Teams. If the
only goal is to change to Teams from a legacy system, then an IT-implementation will be
enough. Alternatively, the goal should be to decide on the new ways of working and
committing towards a change, in that case the implementation would be far more about
change management where Teams is a platform and IT-solution that enables it. Percentage
vise IT (10-20%) And change management (80-90%). Microsoft mentions a so-called
playbook, which is a gathering of use-cases and instructions for common ways of using
Teams. Steps in the Teams implementation: 1. Aim 2. Playbook 3. Governance 4.
Planning 5. Execution (K. Jokisalo, Microsoft MVP, Senior Consultant at Sulava,
personal communication, December 9, 2019)

Education that Microsoft shares is not that commonly used by companies. Learning
pathways is a free template that any organization can utilize and make it look their own.
This way Microsoft material can be copied to own instructions page and the own use cases
can be built on top of that. Educating employees is expensive due to missed work time on
actual work tasks. Organizations’ do not want to educate in generic use cases but rather
on organization-specific use. ROI is better on point when an external consultant is bought
to tailor the education material suitable for the organization rather than having the

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employee complete self-study with low motivation and generic material. Education for
employees regarding Teams shall not be basic functions in Teams but rather the new ways
of working by utilizing teams. (K. Jokisalo, Microsoft MVP, Senior Consultant at Sulava,
personal communication, December 9, 2019)

Piloting the use of Teams is done by most of the companies in Finland, the amount of
piloting varies. The piloting is usually conducted at some IT-department where functions
suitability to the organizational needs are evaluated, on the basis of this the plan for scaling
to the whole organization is made. Piloting will investigate how the new ways of working
will align with previously set rules. (K. Jokisalo, Microsoft MVP, Senior Consultant at
Sulava, personal communication, December 9, 2019)

Teams champions are used by us in all customer implementation projects. Creating a

champions network is by far the most effective way to assist the employee in the adoption
to Teams. Champions are volunteers that are interested in learning new and be part of the
change. Champions do not have to be managers or technologically skilled, but it will not
hurt to be either or both. The idea is to have a variety of champions from all over the
organization. Eagerness to share experiences and educate/ help others is needed from the
champions. (K. Jokisalo, Microsoft MVP, Senior Consultant at Sulava, personal
communication, December 9, 2019)

Resistance to change usually roots from fear of not being able to understand or learn to
use the new technology. People have different experiences and relations towards the use
of technology. Some require more motivating and assistance than others. Resistance
towards Microsoft products was higher years ago when the first cloud migrations began.
If there are some percentage of employees resistant to change, they should not be given
too much attention. If there is resistance in manager-level some actions towards it might
be needed as they influence subordinates. Helping the individual find a motive for the use
of Teams will help the person to adopt to change. (K. Jokisalo, Microsoft MVP, Senior
Consultant at Sulava, personal communication, December 9, 2019)

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Measuring the success of an implementation has both easy to prove indicators and more
complex indicators, depending on the implementation and the aim for it. Measuring
movement from a legacy system to Teams is a straightforward thing but it will only show
the transition and not the applied new ways of working. Amount of calls, reduced amount
of emails and so on, is easy to follow and important to follow as well. The other side of
measurement of success lies in the aim for the implementation of teams, goals could
involve more efficient meetings, increased perceived enjoyment of work, less traveling,
more open collaborative working, less bottlenecks, easy access to files. The latter one is
more difficult to measure. (K. Jokisalo, Microsoft MVP, Senior Consultant at Sulava,
personal communication, December 9, 2019)

6.3 Vesa Nopanen 11.12.2019

Teams is a platform. Teams is not a tool for just one single thing. Teams enables
collaboration but the future of Teams is a platform where tools and collaboration can be
retailed specifically according to the organization’s needs. Collaborative work,
communication and teamwork is in big focus. There is no one fits all type of
implementation for Teams. But the most widely used first functions to be used are i.
Collaborative spaces SharePoint documents and Teams conversations ii. Meetings
(Calling and arranging meetings). Teams combines stakeholders and documents (Notes,
messages, files in general) by supplying the tools for communication (Meetings, video &
audio calls, calendar). Sharing screen using collaborative documents and whiteboards are
just a few of the features, a list of possible future features is endless. Teams is like a
megaportal that can be connected to anything from bots to backend systems and web-
based applications. The main functionality of Teams is not to be specified in advance, it
depends on the user using it and the tasks most essential for that user. The beauty of Teams
is how versatile it is and that anyone can find a use for it. (V. Nopanen, Microsoft MVP,
Principal Consultant at Sulava, personal communication, December 11, 2019)

First companies in Finland to implement Teams did not make especially much noise about
it, there is always a question of giving reference from a project towards the consulting

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firms. When the implementation is guided by consultants but made as an inner change
management project that includes questions regarding communication security, some
want to keep the information for themselves. When Teams was new there were obviously
fewer features and the usage has evolved from there to become the platform it is today. In
some cases, Teams was implemented prior to it being a mature product. (V. Nopanen,
Microsoft MVP, Principal Consultant at Sulava, personal communication, December 11,
2019)

Governance is important prior to roll-out. How & Which teams will be created, who will
have the access? How will information be secured (Passwords & Time limitations).
(V. Nopanen, Microsoft MVP, Principal Consultant at Sulava, personal communication,
December 11, 2019) Important roles to delegate are ownership of Teams ‘Who owns
Microsoft Teams?’ ‘Usually Teams ownership is divided between different people/units.
There needs to be an owner and executive sponsor who understands what Teams is and
why it is important that the project succeeds.’ (V. Nopanen, Microsoft MVP, Principal
Consultant at Sulava, response to questionnaire for professionals, Appendix B, 2020)

Implementing Teams purely as a technical implementation will lead to incongruent use of

Teams. The unclear vision of use cases and rules will lead to missed opportunities in effect
of the collaborative work. Making the use clear for employees is vital, this can be achieved
by introducing a so-called playbook for the employees. (V. Nopanen, Microsoft MVP,
Principal Consultant at Sulava, personal communication, December 11, 2019) The
Playbook for Teams could contain topics such as ‘why we are using Teams’, ‘why
teamwork and Teams is important to our company’, ‘what changes with Teams’ and ‘what
benefits it brings’. Furthermore, ‘how should we communicate in Teams’, ‘where can I
find help’, ‘what tool to use and when’, ‘where are documents stored’, ‘when to create a
channel and when to create a team’, ‘general practices’ and ‘how do I give feedback if I
don't agree with something’. (V. Nopanen, Microsoft MVP, Principal Consultant at
Sulava, response to questionnaire for professionals, Appendix B, 2020)

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Implications regarding the acceptance of Teams can originate from various reasons.
Resistance to change has often a root-problem in understanding, anxiety, Teams being out
of comfort zone, previous experiences. Understanding value for the user itself will add
motivation towards using Teams, personal value can be found from different things.
Finding value for the person resisting will help the person to adopt Teams. (V. Nopanen,
Microsoft MVP, Principal Consultant at Sulava, personal communication, December 11,
2019)

Online education provided by Microsoft can be useful for the technical education of
Teams, anyhow, creating instructions suitable for the organization and as own content is
important since general videos are becoming outdated quite fast and they lack the
opportunity for the user to relate as an employee. Microsoft shares teasers and their
educational content suits well for early adopters of the software. (V. Nopanen, Microsoft
MVP, Principal Consultant at Sulava, personal communication, December 11, 2019)

‘Teams Champion is a person who is telling others why the right use of Teams is
important and how it can bring in benefits to everyday work-life. They provide ideas and
tell about shared and best practices and work as a peer to peer support to their coworkers.
They are partly evangelists and convert Teams capabilities to real-world work scenarios
in a way that their coworkers can understand. They also innovate new practices on how
more benefits will become available.’ (V. Nopanen, Microsoft MVP, Principal Consultant
at Sulava, response to questionnaire for professionals, Appendix B, 2020). The employees
selected as champions do not have to be early adopters of the software, the interest and
evangelist / power-user attitude is key. Champions will need to get educated anyway to
become skilled enough for helping others. No specific rule ratio between champion and
employee, but roughly one per fifty employees, again depends on the organization. (V.
Nopanen, Microsoft MVP, Principal Consultant at Sulava, personal communication,
December 11, 2019)

Measuring the success of implementation of Teams is mostly soft side data (polls/
surveys) Asking the users how they feel about the change and use of Teams. Numeric

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measurements are more difficult to tune in a way where they will be specific and prove
success. Mail message amounts might or might not be affected using Teams, internal mail
amounts alone are another thing. When measuring numbers, you must be careful in
choosing what conclusions are drawn from the results. (V. Nopanen, Microsoft MVP,
Principal Consultant at Sulava, personal communication, December 11, 2019)

In the future ‘Teams will be the hub for work and via that you can access all essential apps
and services needed at work. It will be also used in personal/community/hobby groups
(for Life). Teams will be the standard of teamwork and communication.’ (V. Nopanen,
Microsoft MVP, Principal Consultant at Sulava, response to questionnaire for
professionals, Appendix B, 2020)

6.4 Juha Lindfors 13.1.2020

Teams is a combining place for daily work tasks. Employees will have all tools in one
shared place and, therefore, the need for multiple software open at once will be reduced.
Teams is enabling document editing and collaboration in a transparent way where all team
members can discuss topics while collaborating. Meetings and collaboration will be more
structured in Teams than traditional email. Meetings will have better quality once moving
to Teams. The best thing about Teams is no single feature, but rather the possibility of
endless combinations of applications and features used in a collaborative way. (J.
Lindfors, Chief of Finance & Technology, Principal Consultant at CCEA, personal
communication, January 13, 2020).

The most popular aim with a Teams implementation project is mainly to replace Skype
for Business as a tool for online meetings and remote work. The common case is that the
organization is using SfB and Microsoft Teams at the same time, in these cases the reason
for Teams implementation must be investigated and then taken the needed steps towards
making it the primary and thereafter primary tool for communication. To learn what
features of Teams is used and by what group of people, is a vital first step in planning a
change for working more collaboratively. In many organization Teams is just brought to

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general use without planning the use cases and structuring common rules. (J. Lindfors,
Chief of Finance & Technology, Principal Consultant at CCEA, personal communication,
January 13, 2020).

The most central part of a Teams implementation project is to specify the goal for the
implementation. What problem will Teams solve? What will Teams be used for? And
what will the use of Teams enable? Forming a good understanding of the day-to-day work
and the tasks that it consists of is extremely important. Once you manage to understand
the employee day-to-day activities you can plan and execute a successful change in the
tools that are used and add effectivity to these tasks. Tools must be replaced instead of
just adding tools on top of the ones already used. (J. Lindfors, Chief of Finance &
Technology, Principal Consultant at CCEA, personal communication, January 13, 2020).

In global companies more effort is needed. Things must be planned well ahead in order to
reach a desired outcome. Cultural change, organizational structure after mergers and
acquisitions form the organization to become unique and manifold. Implementation of
Teams is like a journey from place A to place B. When determining the use case and end
goal for the implementation, B will be the same clear picture for all parts of the
organization. Point A, the starting point can vary quite a lot in global organizations
depending on for instance legacy systems or cultural differences and most of all the people
involved, thus, the journey will be different for all locations. For large scale organizations’
more attention is needed in order to give all locations enough attention and guidance in
adopting the new. (J. Lindfors, Chief of Finance & Technology, Principal Consultant at
CCEA, personal communication, January 13, 2020).

Change resistance could be used as a term, but preferably it shall be spoken of as

uncertainty or fear of the new incoming change. Root-problem is usually that the person
does not understand or see the opportunities but rather the trouble in learning to use some
new software. By making the reason for change as clear and personalized as possible will
help in realizing the concrete personal benefits of the new. There will always be one tiny
group of people that want to resist all external change, those might just need more time to

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adopt and too much effort should not be wasted on fighting the resistance. (J. Lindfors,
Chief of Finance & Technology, Principal Consultant at CCEA, personal communication,
January 13, 2020).

Technical education is not the most important in implementing Teams since it is an

intuitive software that is easy to use, and online tips and help can be easily found. The
basic use functions and the goal for the use of the tool is vital to communicate to the users.
(J. Lindfors, Chief of Finance & Technology, Principal Consultant at CCEA, personal
communication, January 13, 2020).

In planning work the timeframe for the project scope will be assessed according to team
resources and knowledge from previous projects as well as customer needs and wants but
foremost on the basis of the organization size and complexity of migrating legacy data to
the cloud. In global organizations’ there will be added tasks from translation work and
managing multiple locations at once. (J. Lindfors, Chief of Finance & Technology,
Principal Consultant at CCEA, personal communication, January 13, 2020).

Document sharing can be a good indicator of Teams usage, shared documents to Share
Point versus the amount of shared document in Outlook can indicate the course that Teams
usage have taken. An employee pulse survey is a great tool for finding out the attitude
towards the new tools as a big picture. From there results to the survey can be used to
detect areas where more assistance is needed. (J. Lindfors, Chief of Finance &
Technology, Principal Consultant at CCEA, personal communication, January 13, 2020).

Piloting and a champions networks are useful tools for the implementation. Champions
can advise end-users at the offices and give close assistance by being physically reachable.
Pilots are used widely in most project work nowadays and function as an extended proof
for the planned work. From a pilot it is easy to optimize things before launching on a big
scale and scaling can always be done gradually. (J. Lindfors, Chief of Finance &
Technology, Principal Consultant at CCEA, personal communication, January 13, 2020).

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6.5 Heidi Selkäinaho 8.1.2020

Teams implementation should be a controlled process where the use of Teams is planned
carefully prior to the use. Planning work can consist of thinking about what kind of teams
there exist in the organization and what kind of main channels they need to have in order
to work in a collaborative way. Chat groups are often formed in unnecessary amounts at
workplaces where the implementation is only done as an IT implementation, this can
become extremely frustrating when there are multiple chat groups with loads of messages
not relevant to all group members. Instead of chatgroups the channels should be used and
that requires some planning and education in for of a set of ground principles or rules.
(H. Selkäinaho, Entrepreneur, Senior Trainer / Consultant / Speaker at Somepoint,
personal communication, January 8, 2020).

Teams is being implemented for i. project work where all project-related content is in one
place and stakeholders from different teams or even organizations can collaborate all in
one place, ii. Teamwork between internal departments (for instance sales & logistics) or
iii. Cross organizational communication in especially smaller organizations’ <5000
employees. Teams or Yammer should however not be used as Intra page. (H. Selkäinaho,
Entrepreneur, Senior Trainer/Consultant/Speaker at Somepoint, personal communication,
January 8, 2020).

Planning work prior to implementation consists of planning of the teams that are needed,
use of tools and tasks that they are suited for, set of rules (playbook) and lastly educating
the employees on the different channels and teams. Organizing an imposing launch event
on a specific go-live date is a good idea in order to achieve more impact. Microsoft
themselves like to mention use-cases. Piloting the implementation of Teams is essential
due to the information and problems that occur and help the team to understand how the
implementation must be further optimized. Furthermore, the pilot user stories can be used
as use-cases. (H. Selkäinaho, Entrepreneur, Senior Trainer/Consultant/Speaker at
Somepoint, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

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Workshops for employees with the use of basic features is worth arranging. 1,5-3 hours is
a suitable amount of time for covering the basics. Support arranged locally is needed and
a champions network is a good tool for that. The network of people driving change has
many names such as: Digital agents, change agents, champions and so forth, the main idea
is always the same, you can call them whatever that suits your organization. Champions
are usually chosen from people with interest to drive change and be part of something
new, seldom managers but a good variety of employees from various parts of the
organization is good. (H. Selkäinaho, Entrepreneur, Senior Trainer/Consultant/Speaker at
Somepoint, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

It will be difficult to drive change in usage of Teams once the organization has already
started using Teams and it has gone to an uncontrolled state. Furthermore, if the
organization is working collaboratively with a partner organization the use of Teams can
easily become a mentor-mentee type of situation where the organization that already has
implemented Teams has to guide the partner organization in the use of Teams. IT
departments have usually been on the right track regarding the newest system versions.
Problem can be in producing organizations’ where all employees might not have an email,
this is obviously needed for Teams. Mobile use is almost used by all employees, if the
device is not owned by the employer there might be needed to set a requirement of added
mobile security via a downloadable application such as Microsoft Intune which ensures
that devices are always protected by a passcode. Implementation of Teams must be
supported by the organizational lead and by communication it shall be made clear that
Teams is the prior communications channel for the whole organization. Thus, employees
cannot resist using Teams if they wish to be a part of the organization. (H. Selkäinaho,
Entrepreneur, Senior Trainer/Consultant/Speaker at Somepoint, personal communication,
January 8, 2020).

Teams implementation can be measured from Microsoft Office admin view, chat message
numbers compared to channel messages is a good measurement, if messages are open for
all to see in channels then the implementation has at least been somewhat successfully
implemented. Employee satisfaction should be measured, and in the results, especially

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communication-related questions should be kept an eye on during the implementation and

when measuring the afterward results. (H. Selkäinaho, Entrepreneur, Senior Trainer /
Consultant / Speaker at Somepoint, personal communication, January 8, 2020).

6.6 Janne Ariluoto 22.1.2020

Elisa Oyj is a large organization in the telecommunications industry with various domains
in B2C and B2B communications, entertainment and online services. At Elisa the
implementation of Microsoft Teams was made as an in-house implementation since the
knowhow is to be found from in-house professionals that consult business customers in
Microsoft Office365 cloud services. Teams has been piloted and used first by Elisa cloud
consultants and then scaled across the whole organization. Microsoft Teams was
implemented in the large organization for various reasons such as added transparency,
getting rid of bottlenecks, added mobility, tool for remote working and replacing the huge
internal use of Skype for Business. (J. Ariluoto, Cloud Consultant at Elisa, personal
communication, January 22, 2020).

Teams as a technical implementation was done in an early stage and the internal roll-out
was planned and executed once it felt comfortable. Elisa has an internal department that
finds constantly new ways of working more efficiently. The switch to Teams only is
practically impossible since some customers are still using SfB. The aim is to constantly
tear down old software that Teams can replace and by these actions Teams will become
more beneficial for us as an organization. There are departments and employees that are
using Teams as a single tool for communications (Teams-only). Elisa has set a date for
Teams only (to be informed in the future). Users that are in Teams only do not miss SfB.
The value provided by Teams for Elisa has not been in the possibility of working remotely
or arranging meetings/calls. The culture of working from home and arranging meetings
has already been present with the use of SfB. Roll-out of Teams happened in September
2018, the timing was good due to it being right after summer vacations. (J. Ariluoto, Cloud
Consultant at Elisa, personal communication, January 22, 2020).

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Elisa business development manager oversaw the implementation of Teams as a change

manager. HR function had the ownership in the implementation. The internal
communications team and IT team were involved in the implementing team. A clear
roadmap was determined for the implementation and the plan held well. Challenge in the
implementation was to make the change internally that is usually made at the client. The
same implementation varies since the client work is always prioritized and must be made
at the same time. (J. Ariluoto, Cloud Consultant at Elisa, personal communication, January
22, 2020).

Prior to roll-out the managerial commitment shall be secured. In terms of technical

readiness, the operative systems and other firmware should be up to date. Data migration
should be investigated and planned well beforehand. Playbooks are usually used to
determine the use for O365 as a whole package and therein questions such as aim for the
implementation, data life cycle and repository, security, and use-cases. (J. Ariluoto, Cloud
Consultant at Elisa, personal communication, January 22, 2020).

Education for use of Teams has been arranged, the suitable duration for a workshop has
been 1-2 hours, one workshop lasted 3 hours which received feedback for being
exhausting. Online material (education recordings) is used by employees. Morning coffee
meetings lasting 15 minutes have been held often and it as proven to be an effective way
of educating use-cases or new features. A one-hour workshop in a group combined with
shorter 15min online coffee breaks works well. Sessions with specific user groups or
organizational departments have also been organized in order to future iterate the use for
the specific work tasks according to needs. Customers like to purchase online educations
since they tend to be cheaper. The value of workshops is that also the sensitive users will
be able to ask questions specific to their needs after the lectures. Resistance to change
often originate in individual readiness, all employees have different standpoints. By
assisting employees at the office, being open and explaining and communicating use-cases
the resistance will decrease. Tackling negative presumptions and images with concrete
use-cases and user stories is vital. (J. Ariluoto, Cloud Consultant at Elisa, personal
communication, January 22, 2020).

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Understanding of the project scope and the size of the involvement needed is often
missing. Change regarding ways to work is not planned, nor is the need to change seen
from inside the organization. Hence, change is not budgeted, it requires external help to
gain involvement from organizational lead. The project responsibility is usually focusing
on time and money allocated on the project. The focus should be on the success of forming
new better ways of working. The project of new ways of working is a constant iteration
that will never be ready. It is the consultant’s responsibility to get the management to
internalize that. (J. Ariluoto, Cloud Consultant at Elisa, personal communication, January
22, 2020).

Traditional piloting is a rather old part of the implementation. Using a champions network
with employees interested in driving change is valuable for the organizational change.
Project champions shall be used in generally all implementations projects. Champions
meetups where questions and new use-cases are good to arrange every now and then, it is
important to remember that the champions network is eating up tome from normal daily
tasks and equals therefore also expenses for the organization. (J. Ariluoto, Cloud
Consultant at Elisa, personal communication, January 22, 2020).

Measuring the success of an implementation can best be done by qualitative measurements

such as surveys that measure the attitude towards employment and collaboration within
the organization. Measuring efficiently of the tasks and tools are not easy to optimize in
numerical ways. Counted emails sent compared to usage numbers of Teams are not
accurate metrics due to the aim of increased shared information within the organization.
Numbers can assist as directional indicators but shall not be tracked in a fixated manner.
(J. Ariluoto, Cloud Consultant at Elisa, personal communication, January 22, 2020).

Users tend to use chat groups where channels should be utilized. Time and cost will vary
depending on the organization. The initial state of technical competence determines the
amount of needed technical education. In organizations’ where the employees are mainly
knowledgeable workers the implementation and use of Teams will be easier to complete

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and more valuable. (J. Ariluoto, Cloud Consultant at Elisa, personal communication,
January 22, 2020).

7. Discussions with Company solution owners

By asking consultants, hired by Finnish companies, a whole lot of important material was
to be found. As a project or purchase in any known case, there is always a selling
side/provider of a service or a product (in this case expertise in the form of consultancy)
and a buyer side (in this case the implementing organization). To see the other side of the
projects, interviews with company solution owners was conducted.

7.1 Max Henttu 11.12.2019

Implementation of Teams was not on the priority of our projects, therefore, the time
allocated for the project was minimal. The aim of implementing Teams was to get
documents and conversations mobile. Consultants visit clients constantly and the security
of documents and mobility of them is important. We wanted to be amongst the first in
using Teams in order to be ahead of our clients. Project managers were involved in the
piloting on top of that some opinion leaders (influential seniors) and vital users were
invited to the pilot as well. One customer project functioned as a pilot as well. (M. Henttu,
Director, Delivery at Trainers House, personal communication, December 11, 2019).

We did not arrange any champions program; the only champion was the person in charge.
The project managers, opinion leaders and the rest of the pilot team helped with scaling
the use of Teams in our organization. (M. Henttu, Director, Delivery at Trainers House,
personal communication, December 11, 2019).

Educational material was tailored according to the demand for answers to certain
questions. Use cases were made by screenshots and videos and shared as fast as possible
to the whole user group. Users want exact instructions to their questions and no generic
material can provide that. Some employees require a lot more time in adopting and might
need to be walked through the basic functions of Teams. For the individual employee
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adoption, it is solely about mastering the functions essential for day-to-day tasks.
Employees had to be motivated towards the change except for some employees that had
been waiting for the change (devoted users). Devoted users take the learning in their own
hands and dare to try out new applications and features on their own. The confusion
around how OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams are connected takes time to explain.
Version of all software is important to be up to date. Usage of documents, calls and
meetings (basic functions) were mastered by employees fast. Educating the employees
further would require the employees to do themselves, peer to peer education will take the
adoption of Teams further and in our organization knowledge of the use will be shared.
Tools for IT are part of the culture and employees will use them in order to be part of the
organization. Skype is still used in conference rooms due to technicalities with hardware.
Channels are used in group conversation purpose and chats are used in 1-to-1
conversations. WhatsApp chats are used for more casual conversations. Email has been
reduced and mail chains that include lots of people are history, the discussion has moved
to channels in Teams. (M. Henttu, Director, Delivery at Trainers House, personal
communication, December 11, 2019).

Teams channels had a max number of users (200) this came as a surprise to us, the
information was back then not to be easily found. Data migration took time but enabled
us to get rid of on-premise servers. Our security got updated to a more secure state. Mobile
use was also a goal that we had with the implementation of Teams. The requirement was
that employee time on Teams adoption would be minimal. (M. Henttu, Director, Delivery
at Trainers House, personal communication, December 11, 2019).

Our IT-partner helped with planning, piloting and technological selections. Legacy
systems contained a lot of data that took time to migrate to the cloud. Project management
required quite a lot of work and the implementation of Teams was more reactive than
anticipated. Implementation was both an IT and change management project. In terms of
IT the Windows operative systems that were not yet upgraded had to be upgraded to
Windows 10. The change management part was heavy since the complexity of O365 is
not easy to explain to an employee that has no prior use of it. The organization consists of

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two totally separate departments and their ways of work differ much from each other. No
room for breaks in usage could be afforded, there was a time when we had both the legacy
system and Teams in use, finally for getting all data moved some deadlines for data
migration had to be set in order for employees to move their material to the Office 365
cloud. (M. Henttu, Director, Delivery at Trainers House, personal communication,
December 11, 2019).

Requesting offers from external consultants to help did not match our expectations.
Looking back the need would have been for a consultant to be observing the organization
from inside for x amount of time and answering questions regarding data migration and
O365 products. A consultant with Teams set as spearhead would not have suited our
needs. (M. Henttu, Director, Delivery at Trainers House, personal communication,
December 11, 2019).

Rules for setup of channels (teams) in Teams were strict right from the start, an
implementation where Teams would have been free for all to use as they prefer would
only have ended in chaos. Being a professional at change management and being familiar
with the organization was a huge asset in leading the implementation. Mapping out the
current state and required actions for migration from legacy systems cannot be done too
well. Time allocated for leading an implementation will be required, it is easily
underestimated. Partner in the implementation needs to be close and available to answers
questions. (M. Henttu, Director, Delivery at Trainers House, personal communication,
December 11, 2019).

7.2 Heidi Von Bell 19.12.2019

Controlled implementation of Microsoft Teams is important in organizations’. Teams

implementation is partly technological yet the most is to be done in the change
management field of the implementation. Teams is not that difficult to use but learning
the mentality to the way we work collaboratively is extremely important. Communicating
the change, goal, and use-cases is the key to a successful implementation.

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Communications cannot be done too much of, the work to be done is enormous.
Resistance is decreased by communicating about the change, why it is changing, and how
it is changing. If the picture is clear and all employees understand what is about to be
done, then the implementation will be a success. All communications channels shall be
utilized in communicating the change. Getting the organizational lead involved in the
change is important and by sharing material in various formats the change cannot be
missed by anyone in the organization. (H. von Bell, Communications Manager at
Tikkurila, personal communication, December 19, 2019).

Teams will add transparent working and collaborative working, information is flowing
better while using Teams. Information is easier available, and the risk of documents being
hidden on local personal drives or as attachments in mail chains disappears. (H. von Bell,
Communications Manager at Tikkurila, personal communication, December 19, 2019).

In big organizations’ the need for external partners is extremely important I have had
enormous help form Digital Illustrated in implementing Teams at both my current and
previously employing company. I am forever grateful for the help that I received; the
partner was pure gold. Consultants live and breathe Microsoft products and they have in-
depth knowledge of the O365 package. (H. von Bell, Communications Manager at
Tikkurila, personal communication, December 19, 2019).

When choosing a partner, the importance of finding a consultancy that has can-do
mentality and is ready to pull up their sleeves and do work together as a member of the
executing team is vital. Buying a deal for the implementation that is split into specific
stages of the implementation and stuck to a timeframe is pleasant from the buyer point of
view. The option for a prolongation is always part of a good contract. (H. von Bell,
Communications Manager at Tikkurila, personal communication, December 19, 2019).

We had a total of 8 pilot teams where Teams was tested out prior to scaling to the whole
organization. The board and lead groups were involved in this piloting right from the start.
The interest grew to be part of the piloting right from the start. When aiming for organic

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user growth during an implementation of Teams it is important to have the lead involved
in piloting, some low-level management teams and as one pilot team we had a project
management department that got to try using teams only for the whole project and avoid
using email. The use of Teams right from the start in real context was a good practice.
Pilots shall not be too many at the same time in order to be able to keep track of the pilot
teams. (H. von Bell, Communications Manager at Tikkurila, personal communication,
December 19, 2019).

Understanding the use cases for own work tasks is key to support the adoption. Thus, the
need for diverse pilot teams rise. By choosing use-cases from various pilot teams the
employees have a better chance to relate to at least some of the different use cases which
add motivation and interest towards adopting the use of Teams in the own day-to-day
work. Employees need to find the inner motivation towards the use of the software.
Resistance will always be part of implementation projects. Time will solve the problem
and it is important not to get stuck on those who resist change. (H. von Bell,
Communications Manager at Tikkurila, personal communication, December 19, 2019).

Problematic use earlier was Windows 7 operating systems, Windows 10 was needed.
Internet Explorer could not be used which was difficult to explain to the end-user.
Documents were saves in local drives, network-attached storage (NAS), on-premise
classic SharePoint, and simultaneously with implementing Teams we implemented Office
365 SharePoint. It was a struggle to get all employees to move from NAS to cloud. (H.
von Bell, Communications Manager at Tikkurila, personal communication, December 19,
2019).

Basic use functions for Teams can be shared via online channels. At S-Group Digital
Illustrated helped in creating a center for instructions for all collaborative tools in
SharePoint containing help and use cases from the pilots. Local workshops were good for
the beginning. We did not use any ready material by Microsoft but rather our own material
like promo videos and images in communications channels. Microsoft playbook and other
practices by Microsoft were used, the knowledge stream clearly goes from Microsoft to

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third-party consultants and then to various companies. Companies share knowledge and
discuss the projects with other communications managers in Finland. (H. von Bell,
Communications Manager at Tikkurila, personal communication, December 19, 2019).

Measuring the implementation was done at S-Group with the use of Microsoft Power BI.
Dashboards showed usage numbers on the company level. Amount of sent emails, Teams
usage, SharePoint usage, and so forth. A clear correlation with pilot start dates and drop
in sent emails was to be seen. Email amount dropped to the same level as during summer
vacations and simultaneously Teams a SharePoint usage increased so much that it was no
doubt about the reason. (H. von Bell, Communications Manager at Tikkurila, personal
communication, December 19, 2019).

7.3 Anonymous Senior Communications Manager 16.01.2020

Biggest reason to implement O365 for us was to get rid of an old communications tool
once some essential fixes were made to the old system employees were already frustrated
and attitude towards the whole system was on a bad level. In a global company that we
are a cross-organizational system for conferencing and document sharing is essential. At
the end of 2017 idea came to get the whole Microsoft office 365 implemented to the
organization after summer 2018 Teams was also implemented. Skype for Business worked
as a tool for communication during the migration. Teams was already available but not
yet as mature as we wanted. Skype was from the beginning going to be just a part-time
solution while the setup for Teams was planned. Landing an implementation with full
success was a priority. (Anonymous, Senior Communications Manager, personal
communication, January 16, 2020)

External change manager was involved in the implementation for 9 -10months with the
first part on full-time allocation and till the end of the year as part-time. The same change
management consultancy took care of the project owner position and oversaw the
implementation whole project. As a technical IT partner, we had Sulava Oy as the main
partner and some others for smaller parts like for instance one that helped us out in the

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data migration from our legacy system. Also, to mention we had one company assisting
in mobile security. On top of that we had a communications agency that helped us with
campaign planning and execution. Some of our team visited another company to learn
how they had executed a similar implementation project. The execution of the project was
good, and we were satisfied for all partners that assisted us. (Anonymous, Senior
Communications Manager, personal communication, January 16, 2020)

The amount of emails compared to SharePoint did not take any radical immediate turn.
There is a strong correlation in effective work and reduced email traffic. Often mails are
forwarded, and people are sent courtesy copies (CCs) tagged in mail chains as if they were
chat-channels. (Anonymous, Senior Communications Manager, personal communication,
January 16, 2020)

Implementation of O365 is an ongoing project that is never finished, there are still many
employees that use Teams and we have gone from using both Skype for Business and
Teams to Teams only. The single best thing in the implementation project was our
‘collaboration coach network’ consisting of 150 change agents (The Project Champion).
We educated these change agents that were in 78 divisions spread over 34 countries. The
thought was to have at least one coach per organizational department and in bigger
departments have multiple agents. The departments decided themselves who would
become the change agent. What might have motivated the individuals most to become
change agents was the opportunity of being part of an international project. We wanted
these profiles to be active members of their departments. Their task was to attend
workshops and become skilled in using O365 for them to arrange educational events in
their departments. We had trouble getting attendants on online workshops already with
the previous communications tool and had online education in this implementation as
well, still, educational events are much more efficient when held in physical locations.
Education was not technical usage of the tool but rather a mindset of the way of working
collaboratively. We also held some Digital collaborations theme days were functions and
use cases were presented. Influencing the adoption was mostly pitching the new system
as easy to use and bring up use cases. Showing examples of how for instance version

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history and document duplicates were no longer a burden in the cloud, worked as a good
motivator. Finding issues with the legacy system was not a problem, by proving that those
could be solved by the new system brought a better image for the end-users (employees).
(Anonymous, Senior Communications Manager, personal communication, January 16,
2020)

The time allocated to the project could have been longer. Migrating email was the most
time-consuming and the migration had to be done at the same time as we planned the
work. The timeframe for the project was set as one year and was based on the need to
move from the old platform provider prior to the current license would expire. Planning
the migration could have been done better and in beforehand. Resistance to change will
happen in all implementations and too much effort should not be put in fighting alone
rebels. Finding the root of the problem can be anything. No major problems with hardware
occurred, some slight implication with Microsoft Explorer web browser. Recourses (time
& money) are always a tough question, the planning is a big part of the implementation.
Change management is an investment for the future way of working and collaborating.
Mapping out the best tools to use is vital for a good start with O365. (Anonymous, Senior
Communications Manager, personal communication, January 16, 2020)

8. Implementation datapoints – (Company x)

The success of a Microsoft Teams implementation project can be (to some extent)
measured in user data. Figure 13 Private chat data (Company x) shows the increased
volume of sent private chat messages within Microsoft Teams at a global company. The
steep rise in Teams messages indicates the result for a successful migration from using
Skype to using Teams-only when shutting down the internal use of Skype for Business
(SfB). In Figure 12 company x transition into Teams-only mode is clear from the user
counts of SfB. The exact date is 05.11.2019 and the use of SfB is ending within one day.

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Private chat message count indicates well the daily use of Teams during the change from
an old communications software. The short drops each week are weekends and the bigger
Otto Vauhkonen

Private Chat messages do not add transparency within the company and, therefore, the

63
drop is happening during the Christmas holidays (Indicates good work-life balance).

01
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 Otto Vauhkonen

Team chat messages count indicates the message amount in channels. Channels can be
read by all stakeholders and work as forums instead of chat groups where all users
involved receive notifications when there is a new message. In channels questions can be
asked from the whole group instead of aimed towards individuals. Thus, the person that
has an answer can provide it and others will see that the question has been solved.
Therefore, involved users will not all have to bother to think of an answer. The standard
number of meetings and calls is a good indicator for reoccurring daily meetings being held
within the company. Figure 14 Messages / Calls / Meetings (Company x) The other
Microsoft Teams data is looked at more closely.

Teams User Data - Company X

7 Team Chat Messages Calls Meetings
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9. Structure of questionnaires

9.1 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey

The end-user survey was completed by a total of 82 office workers in Finland. The age of
the respondents was not gathered in this study, instead, the respondents were asked to
provide their work experience in number of years. The average work experience in years
amongst respondents was 11. A section of Personal Interest in Information Technology

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(PIIT) was added to study the correlation between self-evaluation of IT-skills and adaption
of MS Teams into daily work tasks.

The decision to exclude gender from this questionnaire was made on the fact that previous
research hypothesis has shown no significance. ‘Gender will positively moderate the
influence of subjective norm on behavioral intentions to use computers for men – not
significant’ (Venkatesh et al., 2003; Al-Gahtani, Hubona and Wang, 2007)

End-user questionnaires were sent out to organizations and spread across social media.
The questionnaire with a total of 35 questions can be found in chapter 17. Appendixes.
For the gathering of answers, a lot of effort was needed since approximately 3000 views
on a single social media post on LinkedIn, converted to 55 answers. The post was aimed
at office workers using Microsoft Teams and the message was that as many as possible
would either fill out the end-user questionnaire and/or like the post. The post got +130
engagements and multiple comments which all assisted the organic spread.

End-user questionnaires were also spread internally in multiple organizations and received
answers from a wide variety of different organizational departments and with a good
variety in years of work experience as Figure 15 indicates. Average work experience
measured in years was 11,29.

Distribution of work experience

14

12

10
Occurance

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 13 14 15 16 17 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 30 34 37
Years of work experience

Figure 15 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q5

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The geographical distribution is demonstrated in Figure 16 below. The companies that

end-user questionnaires were distributed in had employees mostly in Helsinki and Turku.
Sharing the end-user questionnaire in social media, resulted in participants form a wider
geographical area.

Participant city of employment

Vantaa
Vaasa
Turku
Tampere
Lahti
Kirkkonummi
Hyvinkää
Helsinki
Espoo

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

Figure 16 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q2

Use of MS Teams

I use MS Teams on a daily basis. I use MS Teams on weekly basis.

I use MS Teams seldomly. I am not using MS Teams at all.

Figure 17 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q12

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9.2 Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with Microsoft
Teams
The second questionnaire was sent to the professionals mentioned in chapter 2.2 Open
personal discussions. Questions can be found in chapter 17.2 Appendix B. Questions for
Consultants and Professionals working with Microsoft Teams.
Out of all end-user survey respondents (n=80) in the end-user questionnaire, the average
start date for using Microsoft Teams was 29.05.2019 which in comparison to the same
number for professionals (n=8) working with Teams implementations (average start date
of 21.08.2017) shows that professionals are (as they should) close to 2 years ahead of the
game.

Figure 18 Respondents to Appendix B

10. Results

The study shows that almost all the respondents that are using Microsoft Teams as a tool
for internal communication at their work, also use Skype for Business. This will be the
next maturity stage in the use of the Implementation of Microsoft Teams. According to
discussions had with Microsoft personnel, the stage in the adoption of Microsoft Teams
where alternative communications software are dropped out is called: Teams-Only. The

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so-called Teams Only phase is not yet complete at most Finnish workplaces. The
importance of focusing on one main tool for communications shall not be forgotten.

Results to the end-user questionnaire indicates that tools used for internal communications
are used in various combinations. As Figure 18 indicates, users are combining the use of
communications software at their workplace. The transfer from using old communications
tools to using Teams is happening but the transfer to a Teams-only state is in the future
for many organizations’. Using one tool will clarify the communication within the
organization and ease the task of finding information from old conversations. One
respondent wrote: ‘We have it and I will start when somebody invites me, I use Zoom’
(End-User Questionnaire respondent) ‘it’ referring to Microsoft Teams. Proof of an
implementation project with high maturity would be the use of one tool only, or at least
clearly more than others. The unnecessary combination of multiple tools makes
conversation (chat) history and the task of locating files become a difficult and time-
consuming task.

Figure 19 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q6

As discussed already in the introduction chapter, Microsoft has struggled with people
restricting the use of their products due to various reasons in the past, to investigate the
so-called “Hatred on Microsoft” two questions in the field of resistance towards

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acceptance of Microsoft products were asked both groups of questionnaire respondents.

The question was branched in a way that respondents answering “yes” or “partly yes” to
the question regarding the existence of hatred (Figure 20) would be asked to elaborate on
the reasons why (Table 2 & Table 3).

End users - Q7: Is Professinals - Q15: Is there

"Microsoft hatred" a to your knowledge anything
thing? as "Microsoft Hatred"?

Yes Yes

I do not Partly yes

know

No No

Figure 20 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q7 compared to Appendix

B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with Microsoft Teams Q15

The answers on the follow-up questions where categorized Figure 21 shows the splitting
between the categories. Microsoft being a big corporation and the history of Microsoft
products were the most recurring reasons behind the so-called “hatred”.

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End user - Q8: Elaborate on question 7: Why do you think

that is?
History 2

8
Microsoft being so big 5

Windows vs other OS

UX expectations not
met 5
Fear of failure
8

Figure 21 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q8

History of Microsoft
‘People are stuck in the early 2000s image of MS.’
‘Microsoft products have a reputation of being complex and confusing, poor
usability and issues with reliability and stability. I have to say that I think there
is some truth to these beliefs...’
‘Brought up with Win3.x and win95, which were terrible for work. From XP
onwards they finally started to get a decent tool. Win10/O365 are quite
brilliant. Still, old schoolers don't forget the amount of lost data and time due to
frequent Win crashes’
Microsoft being a tech giant
‘When something is used widely, there's always hatred towards it’
‘Microsoft is used too often as "the only alternative’
‘Some people can see large corporations as faceless greedy entities’
Rivalry between OS supporters
‘It’s part of the mac vs windows argument’
‘"True" Linux fans do not use Microsoft products (with exception from a
virtual machine). Linux based product development is also easier to complete
on native Linux. For some reason Mac is considered ok.’
Expectations regarding UX not being met
‘people have big expectations towards it and smallest failures makes them
mad’
Table 2 Negative attitudes towards Microsoft Appendix A.

History of Microsoft
It is due to Microsoft history: the first impression to some people is that
Microsoft stands for something negative and bloated. It takes a long time to
change.

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It stems from the history when there were no real alternatives to Microsoft
solutions. I see the situation has changed a bit lately globally, but not so much
in Finland.
That is typically comparing competing solutions to Microsoft's old offerings
from early 2000's without real-world experience of these solutions.
This is also heavily related to belief of a single-function system to solve all
possible collaboration issues. And this is related to poor implementation of on-
premises solutions like Skype for Business, when actual solution might still
work as planned, but network issues make the end user experience something
totally different.
Rivalry between OS supporters
People tend to love sticking to what they feel as familiar. If someone is e.g.
used to using Slack, they might be so attached to it, that they feel
uncomfortable using e.g. Teams.
It's a personal opinion not based on facts. The "gut feeling" that Slack / Mac /
whatever is better than the Microsoft equivalent just because it's more familiar.
Haters gonna hate, it's the easiest not to concentrate on them on your projects.

Table 3 Negative attitudes towards Microsoft Appendix B.

In Figure 21 and Figure 22 the responses between end-users (Appendix A.) and
professionals (Appendix B.) can be compared. In comparison almost the same results are
evident except for Teams being perceived easier to use for professionals with experience.
This supports TAM 3 (Venkatesh and Bala, 2008) variable ‘Experience’.

End users - Q19: Usefulness of MS Teams

I partly disagree I disagree I partly agree I agree

Using Microsoft Teams increases the effectiveness of my

work -1 -5 29 38

Using Microsoft Teams increases the quality of my work

-3 -10 33 20

Microsoft Teams is better for tasks such as:

communications, meetings and calendar than an regular -5 -7 31 24
email application (Outlook).
Using Microsoft Teams makes internal communications
and teamwork more efficient -4 28 41

It is easier to find old conversations and shared

documents in Microsoft Teams than it is in your email -8 -13 21 21

Figure 22 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q19

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Professionals - Q 17: Usefulness of Microsoft Teams

compared to mail
I disagree I partly disagree I partly agree I agree

It is easier to find old conversations

and shared documents in Microsoft Teams
than it is in your email

Using Microsoft Teams makes internal

communications and teamwork more efficient

Microsoft Teams is better for tasks such as:

communications, meetings and calendar
than and regular email application (Outlook)

Using Microsoft Teams increases

the quality of my work

Using Microsoft Teams increases

the effectiveness of my work

Figure 23 Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with

Microsoft Teams Q17
Overall perceived ease of use amongst end-users was found to be relatively good. The
future for organizations in Finland will have the need to share the use-cases of the
personnel that are finding Teams easy to use and find the motivating factors to comply
with the employees that find Teams hard to use. More education for the ones that lack the
needed skills.
Figure 24 Indicates that half of the users find Teams easy to use. More than half of the
respondents find basic functions easy to use.

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End users Professionals – Q18:ease

- Q21: Perceived Whenof use
educating employees in use of
I partly disagree I disagree Teams:
I don´tWhich
know / would you do?
stay neutral I partly agree I agree

My interaction with Microsoft Teams is clear and I

-2 -5 28 43
understand the software.

Interacting with Microsoft Teams does not require a lot

-10 32 35
of my mental effort.
I find it easy to use Microsoft Teams for basic tasks
(Chat, Calendar, Calls, Video Calls, Meetings and -2 -7 18 47
Sharing Documents).

Overall, I find Microsoft Teams easy to use. -1 -6 26 43

I do not like to use MS Teams -43 -18 7 5

Figure 24 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q21

The preferred amount of time spent on a workshop according to the experience of

professionals is listed in Figure 25. Mapping out the preferred methods for learning was
done in question 23 of the end-user survey. Workshops are preferred slightly more than
online education by employees.

Figure 25 Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with

Microsoft Teams Q24

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Results on Appendix 1 Q23:

Assistance in learning to use Microsoft Teams provided by
employer

I predict that I will find more use of MS Teams for daily tasks in
-1 -4 7 13 27
the future.
I predict that MS Teams will be used more at my workplace in
-1 4 10 37
the future.
I understand why my company decided to implement MS
6 12 34
Teams.
I have got someone that I can ask questions regarding the use
-4 -4 9 11 24
of MS Teams.
I prefer to have a person at the office, that I can ask questions
-6 -8 12 12 14
regarding the use of MS Teams.
I find online instructions in use of MS Teams useful for my
-9 -6 12 9 16
adoption.
I find workshops related to use of MS Teams useful for my
-7 -5 14 8 18
adoption.

Figure 26 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q23

Professionals - Q21: Assistance in learning to use Microsoft

Teams provided by employer

I disagree I partly disagree I partly agree I agree

MS Teams Workshops will help employee adoption of

the software.

Online instructions for MS Teams will help employees

to adopt

I predict that MS Teams will be used more at finnish

workplaces in the future.

I predict that employees will find more use of MS

Teams for daily tasks in the future.

Figure 27 Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with

Microsoft Teams Q21

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Results on Appendix 1 End user survey Q25: Social infuences

Companies I work with think I should use MS Teams. -4 -10 16 13

My supervisor think that I should use MS Teams. -8 -5 28 16

My colleagues think that I should use MS Teams. -8 -9 26 14

People who influence my behaviour think that I should use

-17 -7 13 13
MS Teams.

Using MS Teams is considered a status symbol among my

-36 -16 62
colleagues.

People who use MS Teams are high valued employees of the

-8 -2 10 27
work team.

People around me who use MS Teams are committed to

-5 -5 10 32
their work.

Figure 28 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q25

The goal for the implementation varies depending on the organization. Strive for more
efficient teamwork, added remote work and moving from Skype for Business is ranked
the most usual reasons for organizations’ in Finland to implement Microsoft Teams.
Reducing email amount, added transparency and using Teams as the main channel for
internal communications are usual aims as well.

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Professionals - Q9: What is the goal with implementing

Microsoft Teams?
Creating a hub for teamwork
Reduced amount of different
3rd party tools and systems
Getting rid of Skype for Business

Reduced amount of email

Remote work

Mobile support

Efficent Teamwork

Tranceparency
Use as main Internal
communications channel
0 2 4 6 8

Figure 29 Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with

Microsoft Teams

Basic functions are discovered and used by most employees familiar with Microsoft
Teams, actions such as sending calendar invites for upcoming meetings are more seldomly
used by end-users. The calendar function is not necessarily in use at all organizations’
since it can be deactivated by IT-personnel from the admin page. third-party applications
are not in large use neither, applications page holds plug-in applications by third-party
software providers.

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Results on Appendix 1 Q27.

How much have you used Microsoft Teams so far?
No I don´t know / stay neutral Yes

I have sent a calendar invite to someone in Teams -37 40

I have used the Apps-section in MS Teams to utilize

-48 23
third party applications.

I have used the Help-section in MS Teams for training

-62 12
and to find new features.

I have invited someone to a Teams meeting -26 52

I have shared my screen in a call -19 60

I have used Video Call -11 68

I have participated in a Teams call -9 69

I have sent a message in a team (Chat group) -7 73

I have sent a private message -12 66

Figure 30 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q27

The technological set of skills is a variable that has an effect on the adaption of new IS
(Venkatesh and Davis, 2000; Venkatesh and Bala, 2008; Taherdoost, 2018). Personal
Interest in Information Systems (PIIT) is a model for self-evaluation of interest towards
technology that is often used in survey studies. Respondents to the end-user questionnaire
evaluated themselves as mainly interested of technology in the PIIT section in the
questionnaire Figure 31.

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End users - Q29:

Personal Interest in Information Technology (PIIT)
I don´t know / stay neutral I disagree I partly agree I agree

In general, I am not interested to try out new

information technologies.

Among my colleagues/ peers, I am usually the first to

try new information technologies.

I find it easy to learn how to use new information

technology.

If my company would implement a new information

technology, I would look for ways to experiment with it
in order to make it useful for my daily tasks.

I like to experiment with new information technologies

(software & applications).

Figure 31 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q29

During the timeframe of responses being collected to the end-user survey, Covid-19 had
already moved the majority of employees in Finland to work remotely from home. To
evaluate the impact of Covid-19 on increased use of communications tools such as
Microsoft Teams, a question regarding increased use was added (Figure 32). Respondents
answering that use has increased at least ten times compared to before were 10 out of 78.

Increase in use of communications tools since

outbreak of Covid-19
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
(x1 Same . (x10 the
as amount
before) than
before)

Figure 32 Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey Q33

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11. Suggested model for companies implementing

Microsoft Teams

11.1 Pre phase

The first step of an implementation project could naturally start with a valuation of the
current situation and looking for potential alternatives. The first look towards the
implementation, could consist of a simple list of pros & cons for the implementation of
the new IS. Usually when looking into a new implementation there is a clear need that
needs to be fulfilled. In order to figure out the current state of satisfaction for the used IS
a survey could be used. When professionals were asked for the main reasons for
companies in Finland to implement Microsoft Teams they listed reasons such as hub for
teamwork, added transparency, modern and more reliable tool for conferencing / webinars
/ remote work, subsequent for SfB prior to its determination.

This first step could be done inhouse or with the help of consultants. Therefore, the first
step also includes asking for consultancy offers and interviewing/benchmarking these
offers to fit their own expectations. In a project a combination of multiple vendors might
be found useful whereas these vendors would need to perform by partly competing for
thrust and praise. Using professionals is important since the external consultants are living
and breathing change, they have enormous amounts of experience from previous projects
and they share information constantly with each other in industry-specific webinars,
meetups, and conferences.

11.2 IT-Setup
The IT-setup would include making sure of the compatibility of operative systems and
internet browsers. Potential investments in hardware or added security. The need for these
investments and updates would be drawn from an organization-wide mapping made by
for instance survey by the IT-department. Legacy system migration to the cloud, selecting
data that need to be migrated and a plan for the execution of the migration. Added security
for the cloud systems or in case of use on employee-owned mobile devices, the need for

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security applications. Once O365 licenses are sorted the Teams admin setup and creation
of rules for user-groups would be made. Internal network bandwidth shall be on a suitable
level for real-time media uploading and downloading. Microsoft provides the network
requirements on their webpage as listed in Table 4 (Microsoft, 2020)

Bandwidth(up/down) Scenarios
30 kbps Peer-to-peer audio calling
130 kbps Peer-to-peer audio calling and screen sharing
500 kbps Peer-to-peer quality video calling 360p at 30fps
1.2 Mbps Peer-to-peer HD quality video calling with resolution of HD
720p at 30fps
1.5 Mbps Peer-to-peer HD quality video calling with resolution of HD
1080p at 30fps
500kbps/1Mbps Group Video calling
1Mbps/2Mbps HD Group video calling (540p videos on 1080p screen)
Table 4 Bandwidth requirements

11.3 Planning phase and building the team

In the planning phase a consultant with prior experience to similar implementation

projects would work as advisor and orchestrator for the implementation. Implementation
team size would be dependent on the size and complexity of the organization. This team
would consist of people inside the implementing organization with help from external
consulting services like for instance: Digitalization consultants (specializing in Office 365
& Microsoft Teams), communications consultants (advising in channels for
communicating the change) and change management consultants for implementing the
new change of ways to work. The joint mission would be to form a clear view of how the
implementation could be organized, what goals would be set, how the journey would look
like, how long each step would take and how the budget will be distributed. The team
members would all be given their own areas to oversee. The implementation team would
need to be cross-organizational and cover multiple levels of the hierarchy. A project
sponsor and influential leader would also be essential to the success of the implementation.
Planning would include a timeframe and cost budget appraisal. Things to plan could be

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the pilot team and groups, a champions network, communications channels,

implementation brand (images, pictures, colors, and fonts) launch events and date,
merchandise, translation (if multilingual company).

11.4 IT-Governance

The creation of ownership for the Teams implementation includes the decision of making
the implementation company interest and finding the sponsors for the implementation.
Sponsors would preferably be influential leaders that can share the goal of using Teams
as an internal tool for collaboration. Getting the board of leaders involved.

11.5 Pilot phase and Champions program

Most Microsoft Teams implementation projects consists of a champion program. The

champions program is advised by Microsoft docs.microsoft.com (2018). The theory of
using a project champion has a long history, the way we speak of the project champion
has evolved quite a lot amongst the years (Pinto and Slevin, 1989). A champion suitable
for the implementation of Microsoft Teams would be a volunteer just as in an
organization’s work buddy system, but for the use of MS Teams. Champion would be
eager to drive change, modernize and add effectivity within the organization. The
motivation for volunteers should come from received recognition from the influential
leader involved in the Teams implementation team. A good amount of instructions is
available on the Microsoft web page (Microsoft, 2018).

11.6 Communicating the upcoming change

In order to prepare the organization for the upcoming change due to the implementation
the communication should be ongoing and reminding. By ensuring that the employees all
have the needed time to prepare for letting go of an old communications tool and start
using MS Teams, the transition will be smoother. One thing that professionals want to put
weight on is the importance of not only communicating the ‘what’ is going to change but

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communicating the ‘why’ it is going to change. In implementing new technology,

explaining the reason why it is important and providing concrete use cases to demonstrate
the usefulness can add perceived usefulness and uplift the image that the employers have
prior to use the IS.

11.7 Education

Educating the use of Teams is vital prior to the implementation of it in daily work tasks.
By giving the employees the opportunity to get familiar with the tools and giving them
the time needed, they will have a better chance to find the motivation for adopting to use
the tools. Providing a variety of use cases will add the chance that an individual employee
will be able to relate to the case and find motivation for use.

11.8 Teams launch (GO-Live Event)

The launch of MS Teams should preferably be done under one day. This would mean
gathering employees in a launch event where Teams would be declared ‘live’ and free for
the whole organization to use, here the work done in communicating the change would
bring benefit. If the communication part is executed in a way where the majority of
employees are looking forward to the change then the launch would be accordingly a
success.

11.9 Follow-up and continuous development

Microsoft is deploying new features for Microsoft Teams all the time. On top of new
features also new third-party applications and their corresponding features are evolving
constantly. To stay on track with new features & applications and adopt them in the daily
work tasks some effort and planning will be required. There is no such thing as one way
to implement or use a tool for internal communications such as Microsoft Teams. Any
team or department in an organization that wants to benefit as much as possible of a

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software shall do its best at sharing use cases, knowledge regarding new features and
anything else that can make work tasks more efficient using the software.

Organizations’ cannot have knowledge that is created inside them without individual
employees that build knowledge and unless these individual employees share their
knowledge it will not have a notable impact on the organizational effectiveness (Nonaka,
1991). Thus, the organization should put effort into creating a knowledge-sharing platform
within the organization in order to benefit from a higher level of effectiveness.

12. Discussion

12.1 Practical implications

From a practical perspective, the findings of this research reveal the most essential
variables that influence employees to adopt new technologies. By benchmarking several
widely discussed models, the use of the modern models is better applicable for supporting
management in leading change. The questionnaire results indicated that the level of
maturity of Teams use at organizations in Finland is still at an early stage and will require
more education, communication and knowledge sharing in order to reach a state where
only one main tool for communication exists. Implementation of software is an ongoing
process and requires specialist level knowledge.

12.2 Theoretical implications

In theory what the research indicated is that companies should always use external help
from professionals with knowledge for the specific information system that is aimed to be
used. In the case of a digital transformation project, the need for management consultants
with IT-knowledge is beyond the current understanding of the average organizational
management, although, most decisionmakers do include external help. For organizations
providing consultancy to their clients in change management or implementation of SaaS-

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products the question has clearly been the fear of rumors spreading of the company
outsourcing their implementation elsewhere thus, creating the question regarding real
competence. Change management is about an external eye for needed change, non-
disclosure agreements will secure the secret to stay between the client and the vendor.

12.3 Future research

This research can be leveraged in future studies aiming to investigate the adoption of
communication technologies in organizations’. For future research an observative study
of technology acceptance and change towards new ways of working is proposed.
Organizations in Finland are in different stages in their digitalization and new information
systems to implement will occur on a faster time cycle than ever before. Focusing on
individual employees and their adoption would be extremely interesting.

13. Conclusion

By interviewing stakeholders working for Microsoft, the implementing company and

third-party consultants in different Microsoft Teams implementation projects, one thing
was clear: If you oversee an implementation project, you will see resistance and you will
get the question ‘why?’. Your task as the implementation lead will be to explain this ‘why’
and, by helping the employees to understand the need for change, also find the motivation
for how the implementation of new digital tools will be useful. To drive change is not an
easy task and one person or a small dedicated team will not be able to turn a whole
company. Thus, it is important to have all managers committed to the change, from low-
level team leaders all the way to board members. Organizational change is like changing
the course of a big old ship, it requires all hands on deck.

Many would think that the implementation of a new ‘chat software’ is as easy as providing
the employees with user credentials and telling them to start using the software. That could
be the case if the software had only one or a few basic functions. For software that has
more functions and complexity, there will be a need of setting up structure and rules for

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use.

Discussions with consultants gave a clear picture of what a Microsoft Teams

implementation project is all about: Staying on the right course and keeping a good pace
compared to other companies in the global market.

Think of it as a need to stay in motion. This motion could be called, for instance,
digitalization and your company is a boat/ship (depending on size) that needs to survive
all big waves (new technology) in the ocean (global market). The better you implement
new technology the faster you can move in the ocean (global market) and the bigger your
ship (organization) is the stiffer it is to steer. If you have good communication and the
right tools you will attract the best crew, get most customers and make the biggest impact.
Then you will be a trendsetter and a vanguard.

The current situation globally, due to Covid-19 forcing people to stay at home, is
impacting Finland by significant measures. The decision of the Finnish Parliament to close
schools and advice on working remotely from home when possible led to financial
insecurity and, therefore, multiple companies went ahead and initiated co-operation
negotiations. These events might have made the average employee appreciation towards
their current employment rise slightly, since economic downturns reduce employee
intention to leave the organization (Hsu, 2009). Microsoft CEO Sataya Nadella spoke in
Microsoft Fiscal Year 2020 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call about the radical user
growth in daily active Teams users. Jared Spataro, Microsoft 365 Vice President wrote in
the company blog ‘2 years of digital transformation in 2 months’ and cited Sataya “In
April, we saw more than 200 million Microsoft Teams meeting participants in a single
day, generating more than 4.1 billion meeting minutes. Also, Teams now has more than
75 million daily active users and two-thirds of them have shared, collaborated, or
interacted with files on Teams as well.” (Spataro, 2020)

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14. Swedish Summary - Svensk Sammanfattning

Mjukvara avgör till stor del det som vi kan åstadkomma i dagens värld under en arbetsdag
i kontorsuppgifter. En digital arbetsplats är något som möjliggör mer effektivt arbete;
understöder smidighet samt arbetstagarens engagering för arbetet; och utnyttjar
konsument-inriktad design och technologi. (Gartner, 2020). Organisationer i Finland och
även globalt, strävar efter att konstant hitta nya digitala lösningar för att stöda den
verksamhet de driver. Digitaliseringen är en tävling om vem som lyckas hålla sig bäst
bland toppnivån av företag som ständigt hittar gynnsamma teknologiska beslut för
framtiden. (Collin et al., 2015)

Syftet med denna avhandling är att ge läsaren en inblick i implementations projekt av ett
internt kommunikationsverktyg. Denna studie har Microsoft Teams som programvara i
fokuset. Närmare bestämt har studien finska organisationer i fokus, därmed även finska
organisationer med global verksamhet. Forskningsfrågor som denna avhandling försöker
besvara är:

1. Vilka är orsakerna och målen med implementeringen av Microsoft Teams?

2. Hur kan framgång av ett Microsoft Teams implementeringsprojekt mätas? Hur har
implementationen av Teams i finska organisationer lyckats enligt dessa mätare?

3. Vilka är stegen i ett Microsoft Teams implementeringsprojekt? Går det att

utnämna några specifika praktiks som leder till lyckade implementeringar? Vilken
typ av skolning gynnar slutanvändaren mest?

14.1 Teori

Modeller för förändringsledarskap

Prosci: ADKAR

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Prosci's ADKAR-modell är en akronym som består av orden medvetenhet (Awareness),

viljan (Desire), kunskap (Knowledge), förmåga (Ability) och förstärkning
(Reinforcement)

Medvetenhet
Medvetenhet är det första steget i implementeringen där uppgiften är att reda ut
affärsbehovet. I detta skede klargörs arbetarnas medvetenhet om den aktuella situationen.
Behov och önskemål för förändring i organisationen presenteras. Medvetenheten om
förändring kommer alltid att ha någon form av motstånd till en början, genom att göra
ständiga ansträngningar för att öka medvetenheten om behovet av förändring kommer
mängden motstånd att avta.

Viljan
Det andra steget i ADKAR är önskan, då medvetenhet av situationen och den kommande
förändringen är klargjord, är det dags att bygga på viljan att använda det nya
informationssystemet. Steget görs under koncept- och planeringsfasen, "Den anställdas
personliga motivatorer eller hinder bidrar till nivån av viljan att använda den nya
programvaran" (Prosci inc.)

Kunskap
Det tredje steget är att lära ut kunskapen om hur man ska göra för att förändra sina sätt att
arbeta. När medvetenheten och viljan har formats kan detaljerad kunskap delas ut. Ifall de
anställda skulle skickas på skolning utan medvetenhet eller vilja, skulle utbildningen
garanterat inte leda till det resultat som organisationen strävat efter. Steget för kunskap
innehåller instruktioner gällande användningen av informationssystemet. Kunskapssteget
görs under implementeringsfasen.

Förmåga
När kunskapen är på plats kan förmågan bemästras. Där kunskap handlar om att navigera
och lära sig anatomin av informationssystemet för lyckad användning, är förmågan
kunskap om att sätta i gång med att använda informationssystemet på ett sätt som är

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gynnsamt för de arbetsuppgifter som individen har. Detta steg tas under
implementeringsfasen precis som kunskap men inte förrän kunskapen finns till.

Förstärkning
Då de anställda har alla tidigare steg under kontroll, kan iterationen av användningsfall
och funktioner börja. Förstärkning handlar om att hitta nya sätt att använda verktyget och
förstärka användarna genom att följa användargruppernas specifika uppgifter och
användningsområden för informationssystemet. Genom att dela användarhistorier samt
konkreta exempel för användningen av informationssystemet och vidareutbilda anställda
i nya funktioner, kommer kunskapen att använda informationssystemet att växa.
Kunskapsarbete kommer att göras efter implementeringen, i den efterföljande
implementeringsfasen som antas pågå så långt i framtiden som informationssystemet
används.

Prosci: ADKAR-modellen är i mångsidig användning av Microsoft-konsulter i dagens

värld (Öppen personlig diskussion med Microsoft konsulter). Modellen är specifikt
utformad för digitala förändringsprojekt och är därför tillämpbar för implementering av
Microsoft Teams. ADKAR-modellen beskriver den enskilda anställdas anpassning till ett
nytt informationssystem. ADKAR-modellen är tydlig och enkel att använda och behöver
ingen komplex tillämpning beroende på din organisation. ADKAR är ett bra verktyg för
planering, implementering och uppföljning. Ju bättre en implementering planeras desto
bättre kommer den att lyckas, därför bör ADKAR uppmärksammas redan i
planeringsfasen för ett genomförande. Om implementeringen redan har påbörjat kan
ADKAR fortfarande ge viss insikt om nödvändiga ingrepp.

14.2Metod
Kvalitativ och kvantitativ forskning är de mest versatila metoderna för forskning. Att
kombinera delar av de två metoderna av forskning görs i så gott som all beteendemässig
forskning. (Newman och Ridenour, 1998)

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Metoder för insamling av data, såsom observationer, intervjuer, frågeformulär med öppna
svar, muntliga rapporter, dagböcker och diskursanalys är alla former av kvalitativ
forskning (Croker, 2009). Kvalitativ forskning bedrivs ofta i ett rum för intervju. Intevjuer
kan också hållas via telefon (Eriksson och Kovalainen 2008). I denna studie kommer ett
av valen för datainsamling att vara kvalitativa öppna intervjuer. Intervjuerna kommer att
hållas via telefonsamtal eller Microsoft Teams videosamtal. Intervjuerna fungerar som en
kunskapsgrund för att skapa enkäter riktade till konsulter och andra professionella som
arbetar med implementering av Microsoft Teams. Uppsättningen av personliga
diskussioner är kvalitativa data som presenteras i kapitel 5–7.

Kvantitativ forskning bygger på siffror och statistiska metoder. Metoderna söker

mätningar och analyser som kan vidare tillämpas av andra forskare. (King, Keohane och
Verba, 1994). En form av kvantitativa metoder som kommer att användas i denna studie
är frågeformulär. "Undersökning är en forskningsmetod som används för att få
information om vissa grupper av människor som är representativa för någon större
intressegrupp" (Berger, 2018).

För litteraturöversynen kommer ett urval av modeller för förändringsledarskap och

anpassningsmodeller att granskas. De valda modellerna inkluderar Proscis ADKAR-
modellen, Kotters åtta steg för att förändra din organisation, modeller för acceptans av ny
teknologi (TAM), teorin för motiverad handling (TRA), teori om planerat beteende (TPB),
nerspjälkade teorin om planerat beteende (DTPB) och modellen för motivation (MM).
Kunskapsdelning och lärande inom en organisation kommer att undersökas för att skapa
en förståelse för mervärdet utav samarbete.
Potentiella fördelar med att använda Microsoft Teams kommer att undersökas. Vissa
grundläggande funktioner för Microsoft Teams kommer att undersökas. Processen med
att lokalisera filer, arbeta i realtid, kontroll av version historik, transparens, intern
kommunikation, projektdrivarnas nätverk (eng. Project champion network) och SaaS-
säkerhet kommer att utforskas.

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Förutom detta kommer data för denna studie att bestå av öppna diskussioner med
konsulter som arbetar kring implementeringen av Microsoft Teams. Användar-data från
en global finsk organisation kommer hjälpa att förklara hur en organisations
implementering av Microsoft Teams kunde se ut på ett numeriskt sett. En
slutanvändarundersökning kommer att delas ut i olika organisationer med målet att nå
användarna och utreda hur användarna av Teams ser implementeringen av programvaran.

15. Acknowledgements
I wish to record my thanks to everyone that I got to interview, discuss with, and chat to
during the process of writing this thesis. Thank you; Karoliina Kettukari, Juha Lindfors,
Vesa Nopanen, Katja Jokisalo, and Heidi Selkäinaho for your input from the consultant
perspective. Thank you; Max Henttu, Janne Ariluoto, and Heidi von Bell for sharing
what you have learned from leading a Microsoft Teams implementation project within
your employing firm. Thank you, Kati Viita, Antti Kivikangas, and Harri Mikkanen for
all the support you gave and the Microsoft inside perspective that you brought to this
study. I also want to thank the professional that preferred to stay anonymous.

I want to thank all the companies involved for letting me publish their names and
interview their employees. I give out a special thanks to the companies sharing my end-
user survey internally within their organization. The biggest thanks all though goes to
the one global company that invited me into their office to discuss numbers related to
their Microsoft Teams implementation project and the professional employee that
ensured that I got all material important for this study.

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16. References
Ajzen, I. (1991) ‘The theory of planned behavior’, Organizational behavior and human
decision processes, 50, pp. 179–211.
Al-Gahtani, S. S., Hubona, G. S. and Wang, J. (2007) ‘Information technology (IT) in
Saudi Arabia: Culture and the acceptance and use of IT’, Information and Management,
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Arrott, A., Macalintal, I. and McMillan, I. (2017) ‘For cloud services on a user’s
multiple devices, how do we measure the trusted zone defended by anti-malware?’, 2017
International Conference On Cyber Situational Awareness, Data Analytics And
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Bagozzi, R. P., Davis, F. D. D. and Warshaw, P. R. (1992) ‘Development and Test of a
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Balachandra, R. K., Ramakrishna, P. V. and Rakshit, A. (2009) ‘Cloud security issues’,
SCC 2009 - 2009 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing, pp. 517–520.
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Berger, A. A. (2018) Media and communication research methods: An introduction to
qualitative and quantitative approaches. 5th edn. Sage Publications.
Collin, J. et al. (2015) ‘Leadership in Transition: The Impact of Digitalization on
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Croker, R. A. (2009) An introduction to qualitative research. In Qualitative research in
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TESTING NEW END-USER INFORMATION SYSTEMS: THEORY AND
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Davis, F. D., Bagozzi, R. P. and Warshaw, P. R. (1989) ‘User Acceptance of Computer
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75–88. doi: 10.1016/j.technovation.2015.01.001.

Gartner (2020) Information Technology/ Gartner Glossary/ Digital Workplace.
Available at: https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/digital-
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valmistuneet ovat sijoittuneet?, töissä.fi. Available at: https://toissa.fi/sijoittuminen-
tyoelamaan/show/tietojaerjestelmaetiede?stories=2 (Accessed: 8 January 2020).
Hsu, H.-Y. (2009) ‘Professionals in Taiwan during an Economic Downturn’.
King, G., Keohane, R. O. and Verba, S. (1994) Designing social inquiry: Scientific
inference in qualitative research.
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Business Review, (March-April), p. 12. doi: 10.1016/0029-1021(73)90084-4.
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At The Future Of The Industry, 6.11. Available at: https://go.forrester.com/blogs/the-
channel-software-stack-a-comprehensive-and-critical-look-at-the-future-of-the-industry/.
Microsoft (2018) Create your champions program for Microsoft Teams. Available at:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-adoption-create-champions-
program.
Microsoft (2020a) Get clients for Microsoft Teams. Available at:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/get-clients (Accessed: 26 April 2020).
Microsoft (2020b) How do I get access to Microsoft Teams?, support.office.com.
Available at: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/How-do-I-get-access-to-Microsoft-
Teams-fc7f1634-abd3-4f26-a597-9df16e4ca65b (Accessed: 8 March 2020).
Microsoft (2020c) Prepare your organization’s network for Microsoft Teams. Available
at: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/prepare-network%0D (Accessed: 15
May 2020).
Microsoft 365 Team (2019) Free your teams to innovate by improving collaboration.

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Available at: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/growth-

center/resources/free-your-teams-to-innovate-by-improving-collaboration (Accessed: 27
April 2020).
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STATISTICS 2019 Year-End Estimates. Available at:
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Educational Leadership Faculty Publications, pp. 1–12.
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96–104.
Parke, M. (2019) When change is the new normal. Available at:
https://www.leansparx.com/post/when-change-is-the-constant.
Pinto, J. K. and Slevin, D. P. (1989) ‘The project champion: key to implementation
success’, Project Management Journal, 20, pp. 15–20. Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290808269_The_project_champion_key_to_i
mplementation_success.
Prosci inc. (no date) Prosci ADKAR Model. Available at:
https://empower.prosci.com/the-prosci-adkar-model-ebook-bundle.
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resources and capabilities on firm performance: A resource-based perspective’, Journal
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365/blog/2020/04/30/2-years-digital-transformation-2-months/ (Accessed: 5 May 2020).

Taherdoost, H. (2018) ‘A review of technology acceptance and adoption models and
theories’, Procedia manufacturing. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Elsevier, 22, pp. 960–967.
Taherdoost, H. and Masrom, M. (2009) ‘An Examination of Smart Card Technology
Acceptance Using Adoption Model’, Proceedings of the ITI 2009 31st International
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agenda on interventions’, Decision Sciences, 39(2), pp. 273–315. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-
5915.2008.00192.x.
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Acceptance Model: Four longitudinal field studies’, Management Science, 46(2), pp.
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ECONOMY: COMPETITIVE PRESSURES, RESOURCES, AND THE SPEED OF
ACTION’, Journal of Business Research, 68, pp. 1–31.

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17. Appendices

17.1Appendix A. Microsoft Teams – End-user survey

Microsoft Teams – End-user survey.

Finnish^ Approx. 10-15 min.
Dear participant, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.
This questionnaire is meant for anyone working in Finland at an office environment.
Your answers will be part of the data collected for my master’s thesis. I am going to
include the results to these questions in my thesis. All answers will be anonymous.

^ For questions in Finnish change version from page top ^

Questions regarding this form can be sent to writer of thesis:

Otto Vauhkonen
+358 40414 8899
otto.vauhkonen@abo.fi

supervisor of the thesis:

Anna Sell University Teacher,
Information Systems Senior Lecturer,
Information Systems D.Sc (BA),
Information Systems
anna.sell@abo.fi

*Required

1. Questions With a red * are obligatory, Language can be changed to Finnish, time to
complete is approximately 10-15 min. Understood?
Single choice
Yes
No
2. Location of employment
Required to answer
Single choice

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 Otto Vauhkonen

Helsinki
Espoo
Vantaa
Turku
Tampere
Oulu
Other

3. Position within company

Single choice
HR
Talent Search
Communications
Operations
Marketing
Financial
Legal
Purchase / Procurement
Sales
Consulting
Development
IT
Service Desk / ICT -Services
First impression / Lobby services
Management
Member of the board
Other

4. Career Level
Single choice
Entry level
Analyst
Associate
Associate Manager
Manager
Senior Manager
Partner

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Team Lead
Specialist
C-Level
Other

5. Years of work experience

Required to answer

6. Pick the tools that you are using for communication at work
Required to answer
Multiple choice
Mail
Phone
Text message
Whatsapp
Telegram
Slack
Microsoft Teams
Zoom
GoToMeeting
Google Hangouts
Skype for Business
Yammer
GitLab
GitHub
Linkedin
Other

7. Is "Microsoft Hatred" a thing?

Required to answer
Single choice
Yes
No
I do not know

8. Elaborate on question 6: Why do you think that is?

Required to answer

9. Knowledge of Microsoft Teams

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 Otto Vauhkonen

Required to answer
Single choice
I have used Microsoft Teams.
I have never used Microsoft Teams, I know what it is.
I have never used Microsoft Teams, I do NOT know what it is.

10. Access to O365 and Microsoft Teams

Required to answer
Single choice
If you have a personal Office 365 subscription, you won't be able to access Microsoft
Teams. To access the app, you need one of the following Office 365 license plans:
Business Essentials Business Premium Enterprise E1, E3, or E5 Enterprise E4 (for
anyone who purchased this plan prior to its retirement) Try logging in wit work / school
account https://teams.microsoft.com/start
I have access to Office 365 and Microsoft Teams
I do not have access to Office 365
I have access to Office 365 but not Microsoft Teams

11. I have got access to Microsoft Teams via...

Required to answer
Multiple choice
Work Microsoft O365 account
School Microsoft O365 account
Personal Microsoft O365 account
Hobby Microsoft O365 account
Other

12. Use of MS Teams

Required to answer
Single choice
I use MS Teams on a daily basis.
I use MS Teams on weekly basis.
I use MS Teams seldomly.
I am not using MS Teams at all.

13. Intentions to use

Required to answer
Single choice
I intend to master the use of MS Teams and use it on daily basis.
I am not planning on using MS Teams more than I do at the moment

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14. Intentions to use

Required to answer
Single choice
I intend to master the use of MS Teams and use it on daily basis.
I am not planning on using MS Teams more than I do at the moment

15. Assumptions of use of Microsoft Teams

Required to answer
Single choice
I predict that I would not use it if I had access.
I predict that I would use it if I had access.

16. First contact with Microsoft Teams

Required to answer
Single choice
I used MS Teams the first time at my Current workplace.
I used MS Teams the first time at my Previous workplace.ehto 5
I used MS Teams the first time for personal use.
I used MS Teams the first time in school / student assosiation.
I used MS Teams the first time in a hobby group.
I used MS Teams the first time at my client.
Other

17. Approximately when did you use Microsoft Teams the first time?
Required to answer
Date
Day

Month

2020

18. Assumption of use at workplace

Required to answer
Single choice
My employing company will demand the use of MS Teams.
My employing company will let me decide if I use MS Teams.
My employing company will use MS Teams soon.
My employing company will not use MS Teams
/ I have not yet heard of any intention to use MS Teams.

19. Usefulness of MS Teams

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Required to answer
Likert
I don´t
know /
I I partly stay I partly I
agree agree neutral disagree disagree

Using Microsoft Teams increases the

effectiveness of my work

Using Microsoft Teams increases the

quality of my work

Microsoft Teams is better for tasks such

as: communications, meetings and
calendar than an regular email
application (Outlook).

Using Microsoft Teams makes internal

communications and teamwork more
efficient

It is easier to find old conversations and

shared documents in Microsoft Teams
than it is in your email

20. Type free comments regarding the previous question:

21. Perceived ease of use

Required to answer
Likert
I don´t
I I partly know / stay I partly I
agree agree neutral disagree disagree

My interaction with Microsoft Teams is

clear and I understand the software.

Interacting with Microsoft Teams does

not require a lot of my mental effort.

I find it easy to use Microsoft Teams

for basic tasks (Chat, Calendar, Calls,

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I don´t
I I partly know / stay I partly I
agree agree neutral disagree disagree

Video Calls, Meetings and Sharing

Documents).

Overall, I find Microsoft Teams easy to

use.

I do not like to use MS Teams

22. Type free comments regarding the previous question:

23. Assistance in learning to use Microsoft Teams provided by employer

Required to answer
Likert
I I partly I don´t know I partly I
agree agree / stay neutral disagree disagree

I find workshops related to use of

MS Teams useful for my adoption.

I find online instructions in use of

MS Teams useful for my adoption.

I prefer to have a person at the

office, that I can ask questions
regarding the use of MS Teams.

I have got someone that I can ask

questions regarding the use of MS
Teams.

I understand why my company

decided to implement MS Teams.

I predict that MS Teams will be used

more at my workplace in the future.

I predict that I will find more use of

MS Teams for daily tasks in the
future.

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24. Type free comments regarding the previous question:

25. Social influences

Required to answer
Likert
I don´t
I know /
partly stay I partly I
I agree agree neutral disagree disagree

People around me who use MS Teams

are committed to their work.

People who use MS Teams are high

valued employees of the work team.

Using MS Teams is considered a

status symbol among my colleagues.

People who influence my behaviour

think that I should use MS Teams.

My colleagues think that I should use

MS Teams.

My supervisor think that I should use

MS Teams.

Companies I work with think I should

use MS Teams.

26. Type free comments regarding the previous question:

27. How much have you used Microsoft Teams so far?

Required to answer
Likert
This function is
I don´t know / blocked by
Yes No stay neutral administrator

I have sent a private message

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This function is
I don´t know / blocked by
Yes No stay neutral administrator

I have sent a message in a team

(Chat group)

I have participated in a Teams call

I have used Video Call

I have shared my screen in a call

I have invited someone to a Teams

meeting

I have used the Help-section in MS

Teams for training and to find new
features.

I have used the Apps-section in MS

Teams to utilize third-party
applications.

I have sent a calendar invite to

someone in Teams

28. Type free comments regarding the previous question:

29. Personal Interest in Information Technology (PIIT)

Required to answer
Likert
I don´t know
I I partly / stay I partly I
agree agree neutral disagreedisagree

I like to experiment with new

information
technologies (software &
applications).

If my company would implement a

new information technology, I would

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I don´t know
I I partly / stay I partly I
agree agree neutral disagreedisagree

look for ways to experiment with it in

order to make it useful for my daily
tasks.

I find it easy to learn how to use new

information technology.

Among my colleagues/ peers, I am

usually the first to try new
information technologies.

In general, I am not interested to

try out new information
technologies.

30. Type free comments regarding the previous question:

31. How good are you at using Microsoft Teams?

Required to answer (1-5-star self-evaluation)

32. What are the things that your colleagues are doing wrong in using Teams?
Required to answer

33. Due to the Covid-19 Outbreak, we are working from home. How much more (than
prior to working from home) are you using communication tools such as Microsoft
Teams?
Required to answer
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0: Not more than before 10: >=10x more than before

34. Have you had any problems with the use of Microsoft Teams?

35. Other thoughts on using Microsoft Teams? or Ideas of improvement for this Form?

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17.2Appendix B. Questions for Consultants and Professionals working with Microsoft

Teams

Questions for Consultants and

Professionals working with
Microsoft Teams
Dear professional, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.
Your answers will be part of the data collected for my master’s thesis.
I would like to include these questions and your answers in my final version of the
thesis.

Questions regarding this form can be sent to writer of thesis:

Otto Vauhkonen
+358 40414 8899
otto.vauhkonen@abo.fi

supervisor of the thesis:

Anna Sell
University Teacher,
Information Systems
Senior Lecturer,
Information Systems D.Sc (BA),
Information Systems
anna.sell@abo.fi

* Required

1. Do you give the permission to include your name, position, employing

company and answers to this form in my thesis?

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 Otto Vauhkonen

Yes No

Name

Company name

Position

Answers to this form

2. Name

3. Position

4. Company name

5. Participation type in an Microsoft Teams implementation project

Employee of implementing company
Microsoft personnel
Third-party consultant
Other

6. Approximately when did you personally start using Microsoft Teams

7. Taking Microsoft Teams in use: IT implementation vs. Change Management

project, give answer in % (Eg. 49-51)

8. What type of external help does companies usually use for implementation of

Microsoft Teams?
Change Management consultants
Internal Communications Consultants
Strategy Consultants

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IT-Data Consultants
Microsoft Consultants
Other

9. What is the goal with implementing Microsoft Teams?

Mobile support
Efficent Teamwork
Trancparency
Remote work
Reduced amount of email
Use as main Internal communications channel
Getting rid of Skype for Business
Other

10. What could a set of rules / Playbook for Teams contain?

11. Do companies in general to your knowledge arrange a pilot face for their

Teams implementation?
Yes
No
I don´t know
Other

12. Is a specific date for so called Teams GO-LIVE* a important thing?

*launch date - All employees that are not yet using Teams will start using it on the same date
Yes
No
Maybe / Don't know

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13. Do companies use learning material for MS Teams provided by Microsoft?

Yes
No
To some extent yes
Other

14. Describe what a Project Champion is according to you?

15. Is there to your knowledge anything as "Microsoft Hatred" / "Anti

Microsoft"?
Yes
Partly yes
No
I don't know

16. Why do you think that is?

17. Usefulness of Microsoft Teams compared to mail

I don´t
I I partly know / stay I partly I
agree agree neutral disagree disagree

Using Microsoft Teams instead of email

increases the effectiveness of work

Using Microsoft Teams increases the

quality of work

Microsoft Teams is better for tasks such as:

communications, meetings and calendar
than an regular email application
(Outlook).

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I don´t
I I partly know / stay I partly I
agree agree neutral disagree disagree

Using Microsoft Teams makes internal

communications and teamwork more
efficient

It is easier to find old conversations and

shared documents in Microsoft Teams
than it is in your email

18. When educating employees in use of Teams: Which would you do?
Online material only
Online education + Short sessions 15min
Webinars
Workshop 1-2h per session
Workshop 3h-one day
No education - Learn by doing
Reflect in team & share practical use cases
Microsoft Teams Coach available at office
Help via chat
Help and FAQ page on intra / Yammer
Peer to peer education
Champions network
Theme days & Kik-off events for Microsoft Teams
Chatbot with tips
Microsoft 365 learning pathways - Modifiable tips & help
Other

19. What difficulties have you met in Microsoft Teams implementation projects?

Microsoft Teams not being as good as expected

Operationsysytems / Hardware / Software not up to date
Resistanse to change / use Microsoft Teams
Teams implemented by only taking in use without setting rules

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Lack of Budget & Resourses

Getting the company lead involved in the implementation
Underestimating the size of the project
Data integration On-premise to Cloud was more timeconsuming than tought
Default Web browser being Internet Explorer
Other

20. Looking back: What would you have differently in a previous implementation

project?

21. Assistance in learning to use Microsoft Teams provided by employer

I I partly I don´t know / I partly I
agree agree stay neutral disagree disagree

MS Teams Workshops will help

employee adoption of the software.

Online instructions for MS Teams will

help employees to adopt

I predict that MS Teams will be used

more at finnish workplaces in the
future.

I predict that employees will find

more use of MS Teams for daily tasks
in the future.

22. Things that users often do wrong?

Use of private messages where team threads could be used
Too many Teams (groups) created
Not using SharePoint
Not using Video
Not using mute when not speaking
Other

23. Hypothetical task: Give your time - and budget estimate for an
implementation project with Microsoft Teams? (Months & €) Company: 10 000
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 Otto Vauhkonen

employees Language Finnish & English Local in Finland, 3 offices (no global
offices) Office 365 Business E3 already in use (do not include costs in budget)
Skype for Business & Google Hangouts currently in use

24. With same context as in previous question: How would you set the
timeframe for the project? Give your estimate (in months) for Teams Only

launch.

25. How much has Covid-19 increased the use of Teams according to your
observations? (Messages / Meetings / Shared documents)
On a scale from 1 - 10

1 = not at all 10= x10 Than before

26. How much has Covid-19 increased/decreased your personal and (or) team

workload? Again, on a scale from 1 to 10

27. What do you predict / Hope that Microsoft Teams will be used for in 2022?

28. Anything else you want to say? Ideas on how this form could be improved?

Submit

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.0

100 000
120 000
140 000

20 000
40 000
60 000
80 000

0
8.2
01
29
.0 9
8.2
01
01
.0 9
9.2
01
04
.0 9
9.2
01
07
.0 9
9.2
01
10
.0 9
9.2
01
13
.0 9
9.2
01
16
.0 9
9.2
01
19
.0 9
18. Graphs

9.2
01
22
.0 9
9.2
01
25
.0 9
9.2
01
28
.0 9
9.2
01
01
.1 9
0.2
01
04
.1 9
0.2
01
07
.1 9
0.2
01
10
.1 9
0.2
01
13
.1 9
0.2
01
16
.1 9
0.2
01
19
.1 9
0.2
01
22
.1 9
Peer-to-peer

0.2
01
25
.1 9
0.2
01
28
.1 9
0.2
01
31
.1 9
0.2
01
03 9
Organized

.1
1.2
01
06
.1 9
1.2
01
09
.1 9
1.2
01
12
.1 9
1.2
01
15 9
Participated

.1
1.2
Skype for Business Messages

01
18
.1 9
1.2
01
21
.1 9
1.2
01
24
.1 9
1.2
Otto Vauhkonen

112
01
27
.1 9
1.2
01
30
.1 9
1.2
01
03
.1 9
2.2
01
06
.1 9
2.2
01
09
.1 9
2.2
 Objective Metric Unit Marketing Sales Operations Finance HR IT
Time (e.g. X X
OttoX Vauhkonen
X X X
Efficiency of Change in productivity
Hours)
business
processes
Change in productivity Time (e.g. X X X X X X
Hours)
Deadlines/milestones met on time % X X X X X X

Time to launch Time (e.g. X X X X X X

Days)
Change in time to launch % X X X X X X

Time to develop/design X (project, campaing, etc.) Time (e.g. X X X X X X

Days)
Change in time to develop/design X (project, campaing, % X X X X X X

etc.)
Workload migration completion % X

Adoption of mobile technology % X X X X X

Support requests # X

Change in support requests % X

Employee Employee satisfaction with work environment (eg. Based KPI X

Satisfaction on NPS Net Promoter Score)

Change in work environment satisfaction % X

Employee satisfaction with onboarding (eg. Based on KPI X

NPS Net Promoter Score)

Change in onboarding satisfaction % X

Employee engagement (recognition, relationship with KPI X

manager and peers, communication)

Change in employee engagement % X

Internal promotion % X

Employee turnover (define base: annual, involuntary, %

voluntary, high performers, etc.)
Change in employee turnover (YoY) %

Wellness KPI X

Change in wellness % X

Percent of time spent travelling % X

Change in time spent travelling % X

Improve Number of ideas shared # X X

collaboration Adoption of Modern Communication apps % X X X X X X

Active users in Teams #

Workspaces in Teams #

Active users in Yammer #

Groups in Yammer #

Employees trained # X

Usage of training materials and tools # X

Emails sent # X X X X X X

Change in emails sent % X X X X X X

Number of meetings online # X X X X X X

Change in number of meetings online % X X X X X X

Improve ROI / Operating costs (travel, landline) $ X

Business value
Change in operating costs (travel, landline) % X

Maintenance and governance costs $ X X X

Change in maintenance and governance costs % X X X

IT costs $ X X

Change in IT costs % X X

Business objective (eg. Communication with citizens) # X X X

Change in business objective (eg. Communication with % X X X

citizens)
Use of employee analytics % X

Security Security alerts raised # X

Documents security catalogued # X

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