Using Microsoft Teams for

Project Management

Note:

• We recommend you use Box for file collaboration in Teams. To add Box as a cloud storage option please follow this document
• Third party applications (as tabs, connectors or bots) might require separate licenses which are not part of MS Teams

• Desktop sharing & Video conferencing features have been disabled in Teams meeting. We suggest you use Skype for Business for
desktop sharing & video conferencing.

Get ready for your next project!

Project-based work – whether large, small, or somewhere in between – typically involves team
members across different job functions and/or departments, who need to be able to quickly and
easily collaborate, communicate, plan, and coordinate their various project-based activities. These
capabilities are particularly important when team members are geographically dispersed across
time zones or not necessarily assigned to a project as a full-time resource – making it even more
challenging for team members to stay in sync and up-to-date.
Microsoft Teams provides a chat-based workspace in Office
365 designed to allow team members to move quickly from
chats to content and tasks, with context, continuity, and
transparency to the entire team. This guide will help your team
stay organized and productive for your next project using
Teams, the chat-based workspace.
Some typical team-based activities associated with a project
might include:
▪ Preparing various project plans and artifacts
▪ Conducting regular standup meetings
▪ Coordinating various communications
▪ Collaborating on project deliverables
Each of these activities involve different individuals, teams, and departments, all working together
within tight constraints and potential critical path dependencies.
Once your team owner invites you to join the project team in Teams, you can log in and familiarize
yourself with how it is organized. Your team owner may already have created a few channels, such
as the examples below, and added some content. Check under the Conversations and Wiki tabs to
see if there are any discussions or topics that you need to participate in or questions that you need
to answer for the team. There may also be tabs to O365 applications Planner, OneNote; connectors
to external content such as a third-party task management system (like Asana, Pivotal Tracker, or
Trello).
The following examples are channels that your team owner may have created for your team (Tip:
Use the General channel to suggest any other channels that may be helpful to the project team):

Plans and Artifacts Channel

 Using Microsoft Teams for
Project Management

This channel provides the team with information that is critical to the successful
planning and start of a project, and provides an archive for important project
artifacts. Under Files, you can work with relevant documents such as:
▪ Project charter, contracts, statements of work (SOWs), and change orders
▪ Project schedule (Gantt chart) and work breakdown structure (WBS)
▪ Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed (RACI) matrix
Tip: You can also add tabs that link directly to specific files. This may be helpful for files that wil l be
frequently referenced by the team.

Standup Meetings Channel

Standup meetings are brief, informal meetings that occur regularly throughout
a project. The standup meeting format has been widely adopted by
organizations of all sizes for various types of projects. A daily standup, for
example, is a quick (no more than 15 minutes) informal meeting among team
members to discuss what’s been done over the past 24 hours, what needs to be
done in the next 24 hours, and what potential roadblocks exist. You can share
relevant information with the project team in this channel, such as:
▪ Meeting minutes posted in a Wiki
▪ Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies (RAID) log created as a tab
▪ Weekly status reports uploaded to Files
Tip: The Meet Now feature allows team members to meet on-the-fly – without having to schedule
a meeting or reserve a conference room.

Communications Channel
This channel is used for important communications that need to occur among
all project stakeholders (including sponsors, champions, program/project
managers, and team members). Under Files, you can work with relevant
documents such as:
▪ Internal and external communication plans
▪ Execution, deployment, and rollback plans
▪ Press releases (if applicable)
Tip: The Wiki provides a convenient place for project team members to share relevant information
about the overall project – as well as specific project topics or issues – with the entire team.

Project Deliverables Channel

 Using Microsoft Teams for
Project Management

This channel provides team members with an easy and effective collaboration
workspace for the creation of project deliverables. Under Files, you can work
with relevant documents such as:
▪ Project documentation and readout presentations
▪ Revision or changes logs
▪ Customer or client acceptance/signoff forms
Tip: Team members can use the rich collaboration capabilities in Office 365 and tightly integrated
in Teams to work together in real-time on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.