Engineering Teams

Engineering teams need to quickly discuss technical details with team members and coordinate their resolution efforts.

The workspace in Microsoft Teams allows team members to move quickly from conversations to content and tasks.

Teams can help resolve bugs and issues more efficiently by providing context, continuity, and transparency to the entire team.

Here’s an example of how team activities can be organized as they track issues and manage the whole team:

They can create an Issue Resolution team, or channel, where team members can ask each other questions and respond easily when they are online.

The Meet Now feature allows them to speak via video chat. These features often reduce the need for in-person meetings, allowing faster and more productive communication – particularly for teams with members who work remotely.

They can also connect to external content, such as a bug-tracking system. This means that all relevant content is readily available, regardless of whether its source is an internal or external application or service.

Here are some channels engineering teams might want to have:

Sprint Planning & Retrospectives Channel - This channel can be used for team activities associated with planning and executing tasks associated with a specific project. They can also add tabs that link directly to specific files. This may be helpful for files that will be frequently used by the team.

Work Items Channel - This channel can be used to notify team members, using the Visual Studio Team Services connector. For example, when there is a change to a work item, a build is completed, or a release is scheduled.

Project Management Channel - This channel can be used to collaborate on the overall development of project tasks and progress. They can add relevant documents under the file section, such as: • Project schedule (via a connector tab, for example, to the included Microsoft Planner (see more details at https://aka.ms/planner), or the extra Microsoft Project) • Release notes • Project charter • Business and technical requirements • Statements of Work

Introduction of Planner: Introducing Office 365 Planner.
Simple guidance about Planner: Get started quickly with Microsoft Planner.
How to work together in Planner: Work together without chaos in Microsoft Planner.
If you are an Office 365 administrator, you may also want to read this article: Microsoft Planner for admins.

Planner video training - from Microsoft

https://www.teamgantt.com/free-gantt-chart-excel-template

 

How to Prepare and Manage an RFP or proposal

Here's a good case study for your engineering team - How to Prepare and Manage an RFP or proposal - for engineering or other projects. Bring your team together to draft a winning request or response and earn a customer’s future business.

1. Get Started - Set up an RFP/Proposal Generation team environment

You can use Microsoft Teams to generate requests for proposal (RFPs) and proposals.

Teams provides a single place where the whole team can have conversations related to the RFP or proposal, and access all related content and tools. Create your RFP/Proposal Generation team in Teams, and then add a channel for each aspect of the work—for example, you might have team channels for project management, proposal deliverables, and budget. Then you can get the teamwork started in those channels by starting conversations, and @mention specific team members to pull them in.

2. Track and assign tasks

Whether your team is generating or responding to an RFP, the process involves many departments throughout the company, working together to compile relevant questions or responses and supporting documentation. Within a Microsoft Teams channel, you can add a Planner tab to assign tasks to team members and track progress for the RFP or proposal. Planner helps teams easily organize their assignments and get work done in an efficient and collaborative fashion. 

3. Compile the deliverables for an RFP or proposal

The Microsoft Teams mobile-friendly chat-based workspace brings your team together with ready access to the documents, tools, and people they need to compile a complete and accurate RFP or response. For example, in the Files tab of the Proposal Deliverables channel, you can store and share relevant supporting documents and the RFP or response document you’re working on. Shared files are stored in the Files tab so that team members can review and discuss them within the Teams environment.

4. Track budgeting activities

Within a Microsoft Teams channel, you can display frequently accessed files, such as a budget spreadsheet or a template for RFP questions or responses, on individual tabs for easy access. You can also connect to external content such as an existing third-party task management system (like Asana, Pivotal Tracker, or Trello) or customer or vendor websites. All relevant content is available in Teams, regardless of whether its source is an internal or external application or service.

5. Access your info on the go

You can easily access any of your account management information from your phone or tablet by using the Microsoft Teams and OneDrive mobile apps for iOS and Android.

03/05/2024