Washington, D.C.

Wednesday 3:30 PM - 4:40 PM · Room 145b

Breaking collaboration boundaries with external partners through Teams

Andrew Seabrook

Andrew Seabrook

Senior Collaboration Engineer at Cloudforce
Jesse Kellner

Jesse Kellner

Director of Programs at Cloudforce

Guest access, external access, and shared channels all offer new ways to extend the boundaries of communication and collaboration. According to Microsoft research, IT executives report that 55 percent of all collaboration is with external business partners, and more than 300 midsize to large enterprises identified the two most common elements of collaboration that have risen in importance over the past two years:

  • Fostering collaboration with a wide range of people inside and outside the organization (68%)
  • Effective team communication (72%)

The obvious question: How can we take advantage of the fundamentally deeper relationships these tools allow us to enjoy with our fellows in partner organizations while ensuring that our most sensitive data and interactions remain secure?

Considering this question, it is high time for a re-imagining of how we approach and structure inter- and intra-organizational relationships from a technical perspective, with a renewed focus on distinguishing what makes day-to-day work most meaningful and how to empower users across different environments to work together most meaningfully.

In this session, we will explore the ways in which the Teams platform can help us realize the goal of bringing external and internal users closer together while maintaining the integrity of the team, and refresh both our perspectives and priorities for organizing and supporting users and their flow of work.