Van Gogh Museum: Fast Adoption of Microsoft Teams
With the goal of enabling all employees to collaborate efficiently and flexibly, the Van Gogh Museum chose to undergo a "digital move" to the Microsoft 365 cloud in early 2020. Using our Customer Success approach, we guided the Van Gogh Museum through this transition.
Before migrating to Microsoft 365, the employees of the Van Gogh Museum stored all documents on local network drives. Over time, the number of folders became overwhelming, and the folder structure became too complex, making it increasingly difficult to find the right files.
This also hindered collaboration in multidisciplinary teams because not all team members had the necessary permissions to access and edit files. The biggest hurdle was collaborating on a single file. In the old setup, files were emailed to each other, leading to confusion about the current version at times. The Van Gogh Museum identified the following project priorities:
Customer success approach
The Van Gogh Museum chose Motion10, an HSO company, as a partner based on our Customer Success approach. The museum believes that technology should serve people, not the other way around. They saw this in our approach, which placed employees at the center from the start. During the project at the Van Gogh Museum, we involved employees well before the smallest piece of technology was rolled out. Through interviews, workshops, thematic sessions, and a survey, we gained a clear understanding of the employees' desires and needs.
Focus on teams
In collaboration with the project team at the Van Gogh Museum, we decided to focus on Teams when rolling out the Microsoft 365 platform within the museum. With Teams taking the lead, supplemented by SharePoint and OneDrive, the museum could best enable employees to collaborate efficiently and flexibly. During the project, the focus on Teams quickly became even more critical due to the outbreak of COVID-19. Therefore, the Van Gogh Museum had to switch to full remote work with Teams immediately. Initially, we accelerated the deployment of Teams' chat and calling features, followed by the rest of the online collaboration environment.
Under "normal" circumstances, our consultants are frequently physically present with our clients to guide employees in using new technology. However, due to the sudden shift to remote work, the Van Gogh Museum provided guidance to employees in working with Teams entirely online—via Teams itself. This online guidance program provided an ideal opportunity for employees to discover the practical value of Teams.
"Together with our people, both from technology and the business side, we successfully completed this project as one team. At the end of the project, our partner felt more like real colleagues."
The 4 Key Elements of our the Customer Success Approach
To provide comprehensive support to Van Gogh Museum employees in efficiently and flexibly collaborating with Teams, our consultants received assistance from key users. These museum employees, trained by us, acted as project ambassadors within their teams or departments, helping colleagues with questions about working with Teams. They could easily translate specific departmental and team needs.
For personal guidance in using Teams, our consultants were available to all museum employees in multiple 1-on-1 sessions. Each employee could directly contact a consultant via Teams, and if available, a 1-on-1 session could take place right away. For employees who were less digitally skilled or had more difficulty with the new way of collaborating, we provided individualized support.
The name "The Yellow House" originates from a painting by Vincent van Gogh. In this painting, he envisioned a place where like-minded artists could collaborate and live together. Within the project, "The Yellow House" symbolized creating a single place for employees. In this digital collaboration environment, using Teams and SharePoint, all employees could go to ask questions, find instructions, and assist each other.
In addition to guiding departments and individual employees, our consultants, in collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum's management, conducted multiple webinars for all employees using the "live-events" functionality in Teams. Topics included preparing for the next project steps, addressing frequently asked questions, and reinforcing or delving deeper into previous sessions.
Marianne Peereboom, Senior Project Manager at Van Gogh Museum:
"An important success factor of this project was the accessibility of the consultants for our employees. From the many online 1-on-1 sessions that took place to the large number of answered questions in 'The Yellow House,' our employees found the guidance in working with Teams to be pleasant and educational."
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On the Modern Workplace
Microsoft Teams is much more than just a meeting tool. It is the platform where everyone can carry out their daily tasks: Microsoft Teams as a Digital Workplace! Want to learn more about Microsoft Teams? Don't hesitate to connect!
