Centralised OneNote Management = No More Internal Email

Solving the OneNote management problem creates new challenges. A Teams adoption can not be considered in isolation from the use of internal email and other internal communications. Project based communications may or may not work within a school environment. Who knows? Apparently no one because the alternatives to Teams have not been realistic options for consideration in public education. However, there might be some ways of gauging whether or not a case can be made for such a move away from conventional institutional communication.

Conducting a Study

The following process was used to analyse our communication processes via email and LMS announcements. While LMS announcements were somewhat effective at targeting their audience (only those enrolled in courses or organisations with the school would become aware they had been made), there was no way for information recipients to easily acknowledge the announcement. This was the same for most widely distributed emails.

It was decided that the staff would be involved with the decision making around moving to Teams from the outset. Having explained the challenges around not being able to centrally manage the OneNotes, it was explained that the solution would involve more than just the adoption of a new way of making announcements, but a wholesale change in our communications structure as an institution. We wanted staff to help us find out if this was the correct move forward and whether or not we were ‘ripe’ for such a project based solution to communication. Staff were asked to complete an analysis of their last 40 emails. Whilst the number might seem low, when spread across staff as it works to an analysis of several thousand.  Such an analysis might easily be conducted with reports from Exchange, however, it proved very worthwhile involving the whole staff in the process as the evidence they presented could then be used in the final decision making. They collectively owned the process.