TEAMS — How to use the Tasks-tool

The Tasks-tool in TEAMS can improve group collaboration and communication. Here is how my team uses it.

The Planner-tool recently changed names to “Tasks”. It serves as a process-oriented to-do list, either only for you or for your team.

Here is a setup I like:

Using the buckets

I like working with 4 buckets:

• “Inbox” for incoming tasks that have not been started.
• “In process” for tasks people are currently working on.
• “Blocked” for tasks where input from outside the team is needed (approvals from authorities, decisions from the clients…).
• “Done” — all tasks in this bucket are finished. I like keeping them all in the same place in case I want to go back and look at them again.

Here are a few rules to improve collaboration:

• Anyone on the team can create a new task.
• Anyone on the team can assign a task to anyone else on the team (when you assign someone, it is a good idea to tell them about it) (use the assign-button to make someone responsible).
• A task cannot leave the inbox without someone being assigned to it.
• Once a task has left the inbox, it cannot go back to the inbox.
• If you are assigned to a task, it is your responsibility to make sure it is in the correct bucket.
• The project manager follows up on the “blocked” tasks to make sure the team gets the information they need.

Optional: the “Later”-bucket

If some people on the team get too many tasks, it can be a good idea to add a “Later”-bucket. You don’t want to work on too many tasks at once.

It is better to focus on few tasks and actually finish them that to work on many tasks at once.

Keeping few tasks in the “In process”-bucket has the benefit of telling the rest of your team about your priorities. If someone else it waiting for you to finish a task in the “Later”-bucket, they have a chance to find out what you are doing, and you can coordinate your work.

Using the tasks

Make sure that someone is assigned (=responsible) for each task. The responsible person will often change during the process, as different people work together.

When your work on a task is done and you assign someone or send it to the “Done”-bucket, you can add a short comment about what you have done.

I like using checklists for tasks. They act as a to-do list, and at the same time show you what you already have accomplished. Sometimes different people need to work on a task, you can use a checklist to coordinate input from different people.

Filtering

This function is important: You can filter the entire board so it only shows tasks you are assigned to. This will make it much easier to find your tasks.

The other stuff

You can make your board much more advanced. You can add deadlines, priorities and labels to tasks. You can show charts that tell you how many tasks are at which stages and assigned to whom.

I like to keep things simple. Especially if your team is new to Tasks, I would suggest you stick to a simple board with few functions until everyone on the team gets more comfortable with this.

The biggest issue with the Tasks-tool

In my experience, the biggest issue with the Tasks-tool is that everyone has their own habits, and those habits do not include the Tasks-tool. Some people like organizing their work in Outlook, on paper to-do-lists, in their calendars or other systems. If you want to introduce the Tasks-tool to your team, start with a meeting to discuss how you will use it, and then follow-up to make sure that people are actually using it.