

1,001 Business Problems Solved with Microsoft Teams
Arnie Howes
In each bite-sized episode, we solve common business challenges using Microsoft Teams. Tune in for quick, actionable solutions—usually about six minutes per episode!
If you’re short on time (like most business owners and managers are), feel free to jump directly to episodes that promise solutions to problems you’re having this very moment.
Microsoft Teams is more than a chat and meeting platform. It is a problem-solving beast!
If you’re short on time (like most business owners and managers are), feel free to jump directly to episodes that promise solutions to problems you’re having this very moment.
Microsoft Teams is more than a chat and meeting platform. It is a problem-solving beast!
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 5, 2025 • 6min
0060 - The General Channel Best Practice
If your Teams site is more than a few months old, you likely still have a channel named "General." If you leverage channels, as you should, this channel may serve no obvious purpose yet.
Or, if you don't leverage channels, this channel may have become a dumping ground for everything. Regardless, the General channel has been a source of clutter and uncertainty for a lot of Teams users and site owners.
In this episode, Annie Rynd tells you a great best practice that gives the General channel a purpose.
And, if your Teams site is only a couple months old and you do not have a General channel, you'll probably want to build one after listening to this best practice.
Want to learn more about Teams and how to improve your business? Go to teamsquickstart.com for more resources.

Apr 28, 2025 • 7min
0059 – Three Reasons Microsoft Teams Training Doesn’t Work
You paid an excellent trainer to give your employees Teams training. Perhaps you gave them all the best online Teams courses.
But...Teams still hasn't taken hold and the results are underwhelming. You're very disappointed. Maybe Teams isn't all it's cracked up to be.
The truth of the matter is that the problem is not the quality of the training, nor is it that your employees just don't get it.
There are three common causes for the failure of Teams training to deliver the results you're wanting and in this six-minute episode, host Annie Rynd tells you what those root causes are and how to avoid them (or recover if you've already been down that road).
Register for our free, 30-minute Teams Quick Start training course!

Apr 21, 2025 • 6min
0058 – Isn’t It Harder to Use Both Email and Teams?
What if you have successfully moved your employees to Teams, getting them to always send Teams chat messages and channel posts rather than emails, but their customers, vendors, and other external people continue using email?
Isn't that confusing?
Well, not really. In today's episode, Annie explains why and also tells you how to begin converting your external contacts to also move to Teams if they're open to it.
At County Quest Consulting, we always communicate with our clients via Teams rather than email, and it saves everyone involved a lot of clutter and work.

Apr 15, 2025 • 8min
0057 – Solving Many Problems Using Microsoft Lists
SharePoint Lists are our favorite Microsoft 365 app to add to Microsoft Teams. As a business owner or leader, you'll love how Lists can streamline and standardize many things you currently keep in spreadsheets or email.
From building your own CRM to tracking the status of complex projects or office processes, there is no doubt you'll find many efficient uses for Lists around your business.

Apr 7, 2025 • 6min
0056 – 8 Reasons to Use Microsoft Lists ASAP
Everybody uses spreadsheets in their business. It's a tried and true way to track items and organize data in a meaningful way.
But, did you know there is a much better way to organize spreadsheet information when you have multiple people using and/or consuming the information?
SharePoint lists have been around for more than twenty years, but most businesses don't have a clue what they do or how they can help. This episode will expose you to Microsoft's best kept secret!

Apr 1, 2025 • 5min
0055 – Why You Should Go All in On Teams - Part 2
After describing the problem most businesses face in Part 1 of this two-part series, Annie is back to tell you both the benefits of going all in on Microsoft Teams, as well as the four time-tested steps for succeeding with your own deployment.

Mar 24, 2025 • 7min
0054 – Why You Should Go All in On Teams - Part 1
Going all in on Teams is like acting on a hot stock tip that actually pans out.
Most businesses - especially smaller businesses - do not know about the transformative powers of Microsoft Teams. They may use Teams for video meetings and a little bit of chat, but they don't strategically leverage it to transform their businesses.
This is the first of a two-part series on why Teams is worth going all-in on.

Mar 17, 2025 • 6min
0053-Permissions Are a Pain!
How many times have you scrambled to give someone access to a shared workgroup file? How many times has someone accidentally been given access to a sensitive file? How often have you resented trying to figure out how to set permissions?
Or are you just sick of the mental clutter of having to keep so many shared files straight in your head?
In this episode, Annie Rynd tells you how to set permissions one time and never have to worry about them again.

Mar 10, 2025 • 6min
0052-I See the Value of Teams but I Have No Authority!
Are you an early adopter, or perhaps just someone who sees the great value of Teams to a workgroup but feel you don't have the authority to do anything about it?
Well fear not. In all likelihood, you can do something about it! This week, Annie tells you how to improve your workgroup's effectiveness with Teams, even if you are a lower-level manager in a large corporation or even if you're an individual contributor with no authority.

Mar 3, 2025 • 5min
0051-Our Group Chat Topics All Run Together! Part 2
In today's Part Two of helping you master solving the problem of multiple topics running together in a chat thread. While it is very handy for all conversations with a person (or people) to be contained in a single container - the chat thread - finding old messages seems to be too much trouble.
Today, hostess Annie tells you how to very quickly find old messages and how to resurrect the discussion in a neat way. She also shares some valuable tips on working with external people via chat.


