Practitioner's Insight:

Creative collaboration can happen when you successfully capture the ideas of everyone working on a team. It gets tougher when teams get bigger, especially online. Companies can use Microsoft Teams to increase creative collaboration among their employees. When COVID$-19$ hit, Microsoft Teams played a big role in making remote work easier for around $50,000$ Microsoft employees. Microsoft Teams channels went up nearly $200\%$ and there was a $42\%$ increase in after hours team chats. Teams has helped Microsoft's employees communicate in a more flexible manner and manage access to files and notes. Microsoft's employees reported that they have been able to collaborate more effectively since using MS teams and Microsoft's collaboration NSAT increased by $10\%$ since working remotely.

Interactive Features of MS Teams:

MS Teams offers instant messaging, audio and video calls, and both group and private chats. These are just some of the features that allow everyone's ideas to be seen and help people work together in an organized fashion. Online collaboration can be hard because some people may not know when or what to do and messages can be easily misinterpreted. MS Teams offers a checklist option where everyone can see what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and who has done it$.$ The chat feature is great for giving feedback and sharing ideas. Although, it can get a bit overwhelming if it is not managed efficiently. Channels are helpful for specific projects, but you may need to make multiple chats with clear rules to avoid confusion.When the rules are clear it can keep feedback flowing smoothly. But, if the channel's purposes are unclear it can cause a lot of random information to be in chats and a lot of time wasted searching for what you need to see.

Group Collaboration in MS Teams:

In creative collaboration MS Teams breaks down barriers and encourages shared creativity. Channels allow everyone to pitch in with their ideas and get quick feedback from their team. My brother that I live with works remotely and uses Microsoft Teams everyday for work. He is a computer engineer and when he needs help solving a problem, he has a group of people that he can chat with and get responses from quickly. I have seen him ask questions and people will respond with what they think may work and another person may say that that idea has not worked for them and they will go back and forth until a new idea or solution is found. If the problem is really big he can check if people on his team are busy and have called and screenshared to get the help he needs. Overall, MS Teams has positively impacted creative collaboration especially now that remote and hybrid work has become more popular.