Last week, as the news kept flowing in from around the world about how COVID-19 could become a pandemic, Advaiya proactively started workshops for its managers and the teams on how to protect oneself, their coworkers and families through distancing, washing hands and general disinfecting, as well as to be prepared in case of complete lockdown situation.
Though Advaiya, with its globally distributed team and expertise in modern workplace technologies, is fully equipped and experienced in quickly deploying and helping adopt technology solutions that make distributed teams and remote workers more effective, this situation was unique and needed rigorous and immediate action.
The team members were trained on practicing social distancing and respiratory hygiene, through all-hands meetings on Microsoft Teams and various short group discussions and then continued to remind through posters in the office premises.
We conducted workshops for the managers on how to manage teams remotely and mock drills for IT infrastructure readiness. We had all the meetings on Teams even while in office. We also implemented a crisis communication app for gathering any relevant updates and communicating in a proper way.
Working in a lockdown situation for a week now, the extensive use of O365 and MS Teams for collaboration and communication has been quite effective. The managers hold daily stand-up meetings with their teams in the mornings using MS Teams video conferences. The importance of formal work and task management, when there are only a few opportunities to informally check-in, cannot be overstated. Some of the teams, like marketing and HR using MS Planner to manage the tasks of the day. The project teams are relying on our customized implementations of Azure Dev-Ops and Project Online ensuring that there is clarity as regards task assignment, work status and issues.
Apart from project and regular work, our team members are taking the opportunity to devote more of their time and efforts towards learning, such as obtaining professional certifications, which are funded by Advaiya. We have also identified many initiatives to build technical components and solution assets and also to upgrade internal applications. These initiatives typically involve building connectors or interfaces with newer technologies like Microsoft Power Platform, the new Project or extensions for Teams.
Our work has helped organizations ensure easy and secure access to information, documents and applications from anywhere, automate processes and build flexibility and resilience. And even as situations have become a bit challenging, with support and resourcefulness of our team members, we continue providing superlative customer service, without risking our or our community’s health in any way.
