The Microsoft Teams team uses Yammer?

Yep. You read that correctly.

With the official launch of Microsoft Teams last week, I wanted to answer a question that often arises. “Should I use Microsoft Teams or Yammer?”

Yammer and Microsoft Teams really serve different purposes. Let me explain through a real life Microsoft example. On our Microsoft Yammer network, the Microsoft Teams team uses a Yammer group to collect feedback from across the company about Teams!

While it technically could be possible to collect feedback using Microsoft Teams, it becomes pretty clear that Yammer is better for collecting feedback from a broad audience. Consider that a Microsoft Team requires you to know whom you might want to get feedback from. Yammer doesn’t presume an audience. Your company is your audience.

Could you also collect the feedback over email? You could, but email might prevent others from seeing the feedback and questions of others. If I’m part of a distribution list dedicated to Microsoft Teams feedback, would I really want to see all the emails from people sending in all their ideas and suggestions? Not likely.

I hope the example above illustrates where Yammer fits in your company’s collaboration stack. At Microsoft, The Teams team isn’t the only product group that uses Yammer. We have groups in Yammer across many of our product areas. So, if you have the need to collect input from across your company about a new product launch, a new marketing campaign, or a new process, think about how Yammer can be the primary collection point for diverse feedback and ideas from all your employees.

P.S. To be fair, my small team of 5 also uses Microsoft Teams. We primarily use a public Yammer group for the vast majority of our day-to-day communications. But we’ll use Teams for those instances where we know one of our team members is present and just need a quick back and forth. It’s also the space we go to when we might need a private back channel to have a chat.