SS Great Britain are a Bristol based charity that oversee the restoration, curation and display of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Ocean Liner. In 1970 the rusted shell of the ship was bought home from the Falkland Islands and a trust was built in order to restore and look after the ship.

Now it’s one of Bristol’s best tourist attractions, boasting museums, a research centre, conference facilities and a rich engineering history. However, like many businesses they deployed Microsoft Teams during the pandemic to enable people to carry on doing their jobs at home and didn’t have the chance to do any training or any change management of the new software.

Assembling the Best Crew for SS Great Britain

As a Microsoft partner and as another local business in Bristol, they entrusted Changing Social to deliver training on Teams to the people on the ground so they could collaborate better, increase productivity, and make the most of Teams.

Our job was to make sure that the digital engagement on teams grew so they could make more use of and get better outputs on teams. One of our key aims was to ensure that SS Great Britain weren’t losing money in untapped technology, and to help them make the most of the Microsoft applications they had purchased. 

Laura Spencer was the main contact and she’s the executive assistant the Director of Commercial and Operations and the Director of External Affairs.

Laura wanted to understand where the team were on their understanding of Teams, so she understood what the different levels were in people’s knowledge. Changing Social started the engagement with a discovery session and a training needs assessment so we could really understand what people who were using the tools needed.

How were SS Great Britain faring with Teams previously? 

When Changing Social conducted the discovery session and found out how people were using the Microsoft tools, for many it was seen as just a meeting, chat and conferencing tool.  

An understanding of channels, posts, storage, collaboration tools such as document collaboration, some of the inbuilt functionalities, as well as how Teams can integrate with other Microsoft applications – it wasn’t as widely known to the SS Great Britain team. 

Changing Social wanted to ensure that SS Great Britain were aware what other tools would be available to them for smarter meetings and collaboration

For example, meetings would be set up when it could have been a channel conversation. Brand new teams were being created when in fact a new channel, or a new private channel, might have been more suitable within a team that already existed. A lot of paper notes were being taken and then they would have to be digitised, so they weren’t using OneNote and meeting notes, or whiteboarding. 

Although the training was specifically on Teams, Changing Social wanted to ensure that SS Great Britain were aware what other tools would be available to them for smarter meetings and collaboration, things like breakout rooms, presenter mode, and live captions.  

Getting SS Great Britain Ship-Shape and Tidy! 

At Changing Social we don’t train on just how to use the tools, we focus more on solving issues and relieving pain points, so we wanted to understand how the product was currently being used.  

Changing Social were able to showcase the full capability of Teams, and how to get the most out of the tools to solve some of those common pain points.

We looked at any issues raised, pain points and where people’s knowledge was at a baseline from the Training Needs Analysis, and then we worked with SS Great Britain to put together some bespoke training based on the outputs of the discovery, and predominantly focused on new ways of working within Teams.  

Changing Social were able to showcase the full capability of Teams, highlighting end-to-end what teams can do, and how to get the most out of the tools to solve some of those common pain points. 

Sailing to Success! 

Setting baseline skills and understanding the capability of Teams allowed SS Great Britain to gain better knowledge, which subsequently meant that the productivity was better, they saved time and effort, and they’re also able to utilise that in other areas of the trust.  

Additionally, without realising it, SS Great Britain have been scaling adoption! Scaling adoption is something that Changing Social do in the Digital Champions programme, where we train a group of people on how to use the tools and then they will share that learning with other members of the organisation, and so on and so forth.

SS Great Britain have shared what they learned with other people who didn’t partake in the Teams training and put together training packs for new starters, scaling adoption without intent. 

Where will SS Great Britain Voyage in the Future?

From a technology perspective, Changing Social are incredibly proud of how the Teams training and showcasing the other apps has unlocked the capabilities of the Microsoft suite for SS Great Britain. As a result of training from the Changing Social team, we showcased how you can use whiteboards in team meetings, OneNote in team meetings, how you can use breakout rooms, how you can bring in other tools into the meeting and how to use channel meetings to keep everything collaborative. 

We are hoping to work with SS Great Britain in the future on the Microsoft applications that they’ve unlocked and to continue providing training, so they can continue being productive and have a collaborative approach to modern ways of working on an old ship! 

SS Great Britain are a Bristol based charity that oversee the restoration, curation and display of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Ocean Liner. In 1970 the rusted shell of the ship was bought home from the Falkland Islands and a trust was built in order to restore and look after the ship.

Now it’s one of Bristol’s best tourist attractions, boasting museums, a research centre, conference facilities and a rich engineering history. However, like many businesses they deployed Microsoft Teams during the pandemic to enable people to carry on doing their jobs at home and didn’t have the chance to do any training or any change management of the new software.

Assembling the Best Crew for SS Great Britain

As a Microsoft partner and as another local business in Bristol, they entrusted Changing Social to deliver training on Teams to the people on the ground so they could collaborate better, increase productivity, and make the most of Teams.

Our job was to make sure that the digital engagement on teams grew so they could make more use of and get better outputs on teams. One of our key aims was to ensure that SS Great Britain weren’t losing money in untapped technology, and to help them make the most of the Microsoft applications they had purchased. 

Laura Spencer was the main contact and she’s the executive assistant the Director of Commercial and Operations and the Director of External Affairs.

Laura wanted to understand where the team were on their understanding of Teams, so she understood what the different levels were in people’s knowledge. Changing Social started the engagement with a discovery session and a training needs assessment so we could really understand what people who were using the tools needed.

How were SS Great Britain faring with Teams previously? 

When Changing Social conducted the discovery session and found out how people were using the Microsoft tools, for many it was seen as just a meeting, chat and conferencing tool.  

An understanding of channels, posts, storage, collaboration tools such as document collaboration, some of the inbuilt functionalities, as well as how Teams can integrate with other Microsoft applications – it wasn’t as widely known to the SS Great Britain team. 

Changing Social wanted to ensure that SS Great Britain were aware what other tools would be available to them for smarter meetings and collaboration

For example, meetings would be set up when it could have been a channel conversation. Brand new teams were being created when in fact a new channel, or a new private channel, might have been more suitable within a team that already existed. A lot of paper notes were being taken and then they would have to be digitised, so they weren’t using OneNote and meeting notes, or whiteboarding. 

Although the training was specifically on Teams, Changing Social wanted to ensure that SS Great Britain were aware what other tools would be available to them for smarter meetings and collaboration, things like breakout rooms, presenter mode, and live captions.  

Getting SS Great Britain Ship-Shape and Tidy! 

At Changing Social we don’t train on just how to use the tools, we focus more on solving issues and relieving pain points, so we wanted to understand how the product was currently being used.  

Changing Social were able to showcase the full capability of Teams, and how to get the most out of the tools to solve some of those common pain points.

We looked at any issues raised, pain points and where people’s knowledge was at a baseline from the Training Needs Analysis, and then we worked with SS Great Britain to put together some bespoke training based on the outputs of the discovery, and predominantly focused on new ways of working within Teams.  

Changing Social were able to showcase the full capability of Teams, highlighting end-to-end what teams can do, and how to get the most out of the tools to solve some of those common pain points. 

Sailing to Success! 

Setting baseline skills and understanding the capability of Teams allowed SS Great Britain to gain better knowledge, which subsequently meant that the productivity was better, they saved time and effort, and they’re also able to utilise that in other areas of the trust.  

Additionally, without realising it, SS Great Britain have been scaling adoption! Scaling adoption is something that Changing Social do in the Digital Champions programme, where we train a group of people on how to use the tools and then they will share that learning with other members of the organisation, and so on and so forth.

SS Great Britain have shared what they learned with other people who didn’t partake in the Teams training and put together training packs for new starters, scaling adoption without intent. 

Where will SS Great Britain Voyage in the Future?

From a technology perspective, Changing Social are incredibly proud of how the Teams training and showcasing the other apps has unlocked the capabilities of the Microsoft suite for SS Great Britain. As a result of training from the Changing Social team, we showcased how you can use whiteboards in team meetings, OneNote in team meetings, how you can use breakout rooms, how you can bring in other tools into the meeting and how to use channel meetings to keep everything collaborative. 

We are hoping to work with SS Great Britain in the future on the Microsoft applications that they’ve unlocked and to continue providing training, so they can continue being productive and have a collaborative approach to modern ways of working on an old ship!