Making work less crap

Work shouldn't feel this hard. Yet for most organisations, modern work is inefficient, noisy and exhausting. Microsoft 365 and Copilot are not giving us the productivity gains: we've simoply layered new technology on top of old ways of working, and it shows.

We have the tools, but not the impact

Lack of alignment and clarity, relying on meetings and guesswork

Digital, hybrid and distributed teams working harder, not better

Microsoft 365 used inconsistently. Employees not gaining productivity benefits

Chat and notification overload destroying focus and deep work

Leaders struggling to communicate and decide inside digital tools

Copilot introduced without clarity, guardrails and skills to use to really make a difference

The result: busy days, long hours, frustrated teams — and surprisingly little impact. This isn't a technology problem. It's a work design problem.

What we do differently

Designing Collaboration helps organisations redesign the way work actually works - in Microsoft 365 and beyond.

We focus on the behaviours, habits and decisions that sit underneath the tools. So technology finally supports people instead of getting in the way.

We help organisations:

Replace meeting-heavy, high-friction ways of working with clearer, more asynchronous practices
Build high-performing digital teams with shared norms, trust and visibility
Develop digital leadership capability - so leaders can communicate, decide and lead effectively in Teams, Viva Engage and Copilot
Create consistency and confidence in Microsoft 365 across teams and functions
Introduce AI and Copilot responsibly, by redesigning workflows first - not just switching features on

This is about making work less exhausting, more human and more effective, without adding more tools, process or noise.

AI doesn't fix broken work

Copilot and AI are powerful. Dropped into broken ways of working, they accelerate the mess.

We help organisations slow down just enough to:

Identify where AI genuinely improves outcomes, not just speeds things up
Redesign work and decision-making before automating it
Build critical thinking and responsible AI practices at the team level
Ensure AI supports collaboration rather than creating surveillance or overload

Used well, AI reduces noise, surfaces insight and protects focus. Used badly, it just makes dysfunctional work faster.

Services

Microsoft 365 Team Skills

Replace tool chaos and inconsistency with simple, shared ways of working that teams actually follow - built around Teams, Loop, Planner and Copilot.

Collaboration Skills for Modern Teams

Solve everyday frustrations: too many meetings, unclear communication, scattered work. Build stronger working relationships through asynchronous habits and shared digital practices.

AI Use Case & Workflow Design

Make AI practical and valuable by identifying real use cases and redesigning workflows to incorporate Copilot adoption, at team and project level.

Digital Leadership Skills

Help leaders engage, communicate and provide clarity in digital environments. Develop leaders who can model modern work and guide AI-enabled teams with confidence.

Hybrid & Distributed Work Design

Make distributed work fair, consistent and effective. Design equitable, sustainable practices with strong asynchronous foundations that 'best practice' advice never delivers.

Modern Team Design

Build your perfect team!
Instead of unclear expectations and no common ways of work, build your team norms.
Define and agree what tools for what purpose, and key habits that will help your team thrive.

Responsible AI Adoption

Move quickly and safely with Copilot. Co-design ethical, practical guardrails that protect trust while enabling innovation.

AI Critical & Strategic Thinking

Move beyond generic prompts. Build the critical and strategic thinking skills to get genuinely better outcomes from AI - and minimise the risks.

Leading AI Through Change

Practical tools for leaders navigating AI adoption resistance. Grounded in the Change Curve and SCARF model, with scenario-based exercises and concrete actions to apply immediately.

Our people-centric approach

A few case studies...

UK Government Met Office

Hybrid working strategy and practices

Stakeholder workshops to establish hybrid working goals and identify digital weaknesses to develop key skills
Team workshops to help find new skills and techniques for working in Microsoft Teams, such as asynchronous and more visible working
Playing card resources allowed teams to select the working practices they wanted to deploy, and how they would use them
Team leader coaching provide them with the skills to deliver workshop outcomes in Microsoft 365

"We engaged Andrew (Designing Collaboration) as part of a programme of work to raise the maturity of our use of enterprise digital tools (Microsoft 365) and to support anticipated new hybrid ways of working at the Met Office. Andrew’s experience and insights (using Digital Teams Builder) helped us develop a suite of tools and collateral, influenced by the culture and values of the Met Office and easily adapted to meet more local needs. He worked with us to analyse the output of our discovery workshops and synthesise wide ranging conversations into a shorter presentation of key themes, delivered with a Q&A to our line management community and recorded for re-use. Importantly, we have also a collection of Met Office validated strategies and tactics to provoke ideas and raise awareness of how digital tools can be deployed to support inclusive collaborative working, making it easier to work in a new hybrid working environment.“

Kuehne + Nagel

Microsoft 365 Engagement Strategy

Strategic planning and practical coaching for rollout of M365 at c50,000-person organisation
Strategy workshops to identify opportunities to find and coach new working practices and on how to empower digital teams
Coaching workshops on collaborative working practices in M365 for senior stakeholders, champions and pilot teams
Faciliated launch events with regional leadership to help them navigate the tools using interactive materials in a collaborative, engaging way

Australian Government Defence

Digital Leadership Coaching

Coaching of leadership groups to identify needs and identify skills as well as digital practices to engage and lead in Microsoft 365
Problem and opportunity discovery workshops to explore where improved digital skills and collaboration can make an impact
Coaching workshops to identify skills and practices and how they can be adopted in Microsoft 365
New practices and use of technology identified, from Copilot to Viva Engage

NatureScot

Digital Collaboration Skills and Communication Strategy

Engaged to help improve and simplify digital communication and teamworking
Worked with specific groups to understand issues and opportunities within the Microsoft 365 toolset
Coached working group on digital teamworking skills to improve productivity based on specific needs, such as asynchronous methods to improve meetings
Faciliated team sessions to agree common adoption of tools to communicate and collaborate
Ran strategy sessions with senior leadership on how to improve digital leadership and engagement across the organisation

“80% of participants felt better able to use and engage with Microsoft 365 after the workshops. Our teams participating managed to reduce virtual meetings by using more asynchronous techniques such as OneNote and Teams channels. They also replaced internal emails with Teams channel conversations”

Tools and resources to always find the "what's in it for me" with new ways of work

Learning and Team Charter Game Cards

Microlearning and scaling

Books and playbooks

Who are we?

Andrew Pope
Owner & Advisor

Digital and hybrid working starts with the people, not the tools. With so much technology at our disposal, we can easily be distracted by functions and features, not what we want to achieve. My passion is to help teams, departments and organisations be empowered to work smarter. To make work less crap and to maximise the potential that exists within Microsoft 365.

I started my journey as an environmental scientist, starting quite literally at the dirty end, measuring industrial emissions. From there, I have run several millions of dollars of projects, giving me a fantastic insight into client needs, business process, and how teams & individuals work in complex organisations.

I help our clients become more clear and confident in choosing how and why to use digital workplace tools, to overcome a lack of alignment in digital and working practices, improves poor habits such as over-reliance on email and terrible meetings and helps to improve digital health and culture, such as ‘always on’.

I coach practical technical and soft skills to lead and empower teams in digital workplaces and develops strategies to leverage collaboration technology to meet organisational, team and individual needs. – whether specific goals, increased productivity or improved wellbeing.

I have advised and coached UK and Australian government departments as well as large multinationals on how to better leverage tools like Microsoft 365 and to develop today’s digital leaders.

My partner network of trusted experts allows us together to deliver and scale widely. Some of my partners include:

Designing AI Heroes: Human-centric AI Solutions

Hargraves Institute: Collaboration and Innovation

Will Easton: Workplace Experience Design