Outlook Groups v1

Microsoft's collaboration experiences had evolved independently across Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer, and other Office products, resulting in more than a dozen disconnected approaches to group collaboration. The opportunity was to define a unified experience that could simplify collaboration across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

As a founding design leader, I co-led a cross-organizational initiative to establish a shared vision for Microsoft's future collaboration platform. Working closely with Product Management, Engineering, and User Research, we explored the opportunity space through customer research, journey mapping, and rapid concept development to define a cohesive collaboration model that could scale across products.

After the initiative received funding, I transitioned into the Product Design Manager role responsible for leading the design organization that brought Outlook Groups to life. My team partnered across Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Yammer to create experiences that balanced the needs of individual products while establishing a unified collaboration platform for Microsoft 365.

What began as Outlook Groups ultimately became the foundational service powering Microsoft Teams, supporting hundreds of millions of users and fundamentally changing how people collaborate across the Microsoft ecosystem.

The work below highlights a selection of early explorations and shipped experiences that shaped the evolution of Microsoft's modern collaboration platform.