Roadmap to Mastering Modern Meetings in Microsoft Teams

They say life is about the journey and not the destination – the same is true for modern meetings and remote team communication. Start your journey integrating Microsoft Teams from a needed solution to stay in touch, to a necessary tool for collaborative modern meetings.

Working from home and jumping on calls from the couch quickly went from the solopreneur dream to the everyday reality for most of us.

Some may love it, others may not, but what we do know is that modern meetings are the new normal and are likely here to stay.

Even before COVID-19, many organizations were adopting more flexible, remote cultures and modern meeting practices. In fact, 25 percent of meetings have at least one mobile video participant on the call, 73% of departments have at least one remote employee, and remote work has grown 44% in the last 5 years. The recent pandemic did not start the modern meeting, but it sure did make them mandatory!

Modern meetings bring people together when they’re far apart

modern meetings allow for people to connect across time zones, modern meetings can include your co-worker’s cat or dog and can even be taken from the top of a mountain (Wi-Fi connection required). Finally, they go against the grain of unmeaningful updates and unproductive discussion. This last part is important, considering unproductive meetings cost businesses $37 billion per year!

But not everyone is aware of the logistics, practices, expectations and options available when hosting or attending a modern meeting.  Many workers that are used to face-to-face meetings are being launched into the world of virtual audio and webcam exchanges. Suddenly, being put in a position where we are all taking virtual meetings permits a host of troubleshooting issues such as: “I don’t know how to share my screen, I don’t know why there’s an echo, is there a way to record this? Is this thing on, can you hear me?” Thankfully, Microsoft Teams is designed in a way that allows us to eliminate some of these issues with ease. If you need help getting started, watch our on-demand webinar ‘How to Stay Connected When Working Remotely with Microsoft Teams’. Once we overcome being ‘thrown into’ online meetings, we can start to go a little deeper and avoid panic over an unexpected video chat.

We’ve made our first turn and now it’s time to go back to the roadmap, where we can journey to efficient use of technology. Consider the long-term path to ensuring successful continued use of technology in the workplace. This year and every year.

Here are your stops on the roadmap to Microsoft Teams success.

 Be sure to download the detailed map here:

Stopover 1: Scheduling Your Meeting

Open up Teams and schedule meetings in the “calendar” tab. Set the date/time, add participants or entire channels and schedule.

TIP! You can also schedule Teams meetings right from your Outlook calendar if your organization has that feature enabled!

Stopover 2: Preparing for Your Meeting

Be ready to join the meeting on-time, and with everything prepared. Modern meetings are nothing if not highly efficient! Choose a quiet place for the meeting and mute your other applications and devices so there are no surprise background noises.

Close any private or irrelevant windows or documents if you plan to share your main screen. If you are using a new computer, headset, or device, test the audio input and quality in the settings tab – ‘make a test call’.

Stopover 3: Joining Your Meeting

Remember to have your camera turned on so that you can have a ‘face-to-face’ conversation. If you would like to save the meeting, don’t forget to hit ‘record’ when the meeting starts!

TIP! Use background blur if you would like to keep the focus on you, instead of the great artwork or distractions behind you.

Stopover 4: During Your Meeting

Make use of the many tools available to augment your modern meeting, like Meeting Notes, screen sharing, and chat. Don’t forget to mute your line if you are listening in or want to limit any potential background noise coming from you.

Encourage others to share their screens if they need to present. They will be able to share specific documents/files, or their entire screen. The virtual whiteboard in Teams is particularly helpful for collaborative planning!

Stopover 5: After Your Meeting

You’ve reached your destination and had a very successful modern meeting in Teams! After you’ve wrapped up the meeting, be sure to access any recordings directly in Stream.

You will also be able to access the speaker track, transcript and meeting notes so that you can reference any important items outlined in your meeting.

TIP! If you pulled up Planner, OneNote, or other integrated Apps during your meeting, take a moment to update and save any important details from the meeting.

Coming soon! Keep an eye out for meeting tasks in Teams, which will allow you to allocate tasks and action-items from your Teams meetings.

Follow your Roadmap to Mastering Modern Meetings in Microsoft Teams.

Be sure to continue distancing as long as needed, as we know the technology exists to keep you more interconnected with your business and colleagues than ever before.

If you’re ready to start planning for the long-term, we are happy to introduce CRGroup’s Smart Start Workshop for Teams. This is a framework designed to help organizations understand how Microsoft Teams can be successfully configured and rolled out so that your business sees increased collaboration and improved productivity.