“Now we have to manage the return of people to the office and learn to navigate a hybrid work environment.” It was with this sentence that Kevin Kieller, co-founder of consultancy firm EnableUC, summed up the ‘new normal’ for businesses around the world during a session on Successful Microsoft Teams Meetings at the Enterprise Connect event.
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He says organizations need to develop a unified communications (UC) strategy to ensure meetings stay productive and engaging, regardless of where employees are. To achieve this, Kevin Kieller presented five good practices. Here they are.
1. Stay up to date on Teams features.
To respond to customer requests for features, Microsoft has accelerated the Teams roadmap. For example, the publisher has imagined Together mode, added the possibility of separating the meeting into “classes” (breakout rooms) or even live transcription (subtitling). Since the start of 2021, Microsoft has launched 127 features, and 54 more are in the process of being rolled out.
Organizations can struggle to keep up with this pace. This is why IT teams have every interest in regularly consulting the Microsoft 365 roadmap to inform end users, advises Kevin Kieller.
Together mode in Teams
2. Use the correct audio and video devices.
Whether in an office room, or at home, having the right equipment is essential to have good meetings.
Microsoft has also expanded its portfolio of certified audio and video devices for Teams. This line of hardware is now able to support room configurations of various sizes, as well as “home” deployments.
This portfolio is made up of webcams, smart speakers (which can identify up to 10 speakers in a room so attendees can know who is speaking) and screens (some of which even have built-in lighting).
“The Teams ecosystem is very large, with different manufacturers who come up with different ideas,” notes Kevin Kieller who invites “to find what works best for each user depending on where they are and how they are. he works “.
3. Improve meetings with applications to integrate
Integrating apps with Microsoft Teams can also greatly improve the meeting experience.
“Teams is a platform and not just a communication tool. ”
Kevin KiellerEnableUC
“It is important to remember that Teams is a platform and not just a communication tool,” recalls the consultant. Users can therefore improve their meetings by adding whiteboard applications, for carrying out surveys, for doing questions and answers or for workflow management.
It is also possible to create your own applications with Microsoft’s low-code platform, Power Apps, to further tailor Teams to specific workflows and processes in a hybrid context, adds Kevin Kieller.
4. Complete and continuous training.
Training users is essential to ensure they get the most out of all the tools available in Microsoft Teams. Most of the training for Teams is inadequate, and few employees really have any follow-up, regrets Kevin Kieller.
“Most organizations don’t check whether the training they provide actually works,” he says.
Yet training employees will make them more efficient users with Teams and ensure rapid adoption of new features, making hybrid work that much easier.
5. Leverage analytics.
Ultimately, the only way to know if Teams is working well in hybrid mode and if all users are getting the most out of the platform is through analytics.
Teams offers metrics for both end users and IT administrators, says Kevin Kieller.
On the end-user side, employees can view their teams and channel numbers, which provides insight into who is in meetings, who responds to messages, and who is active in which team. or such channel.
For administrators, Teams offers several tools to track the use and adoption of the various functions of the platform. This information can help identify areas where training is (or is not) effective. Administrators can also access a dashboard to gain insight into call quality, technical service reliability and user satisfaction.
They can use other analytical tools like Microsoft Viva Insights, which can provide meeting-related analytics, and Productivity Score, which provides data on how the organization uses Microsoft 365.
