9 Tips For Starting Meetings With Microsoft Teams

9 Tips For Starting Meetings With Microsoft Teams

Throughout Calgary and beyond, the way we all do business is changing thanks to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the “before times” that may seem like little more than a distant memory well into a year of lockdowns, social distancing, and business closures, the way we communicate with one another is critical to societal continuation and safeguarding public health. Microsoft Teams offers up an option for business owners to continue business in the new normal. For keeping open communications, Microsoft Teams has various options designed to facilitate communication and team building. Getting the most potential out of this experience is the point of our exercise. In short, here some tips to guarantee a successful Microsoft Teams meeting.

Cast a wide net with Microsoft Teams invitations

It’s important to communicate outside our socially imposed bubble, and Microsoft makes that easy. Inviting members from outside your group can bear excellent fruit when it comes to solving problems, and all you have to do is schedule a meeting that includes your email to your particular attendee, and the system takes care of the rest. On the day of the meeting, your guest merely needs to click on the link and join the conversation without the hassle of installing plug-ins or downloading Teams client software.

No need to be technocentric with Microsoft Teams

Thanks to the dial-in capabilities available in Microsoft Teams, meeting participants do not need to be hooked up to the internet to join the group. Be sure to enable his function, so invitees who are enabled through audio links will fully participate.

Keep control when others can’t

Nothing says that you have lost control of your meeting more than when it descends into a post-soccer-match-style riot. Still, you can keep much better control over your meeting than the local constabulary owing to built-in management features that Microsoft Teams offers, such as muting and the ability to designate who exactly has the authority to authorize recordings and other such factors.

Videoconferencing provides a sense of immediacy.

Break up the isolation we are all experiencing on lockdown with video conferencing, which invites the intimacy of a one-on-one meeting. Be sure to blur the camera’s background imagery to ensure that attention is placed on you rather than your abysmal efforts to keep up with your laundry, even knowing that all you’re wearing is sweatpants and t-shirts. Encouraging everyone on your call to activate their video is a great way to encourage a proactive meeting.

Focus your viewer’s attention on your ideas

Microsoft Teams allows the option to control what others see in the meeting. Toward that end, you would decide whether to show your entire desktop or simply a single-window on which to focus attention. Additionally, the system allows for the ability to control a shared desktop with the owner’s permission. Remove ambiguity regarding an idea or concept, and don’t clutter up the conversation with too much information.

Capitalize on a virtual whiteboard

Distance normally places a strain on a collaborative effort, but Microsoft Teams’ Microsoft Whiteboard provides the ideal digital medium for everyone to get their thoughts on the board. Seamless technology allows esoteric thoughts to form into concrete ideas on the digital whiteboard in the digital meeting, with every invitee capable of contributing to the conversation.

Record meetings for later sharing

Things happen, as they say, and sometimes those things happen during a previously scheduled Microsoft Teams meeting. When those two facts coincide, it is easy to get caught up to speed owing to the application’s recording function. Record the meeting and supply a link to access the material. After all, much of our response to the COVID-19 concern is one of flexible changeability as warranted, and Microsoft Teams has that flexibility built into its system.

Drive home points with live captioning options

Allowing captions dramatically boosts the productivity of Microsoft Teams meetings, particularly among the hard of hearing and those who process information better through a visual rather than audio medium. Luckily, this platform enables live captioning to allow for communications regardless of the circumstance.

Level up your technology game

If your transmission quality suggests that you are transmitting from the moon and your meeting participants are not entirely sure if you are about to announce, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” you may want to upgrade your device. There is an array of Teams-certified devices designed to ensure that your participation is clearly understood and more of a resource to the discussion than a distraction.

Written by Carl Fransen

posted on November 15, 2020

Carl Fransen

My passion is to make my mark on the world in a positive and lasting way. I want to set an example for my son that his father can compete with integrity in today’s world, be very successful, and leave the world a better place for him.

Combining my technical/business-based education with a long career steadily progressing up the corporate ladder, I decided to build a company that held true to my values. So, I founded and designed the next generation of IT support firm: CTECH Consulting Group Inc. We are a completely automated, cloud-based IT company designed to compete against any other IT firm without the overhead. We promote a lifestyle to all our staff where they can work anywhere, at any time, access any information on any device that is relevant to their job, and collaborate with anyone they want to.