Since the start of this year, many extra controls have arrived in Teams meetings. We all remember the stories from early lockdown of students muting the teacher, or removing other students from the meeting, just because every Teams meeting was a free-for-all by default, which is of course excellent for regular business collaboration (its original purpose), but less than perfect for other situations.
By now there are a lot of extra ingredients to create a Teams meeting that is exactly suited for purpose:
- The Lobby, which determines who can access the meeting immediately and who needs to wait for access
- Presenter and Attendee roles
- Muting and Spotlight options (A good overview of Spotlight by John Moore.)
As we have a lot of different meeting types, and I am often asked for advice on how to set up a particular type of meeting, please allow me to share a few “recipes” for different types of meetings, from “no boundaries” to “tightly controlled”.
1. The recurring team/update meeting
These (default) settings are perfect for a recurring meeting for a well-established team. Within my own team we have these settings for our 3-times-a-week-meeting. We mostly talk, but occasionally share screens so it is nice if we all can do that when needed. We only use special features to test them if they are new (we used Spotlight a few times this week), or for the occasional prank. Everyone knows how to mute that colleague whose dog starts barking, and everyone does that when needed.
Who can bypass the lobby? People in my organization
Who can present? Everyone
Allow attendees to unmute: Yes
2. The formal meeting
This is usually a one-off, carefully planned meeting with known and sometimes unknown business partners. As it generally does not have too many people present and should be collaborative, everyone will need to be able to speak, but not necessarily present or do anything else that a presenter can do.
If it is a recurring meeting with known externals, you may want to remove the lobby barrier, but I do not think any external contact will feel offended if they have to wait until someone admits them.
If plans need to be discussed, screen sharing will be more important than Spotlighting the speaker. (It’s one or the other; if you Spotlight someone their presentation will be just another tile in your gallery of people present.)
Who can bypass the lobby? People in my organization (occasionally: Everyone)
Who can present? Specific people
Allow attendees to unmute: Yes
3. The group therapy session
As mentioned earlier, we allow Teams to be used for group therapy sessions as long as in-person sessions are not feasible and our preferred tool can not accommodate larger groups. These sessions are led by one or more of our therapists, and attended by clients, who are externals.
The therapists need to be able to take measures when the group is too noisy or needs to focus their attention, so the occasional Mute All (with the option that a client can unmute) will be helpful, as will the Spotlight option to focus attention to a therapist. This will also reduce visual clutter and movement, as some clients are sensitive to that.
Who can bypass the lobby? People in my organization or Only Me, provided the therapist is the organizer (but that is not always the case).
Who can present? People in my organization
Allow attendees to unmute: Yes
4. The large team event
The autumn season always has a lot of large meetings, both as a get-together for teams after the summer holiday period, and as a starting point for plans for the year ahead. We have recently seen a lot of virtual get-togethers for these purposes.
As these sessions often contain many people, and generally need to discuss too many topics in too little time, control is needed. As are breakout rooms!
Spotlights can be useful to highlight a speaker, as well as Mute all.
Who can bypass the lobby? Only Me or People in my organization.
Who can present? Specific people.
Allow attendees to unmute: Yes.
5. The seminar, lecture, training, speech
Our education season has also started again, and with it the need to do this online. Now that Hard Mute is available, smaller events may be done in a Teams meeting rather than in a Live Event. For questions, you can use chat or allow unmuting after each lecture. Spotlight may be useful for a speech.
The Live Event has some advantages: the moderated Q&A, the option to see the presenter next to their slides, the fact everyone can focus on the presenter and they are not distracted by the videos or pictures of other attendees, etc. but for each event you could balance the easy setup of the Teams meeting versus the more complicated formality of the Live Event.
Who can bypass the lobby? Everyone (for education events) or People in my organization (for an internal speech).
Who can present? Specific people.
Allow attendees to unmute: No.
Conclusions
The new options are valuable additions to the existing toolkit. I especially like the option of Hard Mute, as it may allow some events to be done in a Teams meeting rather than in a Live Event.
I am looking forward to making everyone aware of these new features, and helping organizers to mix the various options to make their own event the best possible experience.
Oh yes, and we are all SO looking forward to the break-out rooms!!!
Ellen's Digital Workplace 