The way we work has changed dramatically in the last few years. In some ways, our teams have never been more dissimilar. At the same time, the pandemic has brought us closer together, more resilient, and productive than ever before. Meetings were at the heart of everything. They were the binding agent that held our teams together. So, how do our meetings look today? 

The number of daily active Microsoft Teams users has nearly doubled in the last years, rising from 75 million in April 2020 to 145 million in the second quarter of 2021. In the December quarter of 2021, Microsoft’s Teams communications and collaboration platform surpassed 270 million monthly active users, continuing to add users but at a much slower rate than in the early months of the pandemic. Microsoft has seen dramatic increases in the daily use of their communication and collaboration platform due to the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and the growing practices of social distancing and working from home in a short period of time. 

How to manage your meetings

Instead of in-person meetings, online meetings have enabled businesses all over the world to increase productivity. As we’ve seen in recent months, it’s impossible to predict what will happen, and online meetings have now become a standard way of working. There are some actions you can take to improve the quality of your online meetings in order to manage them. First, make sure everyone is aware of the meetings, including the time, date, location, and subject. Furthermore, you must plan ahead of time and provide an agenda for the meeting so that every employee is aware of what will be discussed so that they can be prepared. 

Start a discussion and keep it on track. For example, ask a poll, “What excites you about this project?” Create a discussion around their submissions, and ask your team to explain why they voted the way they did. Your conversation will be focused and concentrated, and it will be based on data that you generated in real-time. Accepting changes to meetings, such as technology integration, allows you to get the most out of your employees. You’ll be able to focus solely on the meeting and nothing else; meeting assistants are a great way to help you stay focused on your meetings. Every meeting’s productivity can be maximized with complete meeting recordings and automatic transcriptions. Traditional note-taking methods may still be useful, but team members must be able to go over meeting materials as many times as they want to ensure they didn’t miss anything. In addition, if someone was unable to attend, they can easily catch up. 

How to make online meetings more engaging

While a face-to-face meeting is inherently engaging, organizers of virtual meetings must create an engaging experience. Meeting organizers who want to keep attendees engaged should look into real-time collaboration tools and practices that encourage active participation of more attendees during a session. There is one significant disadvantage: the loss of some nonverbal social cues obtained from face-to-face interaction. Adopting a mandatory video-on policy is one of the best ways to mitigate some of the effects of this; it will help the team bond and collaborate, as well as encourage more effective communication. 

Due to everyone’s ability to contribute to the conversation, it’s difficult to hold a remote meeting with a large number of participants. 1-10 people is a good starting point because there is a lower expectation that you will need to engage in the conversation if there are a lot of people on the call. Directly soliciting feedback makes team members feel more engaged. Remember that listeners can only hear one person clearly at a time, so take turns sharing with each other. It is critical to make everyone feel as though they can contribute to the project. Reaching out to everyone in the room individually or specifically asking for their contributions is an effective way to get people involved. 

If the meeting is scheduled for more than 2 hours, take breaks in between. Because sitting for an extended period of time will fatigue your attendees and is also bad for their health. A 2-5 minute break between meetings will refresh and energize them, allowing them to focus better in the meeting. Interact with your meeting-related presentations or videos. You can make your presentation more interactive by including visuals. Also, instead of lecturing, make your meeting more conversational. Allow your audience to speak during the meeting and include a QA session. 

The increase of collaborative work

All leaders are concerned about collaboration, but few consider the processes that enable teams to collaborate effectively. Work slows down, deadlines slip, and quality suffers when processes are ineffective. While these meetings are required, there is an opportunity to reduce the amount of time spent in meetings by increasing the quality of time spent. Teams looking to improve meeting quality can begin by considering options such as designating meeting-free days, creating collaborative agendas, and sending post-meeting effectiveness surveys to determine what works. We now have more ways than ever to foster collaboration, engage audiences, and strengthen connections across long distances, thanks to platforms like Microsoft Teams. 

The contribution of AI assistants

AI meeting assistants are still in their early stages, but many businesses are beginning to rapidly deploy these tools based on the benefits experienced by early adopters. These digital assistants can perform a variety of tasks, such as meeting minute generation, note-taking, and task management. 

It can be difficult to write down and absorb a lot of new information all at once. Particularly during an online meeting where you must concentrate on what is being said. With isLucid, you can focus on your online meetings while ensuring that no important details are overlooked. It also allows you to keep track of each meeting without ever losing information. IsLucid is a meeting assistant that converts meetings into decisions or action items that are never lost or disorganized. Thanks to machine learning it understands your needs and assists you in creating notes and tasks during your online meetings, saving you valuable time. You can easily mark down the most important information said during an online meeting with the click of a button and ensure that it is properly stored and not forgotten. It’s easy to keep track of meetings and find important information in a searchable archive. 

To conclude

The number of daily active Microsoft Teams users has nearly doubled in the last few years. In the December quarter of 2021, Microsoft’s Teams platform surpassed 270 million monthly active users. Microsoft has seen dramatic increases in the use of their communication and collaboration platform. There are some actions you can take to improve the quality of your online meetings in order to manage them. Meetings can be maximized with complete meeting recordings and automatic transcriptions. 

Accepting changes to meetings, such as technology integration, allows you to get the most out of your employees. Reaching out to everyone in the room individually or specifically asking for their contributions is an effective way to get people involved. Directly soliciting feedback makes team members feel more engaged. If a meeting is scheduled for more than 2 hours, take breaks in between. A 2-5 minute break between meetings will refresh and energize your attendees. 

Teams looking to improve meeting quality can begin by considering options such as meeting-free days. IsLucid is a meeting assistant that converts meetings into decisions or action items that are never lost or disorganized. It understands your needs and assists you in creating notes and tasks during your online meetings, saving you valuable time. You can easily mark down the most important information said during an online meeting with the click of a button and ensure that it is properly stored and not forgotten.