Microsoft® Teams saw its average daily user base grow from 145 million to over 270 million between 2021 and 2022.
The Teams ecosystem is now thriving, with online collaboration fueling innovation for in-person, hybrid and remote workers alike. Microsoft continues to develop their Teams product with new features and apps, improving the video, phone and chat experiences for users.
Organizations that use Teams to its fullest potential are more creative, collaborative, and effective. However, many businesses are not using Teams to its fullest impact. In this post, we’ve rounded up some of the new Teams collaboration features that many people aren’t using.
Whiteboard
One of the biggest objections to fully-remote work is that it can reduce the spontaneous, cohesive creativity that occurs during live meetings. With the Virtual Whiteboard feature, Microsoft Teams meeting participants can collaborate in real-time by adding images or text boxes to a shared Whiteboard. While it doesn’t replace a three-dimensional meeting room in real life, it can create some very unique collaborative experiences.
Just click on the Whiteboard tab at the top of your Teams meeting window. You’ll find over 40 templates that can be used to help get your team members talking and thinking about issues in new ways. Users can draw, use sticky notes, import images, add videos – simulating live, immersive meetings.
Source: Microsoft.com
Our favorite use cases for Virtual Whiteboarding:
- Brainstorming
- Running interactive workshops
- Sprint Planning
Meeting Transcripts
Another great Teams meeting feature is the transcription option. Transcription is included when you record a meeting and can be accessed by navigating to Video Settings > Transcript and Captions > Generate.
Transcripts help asynchronous work schedules
Projects often fall behind because aligning schedules for important meetings can be impossible.
With meeting recordings and transcripts, you can schedule meetings sooner with essential stakeholders and send the transcript to supporting team members post-meeting.
Supercharge your content creation
A little-known use case for automatic transcripts is using them for content creation.
Pair a subject matter expert with a copywriter in a live recorded meeting. The copywriter can interview the expert, focusing on the conversation instead of taking notes. After the meeting, the writer can take the transcript output of the conversation and quickly edit it into a blog post, LinkedIn thought piece, or even a whitepaper.
Source: Microsoft.com
Polling
Polling is a feature that might seem like a novelty to some, reserved for ice breakers or lighthearted topics. The polling feature is actually quite powerful for business efficiency.
Sometimes it can be difficult to move projects forward when many decision makers are involved. Polling helps expedite decision making during meetings. With polls, teams can provoke finite decisions throughout a meeting so there is clarity around how to proceed.
To make polling a part of your workflow, plan the poll questions ahead of time. At the start of the meeting indicate that you will be using polls as part of the meeting.
Source: Microsoft.com
Make the most of Teams
Teams is a robust tool, but many features remain unused. Make this the year you maximize its potential. Not only will the features improve business flow, but they’ll also increase engagement and a sense of collaboration – essential in a remote work environment.
