Steve Dalby looks at Microsoft Teams and asks if the crucial application of Meeting Management is the missing app that will drive functionality to Teams:
In SharePoint past we have meeting site templates which had mixed reactions working well with some users getting very excited and some not. But the one thing that everyone agreed with is that some tool for managing the inputs and outputs of a meeting was required.
I woke up this morning wondering how I could create a great meeting solution in Microsoft Teams and in all honest failed. Team is not the config platform that SharePoint is so you have less flexibility yet Microsoft Teams is where meeting management needs to take place.
So, what is required to create the ace meeting app for Microsoft Teams?
Obviously, the prime candidates of:
AGENDA management with users being able toad items for the meeting owner to approve them, order them and finalise the list
DECISION TREE replaces the need to spend hours writing up minutes after the meeting by enabling people in real time to see the discussions and decisions reached in conclusion of an agenda item (I am imaging a real-time interactive decisions tree tool in the meeting!!)
ISSUES/ACTIONS whilst there are options to manage tasks across many apps in Office having one that is tied back to a meeting, agenda item or decision is missing to enable a full agreement history
DOCUMENTS tied to the agenda for a specific meeting and linked to an action or decisions in a previous meeting
But what added value could office graph do to add value…
What about in real time suggesting other ‘experts’ who could support meeting discussions allowing them to be invited into the meeting via video as a subject expert to have real-time decision making
Suggest content that could add value for the meeting members based on the agenda, actions decision content being added to the app
Link and identify content being discussed in other meetings to reduce duplication of actions and contradicting decisions
Feed in strategic decisions or directions senior management meetings without sharing confidential content but suggesting conversations that would be useful to take place. Imagine an AI that sets up team owners based on the same subjects and decisions being discussed in different meetings!!
The biggest challenge is building a connector that is flexible enough to support any meeting type yet has the depth to add value to all meetings. Management meetings have different drivers to production, project or HR meetings for example.
Microsoft has a habit of doing the 80-20 thing relying on partners to build the 20% functionality using connectors to bring functionality into Teams but this one I think is native... Microsoft!!!
