Running better Teams meetings in a small office

Audio first, video second

People forgive a grainy picture but not audio that echoes, cuts out or picks up the whole office. A wired or Bluetooth headset certified for Teams costs far less than the time lost repeating things, and it filters background noise in an open-plan office. For a small meeting room, a speakerphone designed for conferencing picks up voices around a table much better than a laptop's built-in microphone. Laptop speakers and microphones together in one room produce feedback and echo almost every time.

Check internet upload speed at home offices too. Fibre connections in New Zealand usually handle meetings well, but a home connection shared with streaming, gaming and cloud backups can struggle. A wired connection or sitting closer to the Wi-Fi router often solves choppy video. If the copper line has been retired at a home office and the replacement is a slow wireless plan, that is worth reviewing.

Meeting options worth setting

Every Teams meeting has options for who can bypass the lobby, who can present, whether attendees can unmute and whether recording is allowed. The defaults suit internal meetings. For meetings with clients or the public, set people from outside to wait in the lobby and limit presenting to your own staff. That prevents someone who received a forwarded link from joining unannounced or sharing their screen. Administrators can change the defaults for the whole organisation, so staff do not have to remember each time. Agree what the sensible starting point is for your business and apply it once.

Recordings, transcripts and privacy

Teams can record meetings and produce transcripts, which helps staff who missed the meeting and makes it easy to check what was agreed. Recordings are stored in OneDrive or SharePoint, with access tied to the meeting. Decide how long to keep them; recordings of routine internal meetings rarely need to be held for years, and you can set them to expire automatically.

Tell participants when you record, which Teams does with a banner, and be thoughtful about recording meetings where personal or health information is discussed. Under the Privacy Act 2020, a recording is personal information about everyone in it, with the same obligations as any other record. For client meetings, ask before recording rather than relying on the banner.

Making hybrid meetings fair

When half the people are in a room and half are remote, the remote people usually lose. They cannot hear side conversations, cannot see the whiteboard and struggle to get a word in. Simple fixes help: everyone in the room uses one good speakerphone rather than their own laptops; a camera shows the whole room; someone is responsible for watching the chat and raised hands; and the person running the meeting invites remote people to speak first on each item. Share documents on screen rather than referring to printouts only the room has. If you use a physical whiteboard, take a photo and share it, or switch to the Whiteboard app inside Teams so everyone can draw.

Larger events: webinars and town halls

Normal Teams meetings suit internal meetings and client calls. For events with external registration, such as a client information evening or a product launch, Teams webinars add registration pages, attendee reports and better control over who can speak. Town halls suit one-way broadcasts to large audiences. Which features are available depends on your licence, so check what your plan includes before promising registration and reporting. Run a rehearsal with the presenters, check their audio and screen sharing in advance, and have a second staff member join as a producer to admit attendees and handle questions. That keeps the presenter focused on presenting.

Habits that shorten meetings

Put an agenda in the meeting invitation and attach the documents people need to read first. Start on time and end five minutes early so people can get to the next one. Use the meeting chat for links and quick questions instead of interrupting. Assign actions during the meeting, either as tasks in Planner or in the meeting notes, so everyone leaves knowing who is doing what.

Finally, ask whether the meeting needs to happen at all. A short post in a Teams channel with a deadline for comments can replace many status meetings. Fewer, better meetings give staff more time to do the actual work. Small things also help: blurred or branded backgrounds for staff working from home, a consistent naming style for recurring meetings so they are easy to find in the calendar, and a habit of turning cameras on for the first few minutes of client meetings to build rapport, even if they go off later to save bandwidth.