This tiny tweak to Teams will make meetings smoother

Have you ever sat in a Teams meeting and found yourself gritting your teeth every time someone said, “next slide, please”?

Me too.

And if your business runs a lot of online meetings or webinars, you’ll know the frustration of clunky handovers and awkward pauses when switching between presenters.

Well, there’s good news. And it’s about time.

Microsoft is rolling out a small but mighty update to Teams that’s going to make a surprisingly big difference to how your meetings run.

First, if you’re not too familiar with Teams, let’s quickly cover the basics. It’s Microsoft’s all-in-one communication platform. Video calls, chat, file sharing, and collaboration tools are all combined in one place.

Whether your team is remote, hybrid, or all under one roof, it helps everyone stay connected and productive without needing to jump between lots of different apps.

Back to the update. Microsoft’s introducing a feature that will let multiple people control the presentation slides during a Teams meeting or webinar.

Right now, if you’ve ever tried to co-present in Teams, you’ll know that only one person has control of the slides. Everyone else is stuck asking the presenter to move things along. That’s not only frustrating, but it also breaks the flow of the meeting.

This new feature will let the meeting host hand over slide control to more than one person.

That means if you’ve got a few people presenting different parts of a deck, each of them can take control of the slides when it’s their turn, without stopping the meeting or awkwardly calling out instructions. It sounds like a small thing, but in practice, it’ll make meetings feel much more natural and professional.

This feature has started to roll out already, beginning with the Windows desktop version of Teams. It’ll likely involve the host selecting co-presenters when setting up the meeting. Hopefully, the setup will be as smooth as the presentations will be.

To me, this is one of those updates that should have been added years ago. But hey, better late than never, right?

Alongside other recent improvements like real-time text messaging during calls (great for those who prefer typing over talking), it’s clear Microsoft’s working hard to make Teams more flexible and intuitive.

Need help getting the most out of Microsoft Teams or other tools in Microsoft 365? That’s what my team and I are here for. Get in touch.

Recent posts

Overconfident employees: Your hidden cyber security threat?

Overconfident employees: Your hidden cyber security threat?

You trust your team, right? They’re smart, capable, and they know better than to click on suspicious links or open unexpected attachments. They already know that phishing emails look trustworthy on purpose. To trick them into giving away sensitive data or downloading...

read more
Could automation save you from spreadsheet headaches?

Could automation save you from spreadsheet headaches?

Spreadsheets have been a go-to business tool for decades now. They’re familiar and easy to use (and if we’re being honest, we can all feel like a bit of a genius when we get that one formula to work, right?). The problem is, 90% of businesses are still relying on...

read more
Did you notice Incognito mode’s improved privacy?

Did you notice Incognito mode’s improved privacy?

If you’ve ever used Incognito mode in Chrome, you probably know the basics: It lets you browse without saving your history, cookies, or other temporary data. But was it ever truly private? Not entirely… Until recently, if you copied something from an Incognito tab,...

read more