{"id":9934,"date":"2023-12-07T01:01:31","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T09:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/?p=9934"},"modified":"2023-12-07T11:09:57","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T19:09:57","slug":"from-prototype-to-production-deploying-signature-microsoft-teams-rooms-at-microsoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/from-prototype-to-production-deploying-signature-microsoft-teams-rooms-at-microsoft\/","title":{"rendered":"From prototype to production: Deploying Signature Microsoft Teams Rooms at Microsoft"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MicrosoftHere at Microsoft, we wanted to improve the experience our employees have in meetings, whether they\u2019re at home, at a coffee shop, or in a meeting room in one of our offices.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been quite the journey over the last few years\u2014we\u2019re very much in a hybrid world,\u201d says Keshav Puttaswamy, a partner director of product management with Microsoft Digital Employee Experience (MDEE), the organization that powers, protects, and transforms the company. \u201cWe place a lot of importance on flexibility. We want to make sure our employees are able to do their best work wherever they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we\u2014the company\u2019s IT organization\u2014worked with the Microsoft Teams product group to develop Signature Microsoft Teams Rooms, our new meeting room technology offering<\/a> that boosts the meeting experience for everyone, no matter where they join a meeting from.<\/p>\n

\u201cSignature Microsoft Teams Rooms are a powerful tool for us to fully embrace this hybrid experience,\u201d Puttaswamy says.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re all used to seeing a room with a rectangular table in the middle and a screen on one end. Those kinds of meeting rooms served us really well when we were all mostly in-person. What we\u2019re seeing with hybrid is different needs emerging for employees, and traditional rooms aren\u2019t necessarily the best experience for all meeting types.<\/p>\n

\u2014Keshav Puttaswamy, partner director of product management, Microsoft Digital Employee Experience<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Designed in The Hive<\/a>, an incubation space on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington, Signature Microsoft Teams Rooms bridge the gap between in-person and virtual meetings. We\u2019re currently deploying it in a variety of forms across Microsoft.<\/p>\n

[<\/em>Get grounded in our vision for transforming Microsoft with Microsoft Teams.<\/em><\/a> Learn how Microsoft is reinventing the employee experience for a hybrid world.<\/em><\/a> Get a first look at the new hybrid meeting experience at Microsoft.<\/em><\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Graphic<\/a>
Watch our first two videos and read our full series of blog posts on deploying Signature Microsoft Teams Rooms at Microsoft.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finding the best of both worlds<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s been fun for the teams involved in this project to re-think what you can do with a traditional meeting room.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all used to seeing a room with a rectangular table in the middle and a screen on one end,\u201d Puttaswamy says. \u201cThose kinds of meeting rooms served us really well when we were all mostly in-person. What we\u2019re seeing with hybrid is different needs emerging for employees, and traditional rooms aren\u2019t necessarily the best experience for all meeting types.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where a traditional space can create connection and allow for nuance, it can also be isolating and exclude remote attendees. A hybrid space needs to serve both worlds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I think about Signature Microsoft Teams Rooms, I just think about trying to build the workplace that our employees really want to be in,\u201d says Matt Hempey, a principal group product manager who supports engagement and collaboration in MDEE. \u201cWe know much of our work gets done in meetings, so why shouldn\u2019t we rethink this space where we spend so much of our time?\u201d<\/p>\n

Built with a concise arrangement of displays, cameras, audio devices, and specialized tables, Signature Microsoft Teams Rooms amplify the experience for all attendees.<\/p>\n

You give off little body language cues when you want to speak. You\u2019ll kinda lean into the table, and everybody around you knows that you want to say something. If you look at the layout of a Signature Teams Room, the physical space itself is designed to facilitate that sort of intuition for the remote participant.<\/p>\n

\u2014Greg Baribault, group program manager, Microsoft Teams<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Furniture is arranged so that all attendees, whether in-person or remote, face each other. Designed for hybrid meetings, the Front Row display option available in Microsoft Teams Rooms presents remote attendees front-and-center and at eye-level with in-room participants.<\/p>\n

The tall 21:9 aspect ratio display leaves enough space to project remote attendees along with shared content and chat space\u2014the meeting within the meeting. This enables in-person attendees to follow along without having to divert their attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou give off little body language cues when you want to speak,\u201d says Greg Baribault, a group program manager with Microsoft Teams, responsible for the Microsoft Teams Rooms product. \u201cYou\u2019ll kinda lean into the table, and everybody around you knows that you want to say something. If you look at the layout of a Signature Teams Room, the physical space itself is designed to facilitate that sort of intuition for the remote participant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
Microsoft is reorienting its meeting rooms so that your experience remains consistent whether you attend physically or virtually.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Those participating virtually benefit from the room\u2019s AI-powered cameras. Instead of a single camera feed of a large room filled with small, unidentifiable faces, some AI cameras can identify participants in the room and present them to remote attendees as individuals in the meeting. In the room, in-person participants don\u2019t see themselves on the large display, which can be disconcerting. Signature Teams Rooms create a personalized experience for each attendee based on how they joined the meeting, which makes it far more personal for everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these features are being driven from the platform Microsoft Teams,\u201d says Sam Albert, a principal product manager responsible for conference room experiences at Microsoft Digital Employee Experience. \u201cFeatures like spatial audio make it feel like the remote participants are coming to life, and audio is coming from where people are speaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

This same technology can light up names of speakers and identify individuals in transcripts.<\/p>\n

Upgrading everyone\u2019s experience<\/h2>\n
\"Hempey
Hybrid meeting spaces need to work hard to make physical and virtual attendees feel fully included, says Matt Hempey, a principal group product manager who supports engagement and collaboration in Microsoft Digital Employee Experience.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Deploying Signature Teams Rooms in new construction makes sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a new construction perspective, building a Signature Teams Room is no more expensive and no more complicated than building any meeting room,\u201d Hempey says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not always feasible when it comes to existing rooms if you are budget constrained, and there\u2019s still a need for traditional conference spaces.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot every room needs to be converted to a Signature Microsoft Teams Room to improve the experience for employees,\u201d Hempey says. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re deploying a variety of solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, connecting all the audio-video equipment to your device can often be a hassle. So, we\u2019re trying to figure out how to eliminate cables entirely.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt actually made rooms more approachable and reduced the stress that people had of presenting,\u201d Baribault says. \u201cI just go in, either tap the console to start my meeting if it\u2019s scheduled already, or just being in the meeting on my personal device allows me to just click \u2018Join\u2019 and cast into the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

We want to make it as easy as possible for our customers to build these experiences on their own campuses. All of the technology that we\u2019re putting in our conferences rooms today use Microsoft Teams-certified devices. They\u2019ve been rigorously tested, so we can take different components and also have some flexibility.<\/p>\n

\u2014Sam Albert, principal product manager, conference room experiences, Microsoft Digital Employee Experience<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Investments in cameras and audio devices that are equipped with AI allow rooms to make decisions on behalf of participants, further easing the need for attendees to control conference systems. These upgrades also improve the experience for remote attendees, as AI can help remove background sounds, blur backgrounds, recognize faces, and find the best angles and framing of participants.<\/p>\n