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Microsoft explores a new avenue of research that could help address one of the most common video conferencing problems: interruptions and pauses.
As explained in a new blog post (opens in new tab)Microsoft researchers recently tried a new method of mapping interruptions during a meeting by analyzing anonymized versions of conversation transcripts.
To help identify useful patterns, the team mapped data points such as speech duration, number of words spoken and frequency of interjections on a timeline. According to Sean Rintel, one of the Microsoft scientists, “you could clearly find patterns of people taking longer turns or taking frequent breaks.”
Hybrid Meeting Headaches
Microsoft has long been aware of the issues unique to the digital meeting format. In addition to attendees forgetting to unmute themselves, the difficulty of intervening in a seamless and polite manner is one of the most common problems, exacerbated by the shift to hybrid work.
“If you have a lot of hybrid meetings, you’re familiar with the awkward overlaps and pauses that can traverse those digital interactions,” Microsoft wrote. “The chat thread and hand-raise feature help, but as (some) people go back to work in person, side conversations in the on-site conference room and office setups that aren’t equipped for a hybrid experience add to the complexity. ”
The hope is that studies like those recently conducted by Microsoft will somewhat resolve this complexity and make hybrid meetings more natural.
By mapping interactions across Microsoft Teams conversations, for example, it may be possible to determine the optimal meeting size for maximum inclusivity. Data about the type of employee most likely to dominate conversations or interrupt others can also be used to inform meeting etiquette training sessions.
While Microsoft was careful to acknowledge that this research is still “in its infancy,” the company believes customers could benefit from data dashboards that help analyze the level of inclusiveness of digital meetings “in the not-too-distant future.”
“Ultimately what would be really interesting here is to give companies, teams and organizations the ability to do experiments on their own, helping teams understand their own processes so they can work better in ways we could never anticipate,” said Rintel. .