This post about processes and standards for collaboration solutions is by Laurie Berg, director of AVI-SPL Symphony market development.
We all have processes we follow. We are creatures of habit. I change lanes at the same place on the highway when I drive to see family. I pack my bag the same way every day. These are processes that work for me. But, when traffic occurs, or I’m rushing to get out the door, those processes and standards I have developed for myself need to be flexible. Otherwise I may never get off the highway or leave the house.
AVI-SPL Symphony Works With Your Standards
By setting standards, you establish how your people use the solutions they need and how you support that experience. See why AVI-SPL Symphony is the platform that supports your standards and processes.
Choose and Support Your Collaboration Solutions
Work-related flexibility has never been more prevalent than in the past 18-24 months. We are learning to be flexible in almost every aspect of work. We need to be flexible with where we work, how we work, and when our colleagues are working. We’ve even had to be flexible about if we work. And by that I mean the technology struggles we have all experienced. At one point, my network provider was resetting my router every day at 5:43AM and 9:11AM. And that’s fine, except when I was supposed to be in meetings. It was a sad joke that people knew I would be dropping at those times, without fail. But we were flexible. We had to be.
As return-to-office becomes an immediate conversation, organizations must ensure their employees have better access to collaboration solutions. That includes not just picking the solutions, but where are they going to be installed, how will people use them, and what happens when there is a struggle. After all, that network blip was ok at home, but it won’t do when I’m in the office.
Embrace Processes and Standards
Conversations around collaboration technology inevitably lead to conversations around standards and processes. What do we want our collaboration spaces to look like? We may envision one space that is for local meetings only, focusing on technologies like wireless presentation, projectors, and monitors, while another space is video-enabled, and yet a third is being migrated to a cloud conferencing technology. How do we ensure these solutions are working for our colleagues? Standards and processes can create consistency across your organization.
For example, make sure your rooms are ready for use by:
- Turning technology on
- Setting proper inputs
- Zooming cameras out to encompass entire rooms
- Setting the volume at a mid-level
And do this Monday through Friday at 7AM local time. We all know every meeting brings changes to the technology. People change settings; they press buttons accidentally. But by putting a standard room readiness workflow in place, you can rest assured that rooms are set optimally for meetings. Better yet, create this workflow and execute it automatically.
I have also seen companies bring standards into their room type. Conference rooms aren’t just large or small anymore, with some collection of technology. The type of room you schedule now creates expectations of what is going to be done within them. This can include huddle rooms, presentation rooms, brainstorming rooms, collaboration rooms, training rooms, and of course meeting rooms. And organizations are bringing consistency across those rooms, where there is an expectation of the type of technology available for use.
When Technology Goes Wrong
As companies go through this digital enablement for their employees, more technology brings about more unknowns. How do you know if something has gone wrong? How do you handle it when it does? And all these new standards and processes, where do they go? It’s important to have a monitoring and management platform that works for you. It should be one that:
- Offers a unified view into your estate
- Places your workflow automations into action
- Provides intelligence that decisions have exceeded expectation or potentially fallen below expectation so they can be modified and changed
- Uses your terminology so that data makes sense
And it should be one that keeps a watchful eye over your technology, so that it can open tickets, conduct self-healing, and give you the knowledge you need for next steps.
Be Flexible
Standards and processes around technology can be scary. They feel so unchangeable. We want them to help not hinder. And for that to happen, we need to accept the fact that things change.
New information makes itself available to us, and we make decisions based on those facts. You thought you needed brainstorming rooms with no video, thinking they would be used for internal sessions. You realized through usage analytics that you really need brainstorming rooms that include video. Or perhaps you are going through a migration. You want to bring standards into the new rooms you are outfitting, in a phased approach, but not to the older rooms. You may think, how do I get myself out of this pickle? Not every change needs to be a heavy lift. Having a flexible platform that accepts your standards and processes, can save you time, money, and headaches.