Jisc

About Jisc

Jisc is a not-for-profit that provides digital solutions to the UK’s higher education and research sector. It operates the Janet Network — a secure, private internet for universities — and supports institutions with cloud adoption, cybersecurity and sector-wide licensing agreements with major vendors.

As Deputy Director of Workplace IT, James Johnson-Miller helps Jisc's 1,400 employees use technology most effectively. Drawing on his background in business events and planning, he recognized how Decisions could improve meetings at Jisc.

The Challenge: Creating Purposeful Meetings at Scale

Early in his tenure, Johnson-Miller noticed that the scale of meetings at Jisc often made them harder to manage. At times, meeting invites lacked context, making it more difficult for participants to understand their role — and follow-up actions could be overlooked as people moved quickly to their next meetings.

"Meetings are probably the most powerful way to do synchronous work, and I didn't feel we were hitting the mark," he recalls.

While Microsoft Outlook and Loop offered ways to share information, they still left organizers starting with a "blank page." Johnson-Miller wanted to make it easier and more intuitive for everyone to run purposeful, structured meetings.

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The Solution: Smarter Agendas & Seamless Follow-Up

When a Decisions representative reached out, Johnson-Miller was intrigued. A few Jisc employees had already tested the tool during a trial, and after a quick demo, he saw immediate potential in how Decisions could help Jisc standardize meetings with agenda templates, agenda time allocations and AI meeting recaps.

"Microsoft doesn’t have anything close to this," he says. "And Decisions integrates into the Microsoft stack, so I still get the assurance of the Microsoft security and data sovereignty — plus the extra capabilities."

For Johnson-Miller, Decisions wasn’t just a technology shift — it was a way to support behavioral change. Put simply, "It removes the obstacles and barriers to building a good meeting."

AI Meeting Recaps: Decisions vs. Copilot

During their Decisions pilot, the Jisc team compared Decisions AI recaps with Microsoft Copilot summaries. Both captured the meeting content, but Decisions stood out for its clarity and usability.

"Decisions captured more of the essence, the strategy and the intent," Johnson-Miller says. "It also structures the recaps, lets me edit them in place, and doesn't include side conversations."

He adds that Decisions doesn't just summarize key points: "It takes the recap further by leveraging Planner to track follow-up actions."

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The Impact: Better Meetings, Major Time Savings

Although adoption varied during the pilot, Jisc's internal surveys showed clear benefits:

• 75% of users agreed or strongly agreed that meeting quality has improved
• Over 90% of feedback comments mentioned time savings

One survey comment particularly stood out to Johnson-Miller: "I can actually engage and participate in the meeting now because I'm not focused on writing it up." For him, that highlighted a hidden cost of inefficient processes — paying for people to attend meetings they couldn't fully contribute to.

This feedback played a major role in Jisc's choice to move forward with Decisions, adopting it as a core tool for organized, purposeful meetings.

Why It Matters for Higher Education

Johnson-Miller believes Decisions can bring similar benefits to higher education — a sector where meeting inefficiencies can detract from core priorities.

"If you’re a college or university, poor meetings are taking you away from teaching, from your students, from delivering that amazing educational experience," he stresses. "So you've got to get better at meetings."

"Decisions can help you do that. It will save you time on write-ups and follow-up, and it will help you plan the right meetings with the right people — making meetings meaningful, engaging and of value to your organization."