Introducing Speak Now for Microsoft Teams: Raise your virtual hand

During in-person meetings, informal and non-verbal cues keep people from talking over one another. That's much more difficult in virtual meetings. Speak Now builds on the "virtual hand raise" with an ordered speaker list, and allowances for short remarks to the current speaker and requests for recess.

Eliminate the chaos of people talking over one another or one person dominating the conversation, and keep virtual meetings moving forward.

For Meeting Organizers
Meeting chairs can now organize discussions with a speaker list. Speak Now is available within Microsoft Teams channel meeting conversations or group chats. Click the three buttons in the bottom right of the chat window and select “Speak Now.” From there, you’ll be prompted to create the speaker list card. You can also post @Speak Now in the Teams meeting chat. 

You'll be prompted to add a card title and have the option to enable features like Remark and Timeout.

The speaker list will be created in the order that meeting participants raise their hand. As organizers move to the next person, the current speaker is highlighted and a check mark will be displayed next to attendees who have already spoken.

For Participants
When meeting participants see the Speak Now card in the meeting chat panel, they click the “Raise hand” button to be added to the speaker list. If enabled by the meeting organizer, they can reply to a current speaker by clicking “Remark" and request a recess or address an urgent matter by clicking "Timeout." 

Speak Now is currently free to all users of Microsoft Teams and can be used on any device. 

Get Speak Now Today
This short video will show you how to add Speak Now to any Microsoft Teams channel. 

Speak Now is also available from Microsoft AppSource.

Speak Now is brought to you by the makers of Decisions for Microsoft Teams and Decisions Meeting Secretary. Decisions is a comprehensive meeting management solution for users of Microsoft Teams and Office 365 that increases meeting collaboration, productivity and engagement with an agenda builder, minutes templates and the ability to assign tasks.  

Download Decisions for Microsoft Teams from AppSource and begin your free trial today.