I recently led a project to develop a hands-on product demonstration for customers.  A group of us across the United States and India worked together to create demos. I started the project by creating a space in Webex Teams. We sent messages, shared a few files, posted some images. A picture was coming into focus. But to really get into the details -asking questions that take too much effort to type, validating assumptions, getting a sense of how engaged others are -we needed to meet.

With the recent evolution of Cisco Webex, we were able to stay right in Webex Teams to use rich meeting capabilities such as PSTN call-in, larger meeting sizes, recording, and more.

Yet, the meeting experience in Webex Teams is a little different than a standard meeting. These "team meetings" are built for the continuous workflow that teams use to get things done quickly and effectively.  They give everyone an equal seat at the table to move work forward anytime.

This means a single person is no longer responsible for meeting set up, start, control, and follow up. In Webex Teams, meetings begin when the first person joins - no more waiting on the host. Anyone can record. Anyone can mute noisy participants. And anything shared during the meeting lives on in the connected space so everyone can easily reference what was shared later.

For our project, the impact of democratized teamwork and meetings helped drive broader team engagement. This not only helped me spend less time managing the team and our communications, but it also improved our brainstorming and problem-solving.

Build blueprints with Webex Board

Improved thinking is an addition to effective teamwork, but this project required more than just good ideas. We needed a blueprint to ensure that we could implement our ideas at scale. And we wanted the ability to visualize the customer journey across every touchpoint.

We mapped out our final plan on the Webex Board in two U.S. locations, while other participants followed along. Later, people could review and add to the whiteboard drawings in the connected Webex Teams space from virtually any device.

We had our plan and we were ready.  And our first event went off without a hitch!

Expanded whiteboarding across Cisco video devices

At Cisco, we are fortunate to have Webex Boards in many of our meeting rooms. But for teams that use a mix of video devices, Webex Teams meetings let you expand the whiteboarding experience to other cloud-connected Cisco video devices. For IT managers, this can help both increase adoption and build user satisfaction while amplifying current investments.

Participants joining from other devices can engage in whiteboarding sessions during a team meeting. For example:

• On a Webex DX80, you can start a whiteboard session, co-create directly from the DX80 touchscreen and participate in a whiteboard session in progress.
• On a Cisco Webex Room Series device, you can view a shared whiteboard directly on the device. You can then participate in the whiteboarding session by editing from the Webex Teams app on a laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
• On the SX and MX Series devices, you receive an on-screen notification that someone has shared a whiteboard. You can then view and edit the whiteboard via the Webex Teams app.
• On a personal device or laptop, the Webex Teams app continues to serve as your mobile whiteboard. You can initiate a whiteboard, share it in the meeting, and save it to a space.

Try the expanded whiteboarding experience and see how it fuels continuous teamwork anytime, anywhere with Webex Teams.

Get the Webex Teams app and tell us how you're using it to help your team accomplish its best work, quickly and effectively.