There are so many great things that meeting software developers have yet to realise that we need. Clocks and countdown timers is an obvious one. But another one is the ability for the facilitator to more easily communicate with people in breakout rooms.
At the time of writing, none of the mainstream meeting software developers provide a simple means to provide good guidance to the breakouts.
So what are our options?
We can put things in Chat. This is easiest in Zoom, where the chat from the main room is continued into the breakouts. In Teams it is not. Which means the Facilitator either has to rush round the breakouts pasting it in. Or they have to rely on a breakout participant doing it for them. Conversely, Teams chat does support a visible countdown timer where Zoom does not.- We can add the countdown timer and the instructions via a separate piece of software or weblink. However, this can take a lot of setting up, and so much can go wrong. Added to which, our participants may not have the screen estate to be able to see all three things: Their co-participants; the thing they are jointly working on; and the timer page.
- But our own favourite is to include a dummy participant in the breakout rooms. The dummy participant appears among the webcams of all the other breakout participants. Thereby requiring no additional windows.
But their face is replaced by a slide (of instructions) with a built in countdown timer (see the image on the right). Furthermore, the facilitator can actually hear and speak through the dummy participant. If they wish. This facility can make monitoring breakouts a lot easier.
Countdown Timers via Dummy Participants in Breakout Rooms
Zoom and Teams both have the facility for accessing meetings through a browser. This provides the potential for a facilitator to join the meeting more than once from the same computer. Once directly through the Teams or Zoom App. And then another two or three times via incognito browsers. (Note you may need to use more than one browser or it may overload and throw you out – it is a case of trying it out beforehand.)
Unlike standard webcams, a virtual webcam (like OBS) has two key advantages:
- It can be used as the webcam for more multiple participants (even dummy ones)
- You can use it to share other windows or images from your desktop – such as an instructions slide with an embedded timer
This means that you can display the slide via OBS as the webcam to all of the breakout rooms (see the image above right).
Audio monitoring
While audio is not the concern of this post. And while the easiest thing with the dummy participants is simply not to connect to audio. The adventurous among you can play with switching audio to different devices. This enables you to follow the hubbub of two or three groups in the same way you would in a large room. (It is amazing how the ear gets attuned.) And to speak into the group if they begin to struggle or go ‘wrong’.
Track your progress to ensure the efficacy of this strategy.