For one of our bigger corporate customers we developed the Timeout Application to improve meetings and reach better results thereby. The native application had been developed on the client side for iPhones using Xamarin and on Android we used the Android SDK. The backend has been written in Java and is running on Azure. The basic idea behind the application is to help employees to run meetings more efficiently and include also a fun factor.

Currently, when a face-to-face meeting is held with multiple people, it can happen that the goals are not reached, that the meeting gets frustrating and is less effective. Results can under some circumstances be inferior because meeting participants might not like to interrupt the meeting organizer. The lack of a clear feedback loop hence will also never give a true feedback to the meeting organizer for improvement.

The purpose of the Timeout Application is about to change the current situation by introducing a new way which not only gives means to users to interrupt a meeting but also gives users a tool at hand to give direct feedback to the meeting organizer.

We introduced the timeout concept which has been taken from sports. A timeout presents a halt in a play and allows the coaches of either team to communicate with the team, e.g., to determine strategy or inspire morale, as well as to stop the game clock. Once a timeout is triggered during a meeting, all meeting participants can sit back, relax and answer a poll of pre-defined questions requested by the timeout requester. This helps to understand the current mood and why the meeting is not evolving as it should. Once all questions have been answered a graph will be shown to all participants to get a better understanding in how to improve the meeting.

On top, the application allows users to graph their own personal profile (henceforth called Team Player Profile – TTP) by answering specific questions which are related to the context of their work. The aim of the TPP is to provide a common, universal language that enables people within the organization to identify and codify patterns of behavior and interaction.

People who know their TPP will be able to understand the dynamics at play within a team, the interaction amongst individual team members and the impact on the dynamics of the team as a whole. The benefits of the TPP are manifold:

•   Enables you to learn more about yourself and others.
•   Helps you appreciate differences.
•   Encourages ownership of your shadow.
•   Employs common language as a starting point.
•   When a team gets stuck, you know how to shift the dynamics.

The TPP gives a tool at hand to enrich your leadership qualities to the maximum.