27 Tips For Effective Remote Meetings

As most video conference apps may not show all the attendees on-screen, have everyone introduce themselves, or ask direct icebreaker questions. This will allow them to engage in some team building activity and let everyone else know of their presence. The basic necessity will be a tool that provides audio and video capabilities to help you interact with each employee in your virtual team.

There must be a SPOC from the respective teams to frontend the discussion to prevent unnecessary chaos. Even selecting the best remote meeting tools drives the success and efficiency of conducting such meetings. This article will guide you about the vitalities of remote meetings and the ways to conduct them, the most commonly used and popular remote meeting software and tools. So if you’re looking for tips on hosting productive remote meetings, you’ve come to the right place.

Remember also to leave a minimum of 15 minutes before the discussion ends. This time allows for questions and confirmation on the initiatives and goals during the time between the next meeting. Cary Greene is the Managing Partner of the Strategic Offsites Group, a consultancy focused on designing and facilitating strategy conversations for executive teams and boards. There may be times when remote participants need a physical presence in the room. Maybe a microphone isn’t working, or an attendee needs to be reminded to speak up.

Rotate the recurring remote working meeting

We find these large images help in-person attendees accept remote colleagues as full participants and provide a constant reminder to include them in the conversation. Post-meeting feedback confirmed that this setup allowed the remote participants to feel like they were an integral part of the meeting rather than distant observers. It can be time-consuming, costly, and complex to implement and manage.

The size of your remote team affects your software selection. Your virtual team doesn’t have to be limited to audio responses. Don’t forget to record your remote meeting for those who were unable to join live or for your attendees to replay if they’ve missed something. Once you’re all set, start with welcoming all your colleagues who’ve joined. If possible, say Hi to each one individually and address him or her by name. In smaller and medium-sized groups, it’s good to start with some quick small talk or a catch-up to lighten the mood.

During Meeting – Recommended tips during virtual team meetings

A team member to make sure that everyone sticks to the agenda. Use an agenda to define your meeting goals and outline what your meeting will be about. Ask your team to turn off notifications or put their phones in silent mode.

SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome. Virtual formats enable us to leave meetings with one easy click of a button. Starting your meeting in an engaging way will set a productive tone. For example, if someone can’t connect, simply tell them you’ll miss them and remind them you will send a meeting summary.

Simple Tips to Conduct Successful Virtual Team Meetings

For your inspiration, here are 4 quiz examples that you can use to enjoy some fun together with your team. Live polls are great for winning back your attendees’ attention and getting them to participate actively in the discussion. As you move on to the content of the meeting, dedicate the first minute or two to outlining what the meeting will be about and setting the meeting objectives.

That everyone has the proper technology to handle a remote meeting. Remote meetings are more popular than ever before and will continue to grow in demand. After the COVID19 crisis, workers were forced to pivot their working style, adjusting from in-person meetings to working collaboratively behind a screen. Once the catching-up concludes, mention the meeting agenda briefly to the participants.

C. After the Meeting

Do your best to identify success measures for each item as well. This way, it’s easy to tell whether an item is achieved or not, and gives team members a set goal to work toward. For example, “review all code changes within 4 hours of submission”. When problems are raised, start with the assumption that any failure or problem is systemic, rather than the fault of one individual.

• The time you spend in retrospectives is an investment, not a tax.
• This is an important step in making sure your remote meetings run smoothly.
• Ensure that your remote meeting isn’t a waste of time by clearly establishing the next steps and sharing outcomes with the team.
• The speakers must be decided and informed way before to ensure they prioritize and prepare for the online conference meeting.
• This will minimize distractions caused by any pings or pop-ups on mobile devices.

Encourage your virtual team to brainstorm and collaborate over problem-solving. You can also ask for, and give feedback to your team members. One of the hardest things to do in a virtual meeting is to keep your team members engaged. Create opportunities for team members to interact, instead of dictating everything that needs to be done.

Step 7: Don’t just end your virtual meeting—close it

Fourthly, present the feedback in a clear, concise, and actionable way, highlighting strengths and areas for improvement. Encourage team members to reflect on the feedback, ask questions, seek clarification, be open to receiving their own feedback, use it as a learning opportunity to grow. To help you get started, here are some of the useful online meeting tools that can optimize your remote meetings.

You can even collect feedback and comments from the participants in case any modifications are required. Any anticipated delay must be communicated in advance for resolution or undertaking any preventive actions. Each member is given a time of a maximum of 5 minutes to speak on his or her assignment. Depending on the complexity of the work, the meetings are held either daily or weekly.

How to host efficient remote meetings easily

This saves time and generates a better understanding of your topic. Speaking clearly and deliberately helps everyone on the call hear and how to run a successful remote meeting understand you better. Make sure you do a systems test before the call with one or two people to ensure that everything works well.

Webinars, training sessions, board meetings, job interviews are the various ways to leverage video meeting online technology. Dial in at least 5 minutes early in order to set up everything or shift to a back-up plan when a problem arises. So your meetings shouldn’t be all about pushing the business vision to your remote employees. If you want your business to grow, leave some time at the end of every online meeting to listen to your employees’ ideas about how things should work. If you’re planning a more formal online meeting, create access links using your chosen conference platform, and send calendar invitations to your team.

During this time, meeting etiquette and manners fall by the wayside, and all hope for a productive meeting goes out the window, and no amount of coffee can save it. With virtual meetings, geographical barriers don’t stop the companies from exploring the global talent pool and reach for the best resources to expand their business. All in all, people get their jobs done more quickly and efficiently. You set your plan, schedule, manage your time accordingly, and optimize it to enhance productivity.

Ensure that your remote meeting isn’t a waste of time by clearly establishing the next steps and sharing outcomes with the team. Remote meetings require a unique set of tools, etiquette, planning, and execution. They have the potential to enhance working life and draw out the very best in the time you have together.

Nothing beats the personal touch but sometimes, meeting remotely is the only way. Deciding to take action and actually acting on it are two separate things. Check in on the items from the previous retrospective as part of reviewing the past weeks/month.

Remote meetings can also be used to connect with clients, customers, or business partners who are located in different cities, states, or continents. There are plenty of great video conferencing, whiteboard and presentation tools that you could use for online meetings. Some of them even integrate with project management apps – thereby enhancing real-time communication and collaboration. While remote work is becoming increasingly popular, most managers are still confused about how to conduct meetings with their remote employees. Luckily, with advances in technology, conducting virtual team meetings is now a breeze. The virtual team meeting agenda must contain the conference call topics to be discussed, the owner for the topic, the duration, and the expected outcome.