What It Takes to Run a Great Hybrid Meeting
When conducting virtual meetings, you can’t just replicate what seemed to work in the office. Conducting effective remote team meetings requires you to pivot the way you usually communicate and collaborate as a team. Try a range of different remote conferencing and meeting management tools available today to find what works best for your team and your budget, all the while following our tips for remote meetings.
These virtual conferences have become the norm in the wake of Covid-19, with many offices shutting down or limiting their in-person capacity. Moreover, inviting employees to unrelated meetings can not only waste their time and affect productivity, but it can also eventually decrease their engagement and participation in important meetings. You can mention these guidelines in the introductory email you send along with the agenda. Or take a few minutes to mention these at the beginning of the meeting. A virtual meeting though requires a lot more upfront preparation.
Be intentional about your communication
Joshua’s team of developers and Tess’s team of marketers scheduled a cross-team meeting to align on the recent product’s launch. On their agenda, they are discussing testing results, launch date, post-launch expected issues and how to handle them, and some minor modifications. Collaborative meetings take place across teams, between 2 or more teams. Teams schedule a cross-team collaborative meeting to work on mutual goals or to sync projects.
A best practice for meetings in general is to limit attendance only to those whose presence is critically necessary. Run a test meeting if you have to, so you have confidence in the process. First, think about the reason you are holding this meeting for, the key functionality https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ needed for the success of the meeting. The “you know what” has made offices everywhere transition to the work-from-home mode — the majority doing so for the first time. Adjusting to remote work is challenging for workers and managers who are used to face-to-face contact.
If you decide to hold a meeting, create a clear and concise agenda that outlines the topics, time frames, and roles of the participants. Share the agenda with the attendees in advance and ask for their feedback and input. This way, you can ensure that everyone is on the same page and prepared for the meeting.
Agree on a mute/unmute and video/no video protocol
Standing is the position of the presenter – it will make you more confident and ensure that the meeting won’t go on for too long. If everyone on the team is comfortable with each other, go ahead and break the ice with a joke. For example, my coworkers like to project my face onto the wall as a prank. So take the tips below and expect to personalize and change them according to what you and your team need. One size definitely does not fit all in remote work environments.
You may even find that having multiple conference platforms is a viable solution to cover your needs for smaller and larger meetings. If you’re finding remote meetings a challenge to organize, motivate, and collaborate effectively with your team, this article’s for you. For remote teams, a meeting can also be a time for relationship building. Instead of diving right into discussing official matters, take some time at the beginning of the meeting to break the ice.
Time Management
Remote meetings are a common and necessary part of working from home, but they can also be a source of frustration and inefficiency if not done well. How can you make sure your remote meetings are effective, engaging, and productive? Here are some tips to help you plan, run, and follow up on your remote meetings. After all, they are the places where we brainstorm, strategize, and come up with innovative ideas together. And yet, remote team meetings are often seen as a waste of energy and time. Without any strategy in place, remote team meetings can quickly become too impersonal, pointless, and at times drag on with no end in sight.
Small talk can eat up half of the meeting because everyone’s a hermit the rest of the day. So, remote meetings are now a part of many companies’ workflow. As with any workflow, online meetings are made more effective and beneficial when you have the proper tools and processes in place to handle your needs. Now that we’ve covered the tools you’ll need for remote meetings, let’s dive into some tips for online meetings for both organizers and attendees.
In a remote environment, meetings are your lifeline, your connection, your glue to the rest of the team. You don’t need in-person meetings to create social cohesion as long as you run fun, un-soul-destroying remote ones. GetApp recently collected 15 software vendors offering free plans, trials, services, and more to help businesses with their video conferencing during COVID -19. Amanda Athuraliya is the communication specialist/content writer at Creately, online diagramming and collaboration tool.
Second, estimate the number of attendees who will be present at the virtual meeting. Some meeting tools are specifically designed for 1 to 1 meetings, others are for +100 members. Read more about these types and quiz your way through types of virtual meetings with this interactive article and share your results on social media. When it comes to the way of communication, remote meetings normally take three different-in-style, similar-in-essence types. Doing the above allows the leader to make necessary changes before the session commences.
Ultimately, you’ll make them feel more comfortable as they participate in the remote meeting. The key to running effective virtual meetings is to have an agenda and stick to it. Make sure someone is designated to lead the meeting, and try to keep things quick and focused so that people don’t lose interest. So use team meetings to cement relationships, get people talking and provide a space for all-way communication, especially during a time of crisis.
That’s why it takes longer as teammates to offer resources or teach others how to use them. As a general rule of thumb, carry yourself as you would at an in-person meeting. If someone’s making any of these mistakes, or disrupting the meeting, don’t be afraid to politely point it out to them. We’re getting acquainted, so making a good impression is important. Since some of our team members teach at the best design universities in Budapest, our clients can sense their professionalism and rest assured that they’re in good hands. Whether or not something requires a meeting depends on the context.
If the internet is slow, sometimes it helps to turn the camera off and use only audio. If the internet is hopelessly gone, switching to phone on the loudspeaker can be your last resort. It’s relatively easy to control a chatty audience in an in-person meeting because everyone’s in the same room. Virtual meetings require more thoughtful communication to keep everyone on task. Remote meetings have long been a popular option for nationwide or global organizations with participants all over the world.
- Fortunately, these difficulties can be overcome if you know how to prepare for them.
- Moreover, inviting employees to unrelated meetings can not only waste their time and affect productivity, but it can also eventually decrease their engagement and participation in important meetings.
- Set some rules internally for how you’ll use the chat within your video tool for meetings and presentations.
- Here’s the only editable team meeting agenda template you’ll ever need, in addition to some best practices for how to stick to your agenda.
- Assigning remote meeting facilitators spares you the hassle of having to keep up with each and every little bit during the meeting.
- As the meeting leader, or coordinator, your mood and tone of voice matter.
Employee texting systems for mass texting employees can also come in handy. For recruiters, platforms that offer collaborative hiring features are also invaluable ways to keep track of meeting outcomes and move tasks forward. Conferencing technology for online meetings typically involves either a basic video calling platform or one that integrates video and voice-over IP (VoIP). And what meeting management tools do you have available to you? Even though different remote meetings can have different rules, there are some basic meeting etiquettes that everyone should follow to have effective meetings. Below are a few templates that you can use right away during your virtual meetings.