How to Make Remote Meetings Effective

As I write this, the world is in the grips of the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic. As such, everyone is self-quarantining and trying to figure out how to operate in complete isolation. Many organizations are having to deal with, for the first time, having their people work from home instead of reporting to the office. It’s necessary, but what will it do to productivity?

Maybe it will improve it. 

I’m not arguing that being remote is better than being together in the same room. I am all for co-located teams and face-to-face interaction; however, with a bit of work and discipline, rather than being a step down from showing up to the office, you can use working remotely as an opportunity to learn how to work more effectively and efficiently as a team.

Nothing illustrates that more than the topic of meetings.

In most organizations, or at least the ones I’ve worked for, meetings are shockingly inefficient. There are too many of them; they run over far too often; they are unfocused; they drain away all our time and leave us none with which to do our actual work.

This is exacerbated if you have a casual office culture. If you want to get good at working remotely, you have to cut this out! 

Running your remote meetings in a more disciplined way is not only more productive, it is more respectful—-and frankly humane—to everyone involved.

Get the Right Equipment

First things first; if you want to do it well you need the right equipment. Video cameras are not necessary, although nice if you can swing it. A screen-sharing app, on the other hand, is essential. Being able to share things on the screen with each other is what makes remote meetings great. Teleconferencing by itself is nowhere near as effective. 

There are plenty of options out there; Skype, Webex, GotoMeeting, Zoom, Join.me, and many others. I’ve used all of the above, and they all get the job done. Most support VOIP: in fact, they generally work better with VOIP rather than dialing in using a separate conference line. When you connect audio using your computer the app recognizes who you are and it’s easier to see who is in the meeting. Getting everyone to connect to the meeting with a USB headset will generally improve the meeting experience, provided there are no bandwidth issues.

Agenda, Agenda, Agenda

Always include an agenda with the meeting invite, so people know what it is about, what the intended objective is, and what expectations there are of the participants. This doesn’t have to be complicated; sometimes a one-liner is enough, or a few bullet points. You just don’t want people joining the meeting and asking “So why are we having this meeting?”

To that end, I don’t like to assume everyone read the agenda in the invite, or remembers it. I prefer to start the meeting with a brief summary of what the agenda is, which should only take a few minutes. Repetition is more helpful and more productive than getting mad at people for not reading or forgetting the agenda. Getting everyone started off on the right foot is critical.

Everyone Announces Themselves

When team members connect to the meeting, they should not do so silently. That just makes for awkwardness while everybody is waiting for the meeting to begin, and then the moderator is not sure who is on the line, or even worse, has to do roll call. 

Instead, condition everyone to announce themselves when they join the meeting—including the host. Just a simple “This is PJ” will do the job. That makes it easier to sense who is there, especially when you can’t physically see other. It also gets everyone “warmed up” to participate.

Start in a Timely Manner

How much allowance do you give for waiting for people to join the meeting? I generally give two minutes, then start the meeting with whoever has joined. You don’t want to get in the habit of waiting for people and starting meetings late, or it will start happening more frequently. 

Furthermore, when you’re in a remote meeting, every delay gets magnified, because there is less to occupy your attention. Even waiting silently for one minute will feel much longer. That will cause people to tune out and for the meeting itself to lose energy. You cannot afford to let that happen under any circumstances!

Have Your Documents Ready to Share

On the heels of the above, you don’t want to waste any time fumbling about trying to locate files, emails, or websites that you want to share on-screen. Even if it only takes a few seconds, it disrupts the flow of the meeting to stop and look, and for everyone else in the meeting, the time feels much longer, and meeting’s energy and momentum will go down.

Instead, have everything located, opened up, and ready to share BEFORE you start the meeting. I even try to open up things that I may want to refer to, just as a contingency. You want to move seamlessly from one topic to the next, and being prepared allows you to do that.

Make Sure Everyone Gets an Opportunity

It’s common in remote meetings, especially when no one can see other, for people to talk at the same time, or over each other, or to “hog the microphone” so others don’t get to talk, etc. As the moderator, it’s your job to mitigate that, and you have to do so assertively.

Here are some examples of what I do. If two people start talking at the same time, I will establish an order on the fly: “OK, let’s hear from David first, and then from Mark”. Someone hogging the mike? I’ll gently interrupt, and say “OK, this is good, but I’d also like to hear from so-and-so”, giving other team members the chance to participate. Finally, if someone has been quiet during the entire meeting, I might call on them on them specifically: “Tom, do you have anything to add?” In other words, give everyone an opportunity to engage.

Wrap it Up Quickly

Meetings that get to the point quickly and end quickly are energizing; meetings that drag on and go late are draining. If you are prepared, get straight to business, and cut out the small talk and irrelevant meeting banter there is no reason you can’t have the former instead of the latter. Far from being unfriendly, it is the most humane and respectful thing you can do for your team—and the added boost of energy and productivity from an effective meeting will spill over into everything else.