In today’s workspace, you are as likely to working with someone in different part of the country (or world even) as working with someone in different part of the office – which is why understanding clearly how remote meetings work and how to make them work for you, is crucial.

If your business had an office in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune, the only way to share insights without traveling is through a video call or conference call. But what if you do not have any office? Video call or conference call will work here too.

To help you having a smooth and insightful meeting in a remote environment, here is a compilation of 10 remote meeting golden rules:

BEFORE MEETING

1.    Well-versed with Tools

Advancement in technology and increased bandwidth have made it easy and comfortable to work remotely without any hassle. Markets have several solutions from bigger players of the industry like Google (Hangouts) and Microsoft (Skype) to comparatively smaller players like Zoom.

Any meeting has three components – connection, collaboration, and feedback. Managing these three components will make the attendees more engaged and productive, and to have an effective meeting, you must be well-versed with the tools.

 

2.    Prior plan the agenda

Before presenting the meeting, you should always plan the agenda for the meeting. It is always better to share the agenda before the meeting so that everyone has enough time to prepare and make the meeting more effective.

 

3.    Invite the right people at the right time

Holding the meeting with too many people is harder. Doing the remote meeting will make the meeting cluttered and may not allow everyone to contribute. So, practice the remote meeting with smaller groups, anywhere between 1 to 10 is a good number. 

You should always invite the people at the same time daily or weekly by keeping everybody’s availability and time zones in mind. As a team lead, you should come online at least before 5 minutes so that you can setup the facility for all the employees.

DURING MEETING

4.    Introduce everyone

In a remote environment, there lies a possibility to have people who do not know each other. To make them comfortable with each other, give a one-liner introduction of the attendees. People are more willing to participate when they know who is on the call.

 

5.    Break the ice

Before directly jump on to the topic, have a brief conversation to open everybody and make them feel comfortable. Having small talk help people to stay connected.

Always have some ice-breaking questions or punches ready that connect everybody through a single thread.

 

6.    Ask people to participate

Directly asking people to participate and contribute make them feel their presence in the virtual room. Engaging questions are vital as they make everyone think like they have the ability to contribute to the project. Remember, you can listen only one participant at one point of time, so take turns one by one.

 

7.    Cut down background noises

It is hard to avoid those homely noises when you are working remotely. But it is important. You can simply ask your family members to stay calm for a while or have your home office sound-proof to focus your concentration on the planned agenda.

 

8.    Provide feedback

Positive and healthy feedback helps participants to work more rigorously. If you have a genuine feedback to tell about a person, do not hesitate.

 
AFTER MEETING

9.    Minutes of the Meeting

Summarizing the meeting is as important as planning for the meeting. This improves the retaining power of the team. You can send it over a mail to all the participants for future reference also.

 

10.    Follow-ups

Follow-up meetings with individuals are equally important to check whether the tasks are being accomplished on not. These should be more outcome oriented. 

 

CONCLUSION

The biggest challenge with remote meetings is to keep everyone engaged and interested. But with right acumen and planning, you can easily accomplish the desired outcome of the meeting. Try to adhere to the above tips to drive the meeting effectively.