6 Principles For Successful Remote Team Meetings

I've had the unique opportunity to experience remote team meetings for organizations both large (150 people) and small (less than 10 people). While a remote meeting is similar to an in-person meeting in many ways, they also differ in a few key areas.

For a deeper dive into the communication challenges that distributed teams face, check out this post.

In this guide, we'll show you exactly how an effective remote meeting will work, and how you should think about structuring meetings for your team (or company).

1. Adopt A "Less is More" Virtual Meeting Mentality

A key overarching theme to remote team meetings is to understand that fewer remote meetings are a good thing. A key piece of remote working (especially with a geographically distributed team) is that remote employees have different schedules. The more meetings you have, the more rigid the work environment becomes.

This can detract from one of the highlights of remote work - flexibility (here's more about why flexibility is the key to remote work).

For example, let's say an engineer likes to wake up early in the morning and get started working right away. You (the boss) are in a different time zone, and schedule meetings when it makes the most sense for you.

So what happens? You just scheduled meetings twelve hours into the workday of a remote team member. Is that ideal? Or beneficial? It may be ideal for you, but it may be terrible timing for a coworker. The more meetings you schedule, the more likely this is to happen!

Please note: it's impossible to be convenient for everyone on your distributed team or virtual team at all times. However, if you focus your energy on a few meetings per week for your entire team, you can mitigate that situation.

2. Determine the Remote Meeting Type

Another high-level building block for remote team meetings: Think about the purpose of the meeting. Is it for information sharing? Or is it to collaborate/whiteboard with other members of the team? Understanding the purpose and creating a meeting agenda is a big help.

If the majority of remote meetings are for information sharing, I'd encourage you to cut back and share information asynchronously instead. For example, if you have daily standups or another recurring meeting, and it doesn't prompt collaboration, consider doing virtual stand-up meetings.

With that being said, it's important to have informational meetings too. For example, if there's a shift in company strategy or reporting on the latest results. These meetings can help align the team around a common goal or objective. The point of these informational meetings is to eliminate ambiguity and create clarity of purpose. We just don't recommend having these meetings several times per week.

3. Prepare for Remote Meetings in Advance

We strongly encourage you to prepare for your team meeting. Share a meeting agenda before it starts so everyone understands the purpose of the meeting and also has time to prepare their thoughts. Some people thrive off of an unstructured virtual meeting, while others need time to think and process what they might say. Yes, creating an agenda may take a bit more time, but it's worth it (and it's also something you can reference afterward if needed).

For recurring events (i.e. - standups or weekly team meetings ), you may not need to share an agenda beforehand. Use your best judgment.

In addition, prepare for meetings by getting set up with the right environment and video conferencing tool (such as Zoom, WebEx, or Google Meet). For example, try to avoid areas where there's a lot of background noise. If that's tough to avoid, consider buying a headset. Also, consider showing up a few minutes earlier to test and confirm that you are set up correctly.

See our recommendations for the best remote team software and tools.

4. Default to Video for Remote Team Meetings

Use video as much as possible. Video calls are a richer experience because you can pick up on body language and other visual cues . It's nearly impossible to do this over the phone.

Another benefit (from a manager perspective) is that there's built-in accountability to ensure that people are actually engaged and paying attention. It's easy for people to zone out in meetings over the phone. I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but this is a reality, so help your team stay focused by having them show their face.

It's also a form of virtual team building, as your team gets to know each other and work together.

5. Leave Time for Questions

Similar to in-person meetings, you should leave time at the end of each meeting for questions. Clarity of communication is super important for remote teams, so open the floor and give people space to ask questions.

If you use Slack (or another work chat application, like Microsoft Teams), consider having a dedicated room for Q&A. Oftentimes in meetings we will say "if you have a question during the call, ask it in the Q&A channel." Then, the organizer of the meeting can quickly look at the room and see questions that roll in over the course of the meeting.

6. Consider Recording the Video

There are times when it makes sense to record the meeting (we recommend using Screenflow or Loom for this). For example, a fellow remote worker may be out on vacation when you have an important virtual meeting. It's highly likely that information will be presented that has an impact on someone's work, and it only takes a few clicks to record it. We recommend using Dropbox or Google Drive to store the videos.

Another benefit to recording meetings is that you can reference them later (it can be fun to look back on a video from a year ago), and you can also see how you can improve as the organizer. Recording a video creates a feedback loop to help you improve the next time you hold a meeting.

Sample Remote Team Meeting Cadence

In this next section, I'll share specific examples of remote team meetings at companies I've worked for. I'll outline the benefits and drawbacks of each approach. The #1 goal is to have an effective remote team meeting, no matter which meeting cadence you employ.

"MEDIUM-SIZE" COMPANY (150 PEOPLE)

I've outlined the routine meetings I had when working for an organization of ~150 people. This excludes ad-hoc meetings that were focused on resolving specific blockers.

1.) Monthly Company Update Meeting

The first cadence was the monthly company update call. This gave the CEO a chance to share key metrics, company announcements, and other news. The CEO would present for 20-30 minutes and then answer any questions people had (individuals would post questions into a Slack channel dedicated to these meetings).

2.) Weekly Team Meeting

We'd also hold weekly team meetings where we'd discuss the following topics:

• Progress on goals, discussion of what we accomplished in the previous week, etc
• Blockers
• Anything that required collaboration and team consensus (making important decisions, etc)

3.) 1-1 Meetings

Additionally, my manager/team leader and I would have regular 1-1 meetings where we would talk about my personal development

Overall, I really liked this format. The monthly Q&A format with the CEO was fantastic and something I actually looked forward to. The weekly team meeting was my least favorite as it contained a lot of information we could have shared asynchronously .

SMALL COMPANY: TEAM OF 10

1.) Daily standup

Every day, we'd quickly share what we were working on as a team. The purpose of the daily standup meeting was to stay aligned, create accountability, and to get to know each other a little bit more on a personal basis. I found these meetings to be very inefficient, but they were a fun way to bond on a regular basis.

2.) Weekly recap

Every Friday, we'd hold a company-wide meeting to share a weekly recap. This was a more formal presentation, similar to a company all-hands meeting. While the meeting content was fine, the timing was terrible. Everyone was checked-out on a Friday afternoon!

I'd change the Friday meeting to a Monday morning meeting and use a tool like Friday to automate daily stand-ups.

Conclusion: Good Remote Meetings Take Time

Prepare to iterate on remote team meetings. Seek feedback from your team along the way and discover what process works best for you. Also, if your team is growing quickly, prepare to change your cadence as the company grows. We would love to know your team's best practices for remote work.