Teams often choose to have recurring weekly or bi-weekly meetings which everyone on the team attends. In many companies, these are used to give status updates and generally "catch up". Since we want to make the most of our limited synchronous time, it’s best to use these meetings for checking in, discussion and problem solving.
The exact way these meetings are run will depend largely on their purpose and the team that’s running them, but here are a few general principles and best practices to help…
Key Principles
Synchronous team meetings provide an opportunity to be transparent, ask questions, give context to others and teach people. They're generally about discussion and alignment.
The atmosphere should generally be fairly relaxed and informal, though a facilitator should always be assigned to keep things on track.
1️⃣ Avoid status updates
In distributed teams, synchronous face time is scarce. So we need to make the most of it. Don't waste time with status updates that could be made asynchronously instead (see Asynchronous Status Meetings). If you must give an update, keep it short and sweet.
2️⃣ Always have a facilitator
Always assign a facilitator. Their job is to guide the meeting in the right direction and keep it on track. They might:
- Keep the agenda updated as the meeting progresses.
- Ensure everyone is participating equally. This might mean explicitly asking for input from quiet people or gently interrupting very talkative people.
- Ensure any tasks identified are added to a task/action list (ideally by asking a participant to add it).
- Interrupt when someone is getting off track.
- Pose clarifying questions.
While it's okay for the facilitator to take some notes, their attention should generally be on the meeting itself rather than the notes and we highly encourage participants take the notes. Participants should be encouraged to take notes collaboratively, and if you absolutely need someone to take detailed notes consider bringing someone into the meeting specifically to do that (or record it and take the notes afterwards).
Note: Facilitating meetings well is a hard skill to master, but a little intentional practice is usually enough to make a big difference.
3️⃣ Stick to the same general outline for each meeting
Humans are creatures of habit. If you stick to the same general format for every team meeting, participants will quickly get comfortable with the structure and rituals. This makes for smoother, more comfortable meetings.
4️⃣ Build an agenda before the meeting
Just like updates should generally happen before the meeting, participants should have a chance to add to the agenda before the meeting. Share the meeting document with everyone in advance so they have a chance to do this.
5️⃣ Join early for a chat
Unless you have "social time" specifically built into the agenda, encourage everyone to join a little early so you can say hello to each other and generally have a chat and still start on time. This often happens in real-life meetings where folks arrive early in the meeting room.
Alternatively, leave the zoom call open after the meeting has finished to achieve the same result.
6️⃣ Record the call
By recording the call and adding the video to the meeting notes, we can achieve two things:
- There is a permanent record of what was said and decided, just in case someone needs more context than the notes can provide.
- People who cannot attend can watch the whole meeting back (super important if you're spread across distant timezones)
These recordings can also be a useful resource when reflecting on how to improve team meetings. We love documenting.
What should team meetings include?
One option is to use these recurring meetings as a fun group social event. Another is to use them for discussion and group problem solving. A good format for this looks might look something like...
- Start with a quick check-in - See Meeting Checkins
- Crowdsource an agenda - Take five minutes to crowdsource a Main Issues List. This is a list of things team members need help with or are worried about. Things for which the best next action is discussion with their team. (Ideally, do this before the meeting.)
- Prioritise - Have a short discussion on priority and agree on one or two items that feel most valuable to discuss.
- Discuss - Take the first item and dive into a discussion. Keep going until the person who proposed it is satisfied that they've got what they need. Repeat until you run out of items or time.
The beauty here is that we can harness the collective brainpower of our whole team, including folks who aren't involved in the project being discussed. This can create some incredibly useful conversation, and as a side-effect will help create alignment, share knowledge and forge strong sense that the whole team is accountable for solving issues together.
An Example
The video below gives an example of what a good team meeting template might look like and how it might be used. The example is built in Notion, but you could use Google Docs (or another tool) just as easily.
Here are the examples documents shown in the video:
Example Team Meeting TemplateExample Team Meeting DocumentScheduling Team Meetings
Team meetings should generally be scheduled for the same day and time every week (or fortnight or month). This makes it easier for people to plan around them and helps establish a "rhythm".
However, if you have team members spread across timezones with very little overlap you may need to schedule them during unsociable hours for some people. If you have to schedule a meeting that is very early or late for some team members, consider alternating time-slots so that it's not always the same people who are inconvenienced by this.
Read more on this in Choosing a Time for Meetings.
Summary & Key Points
Regular, synchronous team meetings are important for keeping the team aligned and on the same page. They're also important tools for discussing problems. The actual format will depend on the team's needs but the principles you've learned in this article will help you to make them more effective for remote teams.
