How to Run a Remote Team Meeting
Running meetings that people do not feel like a waste of time requires a framework that makes sure the typical ways the meeting can go sideways are safe-guarded. Finding the best meeting structure is hard, many times takes many iterations, but we've been testing Zapier's approach, and it's working out for us really nicely.
Goals of a Meeting
Define clear goals, otherwise meeting go easier sideways and people get lost in unimportant details. Make work visible: people feel better when they see others are doing their part Get unstuck: many times we need others to make decisions that are not our responsibility - plus external input and a fresh set of eyes on a problem can help us re-focus onto the right direction.
Frequency
- Meet weekly for standups, on average
- One-on-ones on average one, max two times.
- The amount of work that got done and presented is meaningful for us weekly.
- We prefer Tuesdays/Wednesdays so that we have a day before to recap, and there is still time after it to address issues that came up on the meeting within the week.
- (We are all working part time somewhere between 10-20 hours)
Structure
Meetings are an awful place for information sharing.
- Preparation: each team member is to write down the following:
- Things I said I'd do till this meeting and their results
- Other issues that came up, anything blocking
- Things I'm doing after the meeting
- Instead of verbally expressing, write it down (Jeff Bezos on why) with full sentences.
- People do not have to read this up front, the first 5-10 minutes of the meeting is reading this
- then comes the discussion part, where you ask questions.
Discussion
- Give people limited time to ask questions (5 minutes)
- This avoids the domination of certain topics.
- It forces people to ask the most relevant questions.
- ... and let's everyone's questions to be addressed.
- most of the time the platform to discuss most of that are not belonging to the whole group
- If you have more questions than 5 minutes, it means that the relevant parties should have a separate meeting.
- Someone has to be the designated time keeper up front.
- Rotate who's the timekeeper, who starts, and who's note taker.
Ever since this has been part of my life, it's much easier to
productivity remote-work