6 Ground Rules for Meetings with Remote Teams

Meetings can feel like a waste of time, but it’s impossible to avoid them entirely. When well-organized, a good meeting has the ability to improve company morale, productivity, and community in the office. For teams that work remotely, even those with task management platforms like Accelo, the necessity for a productive meeting is imperative because there is not the convenience of quick face-to-face chats with co-workers or managers during the workday.

While a  great meeting can accomplish a lot, a bad meeting can leave people feeling disorganized and uninspired - so it's important that you follow some basic rules to ensure this doesn't happen at your company.

How to Run Effective Meetings

1. Make an outline prior to the meeting that will act as a jumping-off point. Here you can designate the director or leader of the meeting and who needs to be at the meeting. With this information, some of the other pieces will fall into place, including when the meeting needs to happen and what materials will need to be prepared ahead of time. For instance, if you are meeting with the executive team, you may go the more formal route with presentation materials.

2. What are the meeting goals and objectives? Consider them before scheduling the meeting. For example, are you discussing a client project or relationship? Internal communication? Office protocol?

3. Create an agenda and send it out before the meeting. This is your plan of action, and you’ll want to let people know how to prepare, what to expect and give them plenty of time to think of questions or concerns. This will also help keep the meeting on track because everyone is on the same page going in.

4. Send calendar invites and add any important information to the invite, including links to your presentation. With a client work management platform like Accelo, you'll get automatic reminders and alerts every time the invite is updated.

5. Start on time and end on time! Going over-time means people are losing interest and will be less likely to be engaged with the content you’re presenting.

6. Follow up after the meeting. Consider recording the meeting so people can look back on it afterward - especially if there were employees who couldn't make it.

We recommend checking out Accelo's team scheduling tools before planning your next meeting. It’s a great way to be one-step ahead as far as figuring out availability and a good time for your co-workers or managers to be engaged. If you haven’t started a free trial, start yours now, and see how the team scheduling and calendar can work for you.