29 Tips for Facilitators of Remote meetings
3 min readMar 22, 2020
- Send out an invitation with the topics to be discussed, the output of the meeting, full instructions on how to connect and equipment needed.
- User a video conferencing tool that is familiar to everyone. If the participants need to install anything before, let them know. Beware with corporate laptops that have restrictions in installing any software.
- Try to share a phone number with a link
- User noise cancelation headphones
- Use a good microphone
- Deactivate activation by default of the camera and microphone for everyone who logs in the meeting. Let the participants share their sound and video when they feel comfortable with it.
- Allow everyone to share the screen (to be a resenter). If this is not possible, inform the participants in your meeting invite so they can send you the information they want to share.
- Be the first one to log into the conference. Some videoconferencing tools request the organizer to allow them in.
- If someone is late, check the requests to join the meeting regularly
- Be aware of the time differences. It doesn’t harm to mention the timezone on the agenda of the meeting.
- Share your screen, or have visual support to the meeting. It will help your audience to be connected.
- Prepare a sharable link with the meeting support for the participants who can’t follow the presentation. You may also include the links to any web page you’ll access.
- Multiple tabs open with all the pages/applications you need to
- In case you have various new participants — make a test a few days before to make sure they have the right setup.
- In case you have numerous persons — make sure the tool supports all the number of people invited. Some conferencing tools have restrictions on the number of people to log in.
- Ask participants to mute themselves while not talking, especially if they are in a noisy environment
- Takes notes during the meeting and try to update the tools after. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to update everything. Prepare, so everything goes smoothly.
- Do a small talk while people join — you can ask about the weather, country, family.
- If people are late, feel free to ping them on the chat tool you have in common, email them, call them. They might need help, forget it, etc
- Start on time and finish on time, educate participants to be punctual. It is a general rule, but while we work remotely, we also need a few minutes for a biological break.
- Confirm that everyone can hear you, see you and see your screen.
- Talk to everything you do. While in the same meeting room, we know what is going on, remotely we don’t. If you are thinking about an answer: say it, if you search for something: say it, if you look for solutions: say it, if you move on your chair because you aren’t comfortable: say it, if you are slow because of any reason: say it, if you look for some information on the screen: say it. It helps to let the other participants know what is going on; it helps to involved them and to keep the meeting flow.
- If you have a hard stop — let the audience know.
- If you want to go over the agreed time, ask for permission.
- Do not force people to turn on their cameras. If you want people to turn on their cameras, start with doing it yourself.
- Close all the unnecessary window
- put yourself in do not disturb
- Don’t be afraid to share the whiteboard, draw something, and then show it to the camera, be creative to be precise.
- Avoid presentations and encourage collaborative platforms eg, privilege One note over PowerPoint, TFS, or Jira over PowerPoint.
