There are many forms of collaboration among employees. Employees can have discussions about the projects they are working on by using collaboration tools. There are also specific Project Management tools that are designed for more formal collaboration. They include the ability to do things like sharing documents and tracking tasks and other useful features. Some of them are specific to certain types of work. So it is important to research your options carefully before choosing an application.
Routine daily or weekly- these are often short meetings. These meetings are usually about an hour or under an hour. They are often held to discuss team projects or for general team catch-up. What team members are working on, their progress and any challenges they might be having. They are good for team building. A free version of a video conferencing app can be used for these meetings.
Progress meeting – These meetings are usually held on a monthly basis and used to update your team and individual objectives. These meetings should have an agenda.
Brainstorm meeting – These meeting helps to exchange ideas from members of the team relating to projects being worked on.
Collaboration meetings – These meetings are held to discuss a project that the team is working on together. The team can also have collaboration meetings with other teams for larger projects. Team collaborations often need more than one team working together. These require more organization and planning. With a detailed agenda sent out to participants ahead of the meeting. and time given for questions related to the agenda before the meeting is held.
It is important to make meetings as concise and engaging as possible. It is important to find ways to keep people who are in different places interested, by encouraging participants to engage in problem solving as a group. So participants can give their viewpoints. Participants should be able to discuss issues they are finding challenging. And have the group attempt to solve it. The meeting lead should know how many people will be attending meeting in advance. So the numbers manageable or the meeting will be hard to control.
When scheduling meeting for remote working with participants who lives in different team zones from you. Try to ensure that everyone can and will be there for the meeting by choosing a time that is relatively manageable for your participants.
After sending out the initial invitation to attend, send out reminders to everyone so that they do not get caught up in work and forget about the meeting. Most video conferencing apps allow for the meeting to be recorded. So if an absence is unavoidable the recording of the meeting can be sent to them to follow at a later date. The recording is also helpful if minutes of the meeting have to be produced.
The meeting lead should know how long he/she wants the meeting to last so that can be included in the invitation. The meeting lead should also ensure participants have all the information needed to join the meeting, such as meeting ID numbers and passwords.
Questions that need to be asked are: Does everyone have the tools necessary to take part in the meeting? Does everyone have a quiet space in their home to take meetings? Where there will be minimal distractions and background noises?
The meeting lead should test the technology before the meeting. to ensure there will be no hiccups and have an alternative if first choice doesn’t work as expected. They need to remember to share any extra information needed.