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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.