Plan the meeting
Agenda
Spend extra time planning hybrid meetings – it's always important for all meetings, but for hybrid it becomes critical to:
- create a purpose and agenda
- send out materials in advance along with joining instructions
- test the technology and Wi-Fi connection before the meeting, by joining as one of the online participants
- consider how you will set up the room to ensure screens and participants are not blocked or out of vision
Establish a back-up plan
Be sure to have another way the virtual participants can join the meeting if there are technical issues with the meeting platform.
Gather feedback afterwards
Ask participants how the facilitation and use of technology worked for them, so you can adjust or improve as necessary.
Set up
Audio equipment
When holding a hybrid meeting you should only use meeting rooms equipped with hybrid technology. This ensures that the speakers and microphones are adequate to support your meeting. Further guidance on hybrid meeting rooms can be found on My365.
Issues with technology
If you discover an issue in a hybrid meeting room, you can report it and get assistance. See the hybrid meetings contact details document (PDF, 115KB) for details of who to contact.
Normalise digital meeting tools
To facilitate the same experience for all participants we recommend you use digital tools during the meeting, like virtual whiteboards or shared documents for note taking.
Key roles
Chair or facilitator
Remote or hybrid meetings that are 'chaired' in the traditional way will be less effective than those that are carefully facilitated, managing the flow of the conversation and ensuring the inclusion of virtual participants throughout the entire meeting. In a hybrid meeting you need to be more intentional and set more ground rules.
Capturing notes and actions
As well as recording the virtual meeting, there are a range of digital tools available to capture the content and any actions of the meeting and share with all participants after the event. It may be useful to assign someone the role to take notes and circulate actions after the meeting.
Hybrid housekeeping rules
Here are some tips to get the best out of hybrid meetings:
Video on, sound off
Ask the virtual participants to keep their cameras on during the full hybrid meeting, so they can be seen by the in-the-room participants. Their microphones should be muted if they are not speaking.
Remote first
Establish a norm that the remote people always share first anytime you go around the room. The meeting organiser or facilitator will play a critical role here, managing the order and ensuring all remote participants can have their say.
Share documents before the meeting
Upload them to the meeting platform. Ensure you reference page numbers when discussing the papers so that those who are not in the room are able to follow the discussion. If that is not possible at least one person will need to be dialled into the meeting to share their screen with the people who are working remotely.
Only share your screen if you need to
Otherwise it's better to let your online attendees see you and the other meeting participants.
One person speaking at a time
For remote team members, ask them to use the 'raise hand' feature if they want to share something.
For people in the room, ask that only one person speaks at a time, and it can be helpful to say your name before you begin speaking so that those people who are remote know who is talking.
Be very strict on side conversations, they can have quite a negative impact on the experience of your remote participants.
Minimise distractions
Ask everyone to put away phones, email and other distractions during the meeting, and agree to hold each other accountable.
Say it now...or never
Establish a norm where you say everything, even the hard stuff, in the meeting. When you are in the office together, it can be tempting to save your real thoughts for the hallway conversation after the fact. This discourages your virtual participants of the opportunity to engage in the actual discussion.